“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
Talking of dystopia.. try driving down the A217 from the top of Reigate hill into Wimbledon. Av Speed cameras.. then fixed cameras with the speed limit varying between 20 and 50.. let's not forget the Ulez cameras and the red light cameras. It's almost impossible to drive and not get nicked. I shall never drive down that road again. It would be interesting to know how much money the councils make out of this legal thievery.
You could just drive at or below the speed limit. It’s not hard.
Dunno, looks like a London specific project issue with their small (Area wise) councils sticking up all sorts of differing speed limits. The area round Rosehill roundabout looks a mess judging by Google maps for instance
3 lane roads could be any of 20,30,40,50,60 or 70 in London, often changing for no obvious reasons, sometimes multiple times within a mile or two. Got a new car which "tells" the speed limit, if I followed that I'd be banned very quickly, it is generally correct but wrong maybe 5% of the time. Having said that I will admit to speeding when it feels safe to do so and it isn't actually that hard to avoid points, the cameras are the big bright yellow things.
The other one is parking. The local council changes the post card sized plates on the posts, giving the parking times, with no notice.
One case had a chap park up under the old rules. Then they changed to plate, a few yards from his car, while he was parked. And fined him.
They have binned the contracted out parking permit service - which actually worked. Now, people request a new permit and it can take months. And they try and collect fines for residents parking within that time….
Talking of dystopia.. try driving down the A217 from the top of Reigate hill into Wimbledon. Av Speed cameras.. then fixed cameras with the speed limit varying between 20 and 50.. let's not forget the Ulez cameras and the red light cameras. It's almost impossible to drive and not get nicked. I shall never drive down that road again. It would be interesting to know how much money the councils make out of this legal thievery.
You could just drive at or below the speed limit. It’s not hard.
Dunno, looks like a London specific project issue with their small (Area wise) councils sticking up all sorts of differing speed limits. The area round Rosehill roundabout looks a mess judging by Google maps for instance
3 lane roads could be any of 20,30,40,50,60 or 70 in London, often changing for no obvious reasons, sometimes multiple times within a mile or two. Got a new car which "tells" the speed limit, if I followed that I'd be banned very quickly, it is generally correct but wrong maybe 5% of the time. Having said that I will admit to speeding when it feels safe to do so and it isn't actually that hard to avoid points, the cameras are the big bright yellow things.
The other one is parking. The local council changes the post card sized plates on the posts, giving the parking times, with no notice.
One case had a chap park up under the old rules. Then they changed to plate, a few yards from his car, while he was parked. And fined him.
They have binned the contracted out parking permit service - which actually worked. Now, people request a new permit and it can take months. And they try and collect fines for residents parking within that time….
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
On the header, I think Ref UK will have a real problem around building organisational infrastructure, and a problem in that they will believe that they are good at it - when they are really dangerously addicted to believing their pre-baked delusions, which are dogmas that have come in from all kinds of strange places bearing no relation to reality on the ground.
We have seen that already in multiple dimensions - especially around the allegedly world-beating vetting system which has let all kinds of strange people through. Also around ideas imported untested from MAGA, in the belief that the UK is just like the USA. Unfortunately for Ref UK, and fortunately for the rest of us, that is imagined. And a belief that a local authority sector that is already gutted, is full of fat.
Ppolitical parties only work with a measure of internal consistency, and need a sustainable voting coalition, and a competent organisation plus an ability to run the basic systems. I don't see it. I don't even see an ability to tell the wood from the trees. Examples are the fallings out at the top of Ref UK in Cornwall Council, and subsequent referrals to the authorities over electoral expenses, and Darren Grime's tantrums about equality training - he has not worked out where he thinks the differences are between equality and "woke".
I don't think .. to repurpose WB Yeats - the centre can hold with external pressures and internal tensions; it's shonky enough already, but that is where they want to put the overwhelming focus.
Ok boomer
If your previous statements are correct, you are the Boomer here.
I'm Gen-X.
Nonetheless, a pivot to personal abuse is a running away from the argument !
Talking of dystopia.. try driving down the A217 from the top of Reigate hill into Wimbledon. Av Speed cameras.. then fixed cameras with the speed limit varying between 20 and 50.. let's not forget the Ulez cameras and the red light cameras. It's almost impossible to drive and not get nicked. I shall never drive down that road again. It would be interesting to know how much money the councils make out of this legal thievery.
You could just drive at or below the speed limit. It’s not hard.
Dunno, looks like a London specific project issue with their small (Area wise) councils sticking up all sorts of differing speed limits. The area round Rosehill roundabout looks a mess judging by Google maps for instance
3 lane roads could be any of 20,30,40,50,60 or 70 in London, often changing for no obvious reasons, sometimes multiple times within a mile or two. Got a new car which "tells" the speed limit, if I followed that I'd be banned very quickly, it is generally correct but wrong maybe 5% of the time. Having said that I will admit to speeding when it feels safe to do so and it isn't actually that hard to avoid points, the cameras are the big bright yellow things.
It's ok if there's plenty of traffic - just go with the flow - but if you're one of only a few cars you can easily get caught out.
This is partly the car culture wars.
It will all be much easier when 20mph is default, with most of the rest being 30mph !
More seriously, there's room for simplification, including 40mph urban clearways, and higher speed limits for urban motorways in places. Watch what happens in Reform controlled County Councils - they get quite theological on some of this.
We need some changes rurally as well, partly to counter the folk-assumption that it's a speed target not a speed limit. For pedestrians etc, rural roads are more dangerous.
"National Speed Limit" of 60mph on so many rural roads always struck me as quite stupid as it is too fast, where as raising the limit to 80mph on major motorways seems perfectly acceptable (its what most people do anyway).
The problem is any upwards revisions meets a very strong lobby of people who bring out stories of dead kids as reason why in fact we need to be 20mph everywhere....and we must think of the kids in addition to the eco-lobby of all those extra emissions, save the planet.
Rural roads should be 40mph to 50mph in my view, even if you do the existing speed limit of 60mph you can still be done for careless or even dangerous driving at the speed around a bend
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The final day of Ascot kicks off in about an hour so one final chance to see a Prince and become a pauper (and probably eat a porpoise if you attend one of the many on-course eateries).
Selections - Day Five: Chesham Stakes: TREANMOR Hardwicke Stakes: REBEL'S ROMANCE Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes: INISHERIN (win), FLORA OF BERMUDA (each way) Jersey Stakes: SARACEN
Chesham Stakes: VENETIAN LACE Hardwicke Stakes: CANDLEFORD Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes: SATONO REVE Jersey Stakes: COMANCHE BRAVE Wokingham Stakes: ORAZIO Golden Gates Stakes: EL BURHAM Queen Alexandra Stakes: TROOPER BISDEE
Yes, while the LDs have more concentrated voteshare in their target seats as they get over 20% Reform will win more seats and if the get to 30%+ as some polls are now suggesting could come first and even win a majority government. The latter as Gareth suggests depends on Reform making more inroads in the soft Leave home counties seats, not just the strongest Leave seats in working class areas of the North, the Midlands and parts of Eastern England, especially Essex and Kent. Though they are making gains in south Wales, Reform also will want to see more progress in the Senedd and Holyrood elections next year, especially in ex industrial parts of Scotland and Wales building on the progress they made in Hamilton.
Of course the more polls have Reform the main alternative to Labour, the more seats Conservative voters are likely to tactically vote Reform (given Labour have a big majority at the last GE in most seats LD and Green supporters already tactically voted Labour under FPTP). In Reform v Tory marginals like Clacton and Brentwood and Ongar you could even see some Labour, LD and Green voters vote Conservative to keep Reform out
Whereas in a seat like Amber Valley, if you are a Conservative and you want to keep Reform out, the best thing would be to vote Labour presumably?
Yes but most Conservatives would vote Reform over Labour although some would vote LD over Reform
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
On the header, I think Ref UK will have a real problem around building organisational infrastructure, and a problem in that they will believe that they are good at it - when they are really dangerously addicted to believing their pre-baked delusions, which are dogmas that have come in from all kinds of strange places bearing no relation to reality on the ground.
We have seen that already in multiple dimensions - especially around the allegedly world-beating vetting system which has let all kinds of strange people through. Also around ideas imported untested from MAGA, in the belief that the UK is just like the USA. Unfortunately for Ref UK, and fortunately for the rest of us, that is imagined. And a belief that a local authority sector that is already gutted, is full of fat.
Ppolitical parties only work with a measure of internal consistency, and need a sustainable voting coalition, and a competent organisation plus an ability to run the basic systems. I don't see it. I don't even see an ability to tell the wood from the trees. Examples are the fallings out at the top of Ref UK in Cornwall Council, and subsequent referrals to the authorities over electoral expenses, and Darren Grime's tantrums about equality training - he has not worked out where he thinks the differences are between equality and "woke".
I don't think .. to repurpose WB Yeats - the centre can hold with external pressures and internal tensions; it's shonky enough already, but that is where they want to put the overwhelming focus.
Ok boomer
If your previous statements are correct, you are the Boomer here.
I'm Gen-X.
Nonetheless, a pivot to personal abuse is a running away from the argument !
And your method of debate is Argumentum ad soporem - your writing is so boring no one can be bothered to respond
As long as Badenoch and Jenrick keep focusing on issues that boost Reform at the expense of Tories, yes Reform will keep increasing their share and the Tories will keep dropping. The Tories seem oblivious to the effects of their strategy.
Speaking as a long time member of the Tory party; electorally, I fear it is finished. There are no issues of substance that we have the ability to press without people saying 'errr, why didn't you fix this in the 14 years you were in power'.
Of course, they're absolutely correct.
The failure to take on the Blairite consensus was their downfall. They let the state grow, and drift left, all the time getting weaker on lawNorder, and defence; and at the same time let the tax burden grow.
Unforgivable.
The public will inevitably turn on Reform as they have done Starmer as Reform won't be able to deliver. So if the Tories can survive for another five years they could be back in power within 10. Hopefully they will have come up with some form of coherent strategy by then and stopped with the moaning and nostalgia.
If the Tories end up fourth at the next election, though, then Buggins' Turn might favour the Lib Dems instead.
When two party politics re-establishes itself the two parties might be Reform and the Lib Dems.
Neither are leftwing enough for socialists though, so that would still leave space for a smaller Labour party and the Greens though at the moment Starmer still has most of the centre left and Davey is targeting centrist home counties ex Tories still.
The Tories are more at risk if Reform remain the main party of the right and we don't get PR, though some fiscally conservative middle class voters would still prefer the Tory party to Reform
There is still a long way to go for the Lib Dems to eclipse Labour (and the Tories) but I think it would be a mistake to think about this in purely left-right terms of the 70s and 80s.
Liberals v Reform would basically be back to the 19th century, before Labour became the main party of the emergent working class with universal suffrage and many middle class Liberals and Unionists joined the Conservatives to keep out Labour.
Reform would basically be closer to 19th century Tories arguably than the current Tories are on some issues
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
Funny how you seem to oscillate between London is Booming! and YooKay is dead with nowhere in between depending upon how many drinks you've had/the colour of the last person you met.
Talking of dystopia.. try driving down the A217 from the top of Reigate hill into Wimbledon. Av Speed cameras.. then fixed cameras with the speed limit varying between 20 and 50.. let's not forget the Ulez cameras and the red light cameras. It's almost impossible to drive and not get nicked. I shall never drive down that road again. It would be interesting to know how much money the councils make out of this legal thievery.
You could just drive at or below the speed limit. It’s not hard.
Dunno, looks like a London specific project issue with their small (Area wise) councils sticking up all sorts of differing speed limits. The area round Rosehill roundabout looks a mess judging by Google maps for instance
3 lane roads could be any of 20,30,40,50,60 or 70 in London, often changing for no obvious reasons, sometimes multiple times within a mile or two. Got a new car which "tells" the speed limit, if I followed that I'd be banned very quickly, it is generally correct but wrong maybe 5% of the time. Having said that I will admit to speeding when it feels safe to do so and it isn't actually that hard to avoid points, the cameras are the big bright yellow things.
The other one is parking. The local council changes the post card sized plates on the posts, giving the parking times, with no notice.
One case had a chap park up under the old rules. Then they changed to plate, a few yards from his car, while he was parked. And fined him.
They have binned the contracted out parking permit service - which actually worked. Now, people request a new permit and it can take months. And they try and collect fines for residents parking within that time….
When I lived in Camden (not Leon's dodgy end, I was in South Hampstead) I got a ticket for blocking my own garage ... which was innovative. It was Lib Dem run at the time, and they had a bizarre thing of having closed all the car parks under the nice-quality Council Flats Developments (Ken Livingstone got much of that right) rather than availing themselves of thousands of park-and-ride opportunities and the related revenue.
But back then (in the noughties) there were still various peculiar ownership rights and areas where the Council could not enforce, which meant that in certain places you could just park your car and leave it with no worries if you did your homework. I once went away for 3 weeks and just left my (no Residents' Permit) car parked in one of the Council-proof areas. No problems followed.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
On the header, I think Ref UK will have a real problem around building organisational infrastructure, and a problem in that they will believe that they are good at it - when they are really dangerously addicted to believing their pre-baked delusions, which are dogmas that have come in from all kinds of strange places bearing no relation to reality on the ground.
We have seen that already in multiple dimensions - especially around the allegedly world-beating vetting system which has let all kinds of strange people through. Also around ideas imported untested from MAGA, in the belief that the UK is just like the USA. Unfortunately for Ref UK, and fortunately for the rest of us, that is imagined. And a belief that a local authority sector that is already gutted, is full of fat.
Ppolitical parties only work with a measure of internal consistency, and need a sustainable voting coalition, and a competent organisation plus an ability to run the basic systems. I don't see it. I don't even see an ability to tell the wood from the trees. Examples are the fallings out at the top of Ref UK in Cornwall Council, and subsequent referrals to the authorities over electoral expenses, and Darren Grime's tantrums about equality training - he has not worked out where he thinks the differences are between equality and "woke".
I don't think .. to repurpose WB Yeats - the centre can hold with external pressures and internal tensions; it's shonky enough already, but that is where they want to put the overwhelming focus.
Ok boomer
If your previous statements are correct, you are the Boomer here.
I'm Gen-X.
Nonetheless, a pivot to personal abuse is a running away from the argument !
And your method of debate is Argumentum ad soporem - your writing is so boring no one can be bothered to respond
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I don't doubt Carlson has seen 'nice' Moscow. I've never known a city where access to the 'nice' parts is more stratified by wealth and status, albeit the only time I visited was in 2008. By contrast the underbelly (to the extent that I saw it) was about the most depressed and depressing city I've ever been in. Befitting of a mafia state I guess.
ETA: I'd never fully understood the vein of chaotic madness underpinning Dostoevsky's writing until I went to Moscow and realised decent vodka cost less than bottled water.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
Funny how you seem to oscillate between London is Booming! and YooKay is dead with nowhere in between depending upon how many drinks you've had/the colour of the last person you met.
I wish I was still cycling between these mindsets. I’m not. For the last year my pessimism has grown and my optimism has shrunk
I like this passage from the Telegraph reporting of the poll
"Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that if the poll result was reproduced in the 2029 election, Reform could win in excess of 400 seats, giving the party a majority of almost 200 and making Mr Farage prime minister. The Tories could be reduced to fewer than 10 seats with Labour on around 140, losing some 270 of the seats they currently hold."
Makes it sound like they've got a team of Top Electoral Boffins working in a Lab, whereas in fact they Baxtered the poll in 2 and a half minutes
On the header, I think Ref UK will have a real problem around building organisational infrastructure, and a problem in that they will believe that they are good at it - when they are really dangerously addicted to believing their pre-baked delusions, which are dogmas that have come in from all kinds of strange places bearing no relation to reality on the ground.
We have seen that already in multiple dimensions - especially around the allegedly world-beating vetting system which has let all kinds of strange people through. Also around ideas imported untested from MAGA, in the belief that the UK is just like the USA. Unfortunately for Ref UK, and fortunately for the rest of us, that is imagined. And a belief that a local authority sector that is already gutted, is full of fat.
Ppolitical parties only work with a measure of internal consistency, and need a sustainable voting coalition, and a competent organisation plus an ability to run the basic systems. I don't see it. I don't even see an ability to tell the wood from the trees. Examples are the fallings out at the top of Ref UK in Cornwall Council, and subsequent referrals to the authorities over electoral expenses, and Darren Grime's tantrums about equality training - he has not worked out where he thinks the differences are between equality and "woke".
I don't think .. to repurpose WB Yeats - the centre can hold with external pressures and internal tensions; it's shonky enough already, but that is where they want to put the overwhelming focus.
Maybe we're back in the era of one person being able to make things happen, as with Trump.
Maybe, but it's our decision whether we want to be back in that era.
Back to Churchill: Democracy is the least-worst system. (as Mr Trump is demonstrating).
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
There was an American vlog which I can't find right now about how much better Sainsbury's is than Walmart, at least for fresh food.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
There was an American vlog which I can't find right now about how much better Sainsbury's is than Walmart, at least for fresh food.
Literally everywhere is better than Walmart for fresh food, particularly Walmarts in the rural towns in the poor parts of the US e.g. West Virginia.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
Never mind Sainsburies, I’ve seen US people go into raptures over Aldi!
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
A suspected Iranian spy has been arrested near an RAF base in Cyprus following intelligence suggesting he was planning a terrorist attack. The man, believed to be of Azerbaijani descent, has links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to local media reports.
The suspect was thought to have had Britain’s Akrotiri base, home to the RAF’s Typhoons, and Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou air base under surveillance since mid-April, ANT1 news portal reported.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
Never mind Sainsburies, I’ve seen US people go into raptures over Aldi!
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
Until the iPhone, the US were miles behind on cell phones. They were super shit compared to what we had in Europe at the time. Even then, iPhone was exclusive to one carrier, so for many people in the US still had utter shit tech.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
This is why so many in the West thought Russia was winning the cold war. Moscow and St Petersburg were shiny and nice, and they'd got a satellite/dog/man/woman in space. No visas for the poorer parts of the Soviet Union.
My own Russian moles report life continues much as before with only minor inconveniences from sanctions (such as no direct flights). Life in Moscow, admittedly.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Hmm. I didn't realize AUKUS was in the trouble it was:
Beneath the placid surface, however, currents of anxiety are coursing through the defence establishment.
Leading the review is the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby. That alone has made some of its supporters nervous. Last year, while out of government, Mr Colby sharply criticised the sale of the Virginia class submarines. It would give away the “crown jewels” in America’s arsenal, he said. Moreover, it would do so at a critical time, in a window in the mid-2030s when some analysts anticipate that China might be most likely to attempt to invade Taiwan. If Australia cannot commit to using its submarines to support American forces in defending the self-governing island, then selling them to Australia will only weaken deterrence, he said at the time.
Obviously, it would wipe away the last pinprick of Boris's legacy but also a headache for Sir Keir - presumably the billions we were due to make are pencilled into Rachel's calculations somewhere. But the people I really feel sorry for are those who proclaimed AUKUS as the first step into Britain's post-Brexit, neo-imperial golden age. To quote Morrissey: 'I know it's over and it never really began but in my heart it was so real...'
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Yep, Russia is a Muscovite Empire. Apart from Moscow and St Petersburg, the rest of Russia is basically third world.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
Never mind Sainsburies, I’ve seen US people go into raptures over Aldi!
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
Until the iPhone, the US were miles behind on cell phones. They were super shit compared to what we had in Europe at the time.
US banking likewise. it’s why so much crypto action is centred on the US - the benefits (such as they are) are more appealing when you’re working in a system that charges 2-3% credit card interchange fees & huge spreads on foreign transactions.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
There was an American vlog which I can't find right now about how much better Sainsbury's is than Walmart, at least for fresh food.
Literally everywhere is better than Walmart for fresh food, particularly Walmarts in the rural towns in the poor parts of the US e.g. West Virginia.
Yes, it's an unfair comparison
However even posher supermarkets in America are inferior to UK supermarkets. It's one rare place that Britain excels - we have really excellent supermarkets. In my experience only France and maybe Spain do them better, for food drinks etc
And I have V wide experience. I always go into supermarkets when I travel
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
Never mind Sainsburies, I’ve seen US people go into raptures over Aldi!
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
Until the iPhone, the US were miles behind on cell phones. They were super shit compared to what we had in Europe at the time.
US banking likewise. it’s why so much crypto action is centred on the US - the benefits (such as they are) are more appealing when you’re working in a system that charges 2-3% credit card interchange fees & huge spreads on foreign transactions.
It is why these payments apps like Cash App have taken off, because using an ATM there is a fee for the fee ontop of the fee for taking out some cash to give to friend.
Time for a good old fashioned Tory regicide. I do wonder how close we are to the Boris signal being lit.
Boris’ national polling is awful though, even if the membership still has a soft spot for him: will they really vote for him over, well, anyone else at all?
Incidentally, the Telegraph admitted accidentally posting a fake story the other day about a family who couldn't afford to go on five holidays despite earning £345k a year.
That was reported by the Press Gazette, which as the trade bible is a bit poor for the Telegraph. They admitted falling for a false story fed by a PR - back to churnalism. This is what the Telegraph eventually admitted:
A spokesperson for Telegraph Media Group said: “On 25th May, we published an article in our Money section based on a case study. After publication it became clear that during his conversations and other communications with us the case study had provided us with false information. We unpublished the article and started a thorough investigation. “We take the quality and integrity of our journalism very seriously but it is clear that our internal processes were not strong enough on this story and we are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.” https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/faked-telegraph-article/
Translation :"We're shit, and we know we are."
That's the same as their '52mph cyclist in London & creating death traps all over Britain' story last year - not even the most basic common sense checks (eg it's 30% faster than the TdF time trial record), because they are gagging for a story to justify their agenda.
I like this passage from the Telegraph reporting of the poll
"Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that if the poll result was reproduced in the 2029 election, Reform could win in excess of 400 seats, giving the party a majority of almost 200 and making Mr Farage prime minister. The Tories could be reduced to fewer than 10 seats with Labour on around 140, losing some 270 of the seats they currently hold."
Makes it sound like they've got a team of Top Electoral Boffins working in a Lab, whereas in fact they Baxtered the poll in 2 and a half minutes
Another reason to get rid of FPTP.
Having a Reform government with a big majority on a third of the vote after a Labour government with a big majority on a third of the vote is no mandate.
With PR the Tories would get 100 MPs not 6 to reflect their 15% voteshare and the Greens would also get the 50 odd MPs their 9% of the vote deserves rather than their current 4
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
Never mind Sainsburies, I’ve seen US people go into raptures over Aldi!
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
Yes, my sister's partner is an American and he was completely incredulous when she described to him the hover mower. His response was: such a thing can't actually exist because if it did we'd have them in the US.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
Never mind Sainsburies, I’ve seen US people go into raptures over Aldi!
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
Time for a good old fashioned Tory regicide. I do wonder how close we are to the Boris signal being lit.
Factoring in a 2- or at most 3-year incumbency for Tory leaders, then counting back from a July 2029 election, this is probably not quite the right time.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Yep, Russia is a Muscovite Empire. Apart from Moscow and St Petersburg, the rest of Russia is basically third world.
I used to live in Central Moscow - it was very nice. However I also visited Outer Moscow - not pleasant and a few industrial cities - grim.
Talking of dystopia.. try driving down the A217 from the top of Reigate hill into Wimbledon. Av Speed cameras.. then fixed cameras with the speed limit varying between 20 and 50.. let's not forget the Ulez cameras and the red light cameras. It's almost impossible to drive and not get nicked. I shall never drive down that road again. It would be interesting to know how much money the councils make out of this legal thievery.
You could just drive at or below the speed limit. It’s not hard.
Dunno, looks like a London specific project issue with their small (Area wise) councils sticking up all sorts of differing speed limits. The area round Rosehill roundabout looks a mess judging by Google maps for instance
3 lane roads could be any of 20,30,40,50,60 or 70 in London, often changing for no obvious reasons, sometimes multiple times within a mile or two. Got a new car which "tells" the speed limit, if I followed that I'd be banned very quickly, it is generally correct but wrong maybe 5% of the time. Having said that I will admit to speeding when it feels safe to do so and it isn't actually that hard to avoid points, the cameras are the big bright yellow things.
It's ok if there's plenty of traffic - just go with the flow - but if you're one of only a few cars you can easily get caught out.
This is partly the car culture wars.
It will all be much easier when 20mph is default, with most of the rest being 30mph !
More seriously, there's room for simplification, including 40mph urban clearways, and higher speed limits for urban motorways in places. Watch what happens in Reform controlled County Councils - they get quite theological on some of this.
We need some changes rurally as well, partly to counter the folk-assumption that it's a speed target not a speed limit. For pedestrians etc, rural roads are more dangerous.
"National Speed Limit" of 60mph on so many rural roads always struck me as quite stupid as it is too fast, where as raising the limit to 80mph on major motorways seems perfectly acceptable (its what most people do anyway).
The problem is any upwards revisions meets a very strong lobby of people who bring out stories of dead kids as reason why in fact we need to be 20mph everywhere....and we must think of the kids in addition to the eco-lobby of all those extra emissions, save the planet.
The obvious solution is to switch to kilometres and at the same time the common European motorway speed limit of 130 km/h, which is just above 80 mph.
Or, indeed, copy the French and Italians and have a differential speed limit on motorways when it is raining, reducing it to 65mph in such circumstances, balanced by an increase to 80mph when it is safer and dry.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
There was an American vlog which I can't find right now about how much better Sainsbury's is than Walmart, at least for fresh food.
Aldi USA vs Walmart.
Very USA - "I compare dollar-wise and ounce-wise."
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
So what? Starmer is sitting in Downing Street on a huge majority (170-odd iirc) and imo will retire before the next election anyway. The small print on some on/off in/out real/fake opinion poll is neither here nor there.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
There was an American vlog which I can't find right now about how much better Sainsbury's is than Walmart, at least for fresh food.
Literally everywhere is better than Walmart for fresh food, particularly Walmarts in the rural towns in the poor parts of the US e.g. West Virginia.
Yes, it's an unfair comparison
However even posher supermarkets in America are inferior to UK supermarkets. It's one rare place that Britain excels - we have really excellent supermarkets. In my experience only France and maybe Spain do them better, for food drinks etc
And I have V wide experience. I always go into supermarkets when I travel
East Asian supermarkets are fast improving
I was really impressed by some of the supermarkets in Asia. Unsurprisingly some of the ones in Singapore made Waitrose look like a poorly maintained Asda. In the UK, some supermarkets chains are struggling e.g Morrisons is awful since the asset strippers, sorry, private equity, lot bought it. Gone its is USP of the idea of a "market street".
America isn't all totally bad. Publix is normally pretty good without having to pay the Whole Foods Tax. But the massive players like Walmart, Albertsons, Safeway, etc are very poor.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
But is that true?! I've travelled widely in Russia. Nowhere is remotely as bad as Jo'burg
Unless you have personal eye witness testimony, I might suspect you're making stuff up to stay cheerful
Talking of dystopia.. try driving down the A217 from the top of Reigate hill into Wimbledon. Av Speed cameras.. then fixed cameras with the speed limit varying between 20 and 50.. let's not forget the Ulez cameras and the red light cameras. It's almost impossible to drive and not get nicked. I shall never drive down that road again. It would be interesting to know how much money the councils make out of this legal thievery.
You could just drive at or below the speed limit. It’s not hard.
Dunno, looks like a London specific project issue with their small (Area wise) councils sticking up all sorts of differing speed limits. The area round Rosehill roundabout looks a mess judging by Google maps for instance
3 lane roads could be any of 20,30,40,50,60 or 70 in London, often changing for no obvious reasons, sometimes multiple times within a mile or two. Got a new car which "tells" the speed limit, if I followed that I'd be banned very quickly, it is generally correct but wrong maybe 5% of the time. Having said that I will admit to speeding when it feels safe to do so and it isn't actually that hard to avoid points, the cameras are the big bright yellow things.
It's ok if there's plenty of traffic - just go with the flow - but if you're one of only a few cars you can easily get caught out.
This is partly the car culture wars.
It will all be much easier when 20mph is default, with most of the rest being 30mph !
More seriously, there's room for simplification, including 40mph urban clearways, and higher speed limits for urban motorways in places. Watch what happens in Reform controlled County Councils - they get quite theological on some of this.
We need some changes rurally as well, partly to counter the folk-assumption that it's a speed target not a speed limit. For pedestrians etc, rural roads are more dangerous.
"National Speed Limit" of 60mph on so many rural roads always struck me as quite stupid as it is too fast, where as raising the limit to 80mph on major motorways seems perfectly acceptable (its what most people do anyway).
The problem is any upwards revisions meets a very strong lobby of people who bring out stories of dead kids as reason why in fact we need to be 20mph everywhere....and we must think of the kids in addition to the eco-lobby of all those extra emissions, save the planet.
The obvious solution is to switch to kilometres and at the same time the common European motorway speed limit of 130 km/h, which is just above 80 mph.
Or, indeed, copy the French and Italians and have a differential speed limit on motorways when it is raining, reducing it to 65mph in such circumstances, balanced by an increase to 80mph when it is safer and dry.
We have the technology now to do variable speed limits e.g. speed signs don't need to be permanently painted ones. It seems perfectly sensible.
At least cannibalism is more interesting than speed limits
It seems the conversation around speed limits is eating you alive.
My least favourite discourse on PB is “speed limits” and “low traffic neighbourhoods”. A part of my very soul turns to anthracite every time it comes up. The monumental tedium of it
BUT this is a pub and no one gets to disallow conversations, and we all have our cranky obsessions. So when this topic surfaces I generally drift over to Reddit
A suspected Iranian spy has been arrested near an RAF base in Cyprus following intelligence suggesting he was planning a terrorist attack. The man, believed to be of Azerbaijani descent, has links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to local media reports.
The suspect was thought to have had Britain’s Akrotiri base, home to the RAF’s Typhoons, and Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou air base under surveillance since mid-April, ANT1 news portal reported.
Most of the region called "Azerbaijan" is actually part of the Islamic Republic. The former Soviet Republic is only a part of the wider region.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
So what? Starmer is sitting in Downing Street on a huge majority (170-odd iirc) and imo will retire before the next election anyway. The small print on some on/off in/out real/fake opinion poll is neither here nor there.
What makes you think Sir Keir will retire? I'm not saying he won't, but it's not the thing PMs tend to do.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
A suspected Iranian spy has been arrested near an RAF base in Cyprus following intelligence suggesting he was planning a terrorist attack. The man, believed to be of Azerbaijani descent, has links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to local media reports.
The suspect was thought to have had Britain’s Akrotiri base, home to the RAF’s Typhoons, and Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou air base under surveillance since mid-April, ANT1 news portal reported.
Most of the region called "Azerbaijan" is actually part of the Islamic Republic. The former Soviet Republic is only a part of the wider region.
Khamenei himself is half-Azeri and half Persian, as I remember it. The full Persians are slightly more commonly against the regime, I think.
Those senior members of Reform who have a brain (are there any?) must be crapping themselves. What if they actually got more than 300 MPs? 300 brand new MPs with zero experience. I wonder how many of their seats will end up with an ex-Tory (or occasionally ex-Labour) candidate to mitigate that risk.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
So what? Starmer is sitting in Downing Street on a huge majority (170-odd iirc) and imo will retire before the next election anyway. The small print on some on/off in/out real/fake opinion poll is neither here nor there.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
Ain't nobody gonna break Mel Stride Nobody's going to slow me down, oh no I got to keep on moving
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
So what? Starmer is sitting in Downing Street on a huge majority (170-odd iirc) and imo will retire before the next election anyway. The small print on some on/off in/out real/fake opinion poll is neither here nor there.
What makes you think Sir Keir will retire? I'm not saying he won't, but it's not the thing PMs tend to do.
Starmer is (or will soon be) the oldest Prime Minister since Jim Callaghan.
Starmer is a lawyer, not a politician, and has no grand scheme that he wants to see through.
Starmer often makes verbal slips – save the sausages – and I think he will want to follow Wilson in getting out with a reasonable set of marbles and not hang on like Mrs Thatcher, who many think had lost the plot by the end, let alone Joe Biden.
So lots of small reasons rather than one big one, but I do not expect Starmer to fight the next election.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
I'm not convinced. What it certainly isn't, is Johannesburg
Fun fact: British military advisors were stationed in Omsk during the Russian Civil War, but only for about 6 months before the Reds defeated the White regional government based there.
Fascinating Fraser Nelson column on the Tantric Reformgasm
"For the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4, asking if this is a protest vote or a sea change. I’ve visited Reform heartlands and target seats; spoken to voters, strategists and psephologists. I met Asim and other members of Reform’s “army of rebels”. At the end, I stopped seeing Reform’s general election victory as a crazy hypothetical. I now think it is not just possible but highly plausible — unless something major changes"
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
So what? Starmer is sitting in Downing Street on a huge majority (170-odd iirc) and imo will retire before the next election anyway. The small print on some on/off in/out real/fake opinion poll is neither here nor there.
Are you now claiming this is a fake opinion poll?
I've not even looked; just vaguely following your own narrative.
I thought about real/fake/real but that upset the symmetry. It's a writer thing.
Thank you for the article. I enjoyed it and its predecessors. I look forward to the next entry, as I'm sure we all do. The published ones in Gareth's "The Challenge For..." series are:
All of Tehran has turned into a military barracks.
Suppressive forces (basijis) are patrolling through the streets, harassing everyone just like in previous uprisings and massacres (2022, 2019).
You can’t walk through streets without facing trouble.
If even one of Khamenei's dogs suspects you and checks your phone, they’ll handcuff you on the spot and take you away They accuse you of collaborating with Israel."
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
I'm not convinced. What it certainly isn't, is Johannesburg
I said Norilisk.
And, seriously, go there.
But that's also a ludicrous comparison. Norilsk - IIRC - is some satanic north Siberian mining dystopia, is it not? 300km NORTH of the Arctic Circle. Claiming that is representative of Russia is like claiming West Virginia is typical of the USA, or Blackpool, the UK
Your first nomination, Omsk, is much more reasonable. And as I've shown it looks OK. It's not Singapore, but it's not that different to Sunderland
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
So what? Starmer is sitting in Downing Street on a huge majority (170-odd iirc) and imo will retire before the next election anyway. The small print on some on/off in/out real/fake opinion poll is neither here nor there.
What makes you think Sir Keir will retire? I'm not saying he won't, but it's not the thing PMs tend to do.
Starmer is (or will soon be) the oldest Prime Minister since Jim Callaghan.
Starmer is a lawyer, not a politician, and has no grand scheme that he wants to see through.
Starmer often makes verbal slips – save the sausages – and I think he will want to follow Wilson in getting out with a reasonable set of marbles and not hang on like Mrs Thatcher, who many think had lost the plot by the end, let alone Joe Biden.
So lots of small reasons rather than one big one, but I do not expect Starmer to fight the next election.
I am sure Labour will also be motivated by the result in Canada. Chuck the really unpopular bloke overboard and get in a clean face and the popularity movement died away.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
Immigration is now falling thanks to the reforms Sunak brought in and Stride is more of a fiscal conservative than Farage is.
Not all Tories would join Reform even if the Conservative party ceased to exist, at least a third of current Tories would go LD in that scenario
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
I'm not convinced. What it certainly isn't, is Johannesburg
I said Norilisk.
And, seriously, go there.
But that's also a ludicrous comparison. Norilsk - IIRC - is some satanic north Siberian mining dystopia, is it not? 300km NORTH of the Arctic Circle. Claiming that is representative of Russia is like claiming West Virginia is typical of the USA, or Blackpool, the UK
Your first nomination, Omsk, is much more reasonable. And as I've shown it looks OK. It's not Singapore, but it's not that different to Sunderland
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
All of Tehran has turned into a military barracks.
Suppressive forces (basijis) are patrolling through the streets, harassing everyone just like in previous uprisings and massacres (2022, 2019).
You can’t walk through streets without facing trouble.
If even one of Khamenei's dogs suspects you and checks your phone, they’ll handcuff you on the spot and take you away They accuse you of collaborating with Israel."
Meanwhile Israel still has complete air superiority over the skies of Tehran and continue to pick off Iranian commanders. Today its their liason with Hamas we say good riddance to.
Do you want to perhaps revisit your suggestion from a few days ago that its Israel that have bitten off more than they can chew and will soon be looking for a way out of the conflict?
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
Immigration is now falling thanks to the reforms Sunak brought in and Stride is more of a fiscal conservative than Farage is.
Not all Tories would join Reform even if the Conservative party ceased to exist, at least a third of current Tories would go LD in that scenario
I feel genuinely sorry for honest, loyal Tory party members like you. It's your leaders and MPs that have catastrophically let you down, year after year. Your loyalty has been abused by chancers, morons and wankers
But, I think this might be Closing Time for the Conservative Party
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
I'm not convinced. What it certainly isn't, is Johannesburg
I said Norilisk.
And, seriously, go there.
But that's also a ludicrous comparison. Norilsk - IIRC - is some satanic north Siberian mining dystopia, is it not? 300km NORTH of the Arctic Circle. Claiming that is representative of Russia is like claiming West Virginia is typical of the USA, or Blackpool, the UK
Your first nomination, Omsk, is much more reasonable. And as I've shown it looks OK. It's not Singapore, but it's not that different to Sunderland
So fuck off to Omsk and come back and tell us that it’s better than here.
Draper has lost the first set at Queen's to Lehecka.
I didn't know Draper was number 4 in the world a few days ago, now number 6.
Number 4 again Monday!
There is a big gap in terms of ability between Sinner / Alcaraz and the rest.
Or access to drugs ingested via masseurs with open wounds on their fingers.
The thought that tennis is a uniquely clean elite sport makes me chuckle. Its a brutal battle of running back and forth over many hours, which you have to repeat every other day for 2 weeks in order to win a major. Its absolutely prime for some cyclists style "marginal gains".
Rugby is the other joke. There is no way all those players have been clean their whole lives. The bulk they now carrier on that rig with very little fat and certain nations that will remain nameless their forwards to a man have absolutely superhuman sized delts.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
There was an American vlog which I can't find right now about how much better Sainsbury's is than Walmart, at least for fresh food.
Literally everywhere is better than Walmart for fresh food, particularly Walmarts in the rural towns in the poor parts of the US e.g. West Virginia.
Yes, it's an unfair comparison
However even posher supermarkets in America are inferior to UK supermarkets. It's one rare place that Britain excels - we have really excellent supermarkets. In my experience only France and maybe Spain do them better, for food drinks etc
And I have V wide experience. I always go into supermarkets when I travel
East Asian supermarkets are fast improving
I was really impressed by some of the supermarkets in Asia. Unsurprisingly some of the ones in Singapore made Waitrose look like a poorly maintained Asda. In the UK, some supermarkets chains are struggling e.g Morrisons is awful since the asset strippers, sorry, private equity, lot bought it. Gone its is USP of the idea of a "market street".
America isn't all totally bad. Publix is normally pretty good without having to pay the Whole Foods Tax. But the massive players like Walmart, Albertsons, Safeway, etc are very poor.
“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”
The saddest thing here is that Tucker Carlson has a point. Not so much about Moscow - it’s a showpiece city for a tyranny - but about Britain
Moscow’s a fascinating place, one of the most interesting cities I’ve visited, but I wouldn’t call it “nice.” A bit bleak and austere, I thought.
I haven't been to Moscow for 20 years. All my recent visits were to St Petersburg and the north
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
Moscow is the centre of the Russian Empire that stays rich by extracting wealth from the rest of Russia. It’s entirely unsurprising that it appears wealthy - it is! Meanwhile vast swathes of Russia don’t even have paved roads.
Even some "cities" don't have proper paved roads. They have half empty decaying concrete buildings.
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
OK I just checked
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
I'm not convinced. What it certainly isn't, is Johannesburg
Fun fact: British military advisors were stationed in Omsk during the Russian Civil War, but only for about 6 months before the Reds defeated the White regional government based there.
'Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party’s “fantasy economics”.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Literally no one cares what "Sir Mel Stride" says or does or thinks. The Tories aren't even in the game, everyone hates them, they have not been forgiven for fourteen years of failure, and may never be. They need to shut up, dissolve themselves, and fold into Reform as some kind of comic subordinate entity
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
Immigration is now falling thanks to the reforms Sunak brought in and Stride is more of a fiscal conservative than Farage is.
Not all Tories would join Reform even if the Conservative party ceased to exist, at least a third of current Tories would go LD in that scenario
I feel genuinely sorry for honest, loyal Tory party members like you. It's your leaders and MPs that have catastrophically let you down, year after year. Your loyalty has been abused by chancers, morons and wankers
But, I think this might be Closing Time for the Conservative Party
As I said at the time the party should never have got rid of Boris, had they not done so Farage would never have returned to lead Reform and while Boris might have lost the GE it would have been closer and the Conservatives would likely now have a big poll lead against an unpopular Labour government.
I shall still support the Conservative Party, if it ceased to exist I would stop being a party member and be just a swing voter between the LDs and Reform (most of the rump Tories would join the latter but the One Nation wing would join the former)
In terms of the personnel thing, I think Richard Tice could be a bit better with some media training. He has real business experience, is telegenic, and has a pleasant tone of voice. But somehow it adds up to someone who comes over as a lightweight. He needs to pause more, think more, give his words the proper weight. If he did that, he'd be a good performer. Almost a Cameronesque performer. Then you have Zia Yusuf who's still doing stuff - he's good. They have other smart people - Widdecombe is nobody's fool - but all have things that prevent them being AAA politicians. Braverman joning them would be a very good thing. But she seems to be undergoing a Tory rennaissance given that she has a good record on 'the issue', so perhaps she'll be embraced back into the Shadow Cabinet.
Fascinating Fraser Nelson column on the Tantric Reformgasm
"For the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4, asking if this is a protest vote or a sea change. I’ve visited Reform heartlands and target seats; spoken to voters, strategists and psephologists. I met Asim and other members of Reform’s “army of rebels”. At the end, I stopped seeing Reform’s general election victory as a crazy hypothetical. I now think it is not just possible but highly plausible — unless something major changes"
The problem is that huge swathes of the media have been utterly obsessed with Nigel Farage for years, so it's difficult to know what's objective analysis and what's seeing the universe through Farage-tinted spectacles. I suspect the Farage phenomenon will be like the Victorian era: something that seems to everyone like it will go on for ever until suddenly it doesn't.
Fascinating Fraser Nelson column on the Tantric Reformgasm
"For the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4, asking if this is a protest vote or a sea change. I’ve visited Reform heartlands and target seats; spoken to voters, strategists and psephologists. I met Asim and other members of Reform’s “army of rebels”. At the end, I stopped seeing Reform’s general election victory as a crazy hypothetical. I now think it is not just possible but highly plausible — unless something major changes"
The problem is that huge swathes of the media have been utterly obsessed with Nigel Farage for years, so it's difficult to know what's objective analysis and what's seeing the universe through Farage-tinted spectacles. I suspect the Farage phenomenon will be like the Victorian era: something that seems to everyone like it will go on for ever until suddenly it doesn't.
If it goes on as long as the Victorian era, that's fine by me.
Comments
They seem to have that especial toxic combination of snowflake and vicious.
As, oddly enough, is Cruz.
I'm Gen-X.
Nonetheless, a pivot to personal abuse is a running away from the argument !
It's cheap enough now; it will provide real health benefits to the individuals themselves; it will turbocharge population wide research.
Hardwicke Stakes: CANDLEFORD
Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes: SATONO REVE
Jersey Stakes: COMANCHE BRAVE
Wokingham Stakes: ORAZIO
Golden Gates Stakes: EL BURHAM
Queen Alexandra Stakes: TROOPER BISDEE
Reform would basically be closer to 19th century Tories arguably than the current Tories are on some issues
But back then (in the noughties) there were still various peculiar ownership rights and areas where the Council could not enforce, which meant that in certain places you could just park your car and leave it with no worries if you did your homework. I once went away for 3 weeks and just left my (no Residents' Permit) car parked in one of the Council-proof areas. No problems followed.
This was the Parliament Hill area.
I am highly minded to go back. Could be a Gazette article in seeing is Tucker is right
ETA: I'd never fully understood the vein of chaotic madness underpinning Dostoevsky's writing until I went to Moscow and realised decent vodka cost less than bottled water.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/21/reform-set-to-win-next-election/
Think telegraph was keeping it quiet so as to give this article maximum Oomph
So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.
I presume the DNA collection requires parental consent ?
"Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that if the poll result was reproduced in the 2029 election, Reform could win in excess of 400 seats, giving the party a majority of almost 200 and making Mr Farage prime minister. The Tories could be reduced to fewer than 10 seats with Labour on around 140, losing some 270 of the seats they currently hold."
Makes it sound like they've got a team of Top Electoral Boffins working in a Lab, whereas in fact they Baxtered the poll in 2 and a half minutes
Back to Churchill: Democracy is the least-worst system.
(as Mr Trump is demonstrating).
The US has weird blind spots when it comes to modern tech. Their washing machines are crap - can’t spin fast enough to get much water out of the clothes at all & today I discovered that the thermostatic mixer tap is virtually unknown to them - they stand in the shower tweaking the taps trying to maintain the temperature of the shower themselves like heathens.
For the country with the highest GDP/capita on the planet (for reasonably sized nations) it’s quite weird that they’re apparently unwilling to spend $ on these things.
The suspect was thought to have had Britain’s Akrotiri base, home to the RAF’s Typhoons, and Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou air base under surveillance since mid-April, ANT1 news portal reported.
The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage’s party would put the economy on “the road to ruin” and said: “I don’t want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that’s recklessness.”
Sir Mel also attacked Rachel Reeves’s “huge borrowing splurge” to fund spending plans until the next election, but warned that Reform’s pledges were even more “dangerous”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/15/mel-stride-will-never-do-deal-reform/?recomm_id=26e30f1e-7067-4f73-a47d-e6021521fdd4
My own Russian moles report life continues much as before with only minor inconveniences from sanctions (such as no direct flights). Life in Moscow, admittedly.
Beneath the placid surface, however, currents of anxiety are coursing through the defence establishment.
Leading the review is the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby. That alone has made some of its supporters nervous. Last year, while out of government, Mr Colby sharply criticised the sale of the Virginia class submarines. It would give away the “crown jewels” in America’s arsenal, he said. Moreover, it would do so at a critical time, in a window in the mid-2030s when some analysts anticipate that China might be most likely to attempt to invade Taiwan. If Australia cannot commit to using its submarines to support American forces in defending the self-governing island, then selling them to Australia will only weaken deterrence, he said at the time.
https://www.economist.com/asia/2025/06/19/could-trump-can-aukus
Obviously, it would wipe away the last pinprick of Boris's legacy but also a headache for Sir Keir - presumably the billions we were due to make are pencilled into Rachel's calculations somewhere. But the people I really feel sorry for are those who proclaimed AUKUS as the first step into Britain's post-Brexit, neo-imperial golden age. To quote Morrissey: 'I know it's over and it never really began but in my heart it was so real...'
However even posher supermarkets in America are inferior to UK supermarkets. It's one rare place that Britain excels - we have really excellent supermarkets. In my experience only France and maybe Spain do them better, for food drinks etc
And I have V wide experience. I always go into supermarkets when I travel
East Asian supermarkets are fast improving
A spokesperson for Telegraph Media Group said: “On 25th May, we published an article in our Money section based on a case study. After publication it became clear that during his conversations and other communications with us the case study had provided us with false information. We unpublished the article and started a thorough investigation.
“We take the quality and integrity of our journalism very seriously but it is clear that our internal processes were not strong enough on this story and we are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.”
https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/faked-telegraph-article/
Translation :"We're shit, and we know we are."
That's the same as their '52mph cyclist in London & creating death traps all over Britain' story last year - not even the most basic common sense checks (eg it's 30% faster than the TdF time trial record), because they are gagging for a story to justify their agenda.
Having a Reform government with a big majority on a third of the vote after a Labour government with a big majority on a third of the vote is no mandate.
With PR the Tories would get 100 MPs not 6 to reflect their 15% voteshare and the Greens would also get the 50 odd MPs their 9% of the vote deserves rather than their current 4
The best comparison for a city like Norilisk is Johannesburg. Crime ridden, poor, corrupt, with infrastructure that increasingly fails and sinking ever further into the abyss.
"Sir Mel Stride". It's ridiculous. His party fucked the country a million times, and allowed in a million migrants a year. Why should we pay an iota of attention? There is zero reason, the Tories are dying and will soon be dead
Mind you, things aren't that much better for Starmer. Look at his polling in that Ipsos survey
"Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied."
OUCH
Or, indeed, copy the French and Italians and have a differential speed limit on motorways when it is raining, reducing it to 65mph in such circumstances, balanced by an increase to 80mph when it is safer and dry.
Very USA - "I compare dollar-wise and ounce-wise."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoaX1peciEU
America isn't all totally bad. Publix is normally pretty good without having to pay the Whole Foods Tax. But the massive players like Walmart, Albertsons, Safeway, etc are very poor.
Unless you have personal eye witness testimony, I might suspect you're making stuff up to stay cheerful
You're talking nonsense
Here is street life in Omsk in August 2024. Omsk is an industrial city in Siberia, so one might expect it to be grim. And certainly there is a lot of concrete and the pavements are sometimes shabby. But there are also shiny new shops, it all looks orderly, there is - note this - almost no litter or graffiti. Is this really vastly worse than one of the poorer industrial cities in Britain?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FM2G8rPx1s
I'm not convinced. What it certainly isn't, is Johannesburg
Nobody's going to slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy46iOwWQiE
Starmer is a lawyer, not a politician, and has no grand scheme that he wants to see through.
Starmer often makes verbal slips – save the sausages – and I think he will want to follow Wilson in getting out with a reasonable set of marbles and not hang on like Mrs Thatcher, who many think had lost the plot by the end, let alone Joe Biden.
So lots of small reasons rather than one big one, but I do not expect Starmer to fight the next election.
"For the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4, asking if this is a protest vote or a sea change. I’ve visited Reform heartlands and target seats; spoken to voters, strategists and psephologists. I met Asim and other members of Reform’s “army of rebels”. At the end, I stopped seeing Reform’s general election victory as a crazy hypothetical. I now think it is not just possible but highly plausible — unless something major changes"
https://www.thetimes.com/article/030aec27-3522-4581-ac83-eb84ddc67524?shareToken=da790f4ec8bb22ba72a4c35277270542
And, seriously, go there.
I thought about real/fake/real but that upset the symmetry. It's a writer thing.
Thank you for the article. I enjoyed it and its predecessors. I look forward to the next entry, as I'm sure we all do. The published ones in Gareth's "The Challenge For..." series are:
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/06/02/the-challenge-for-labour/
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/06/12/the-challenge-for-plaid-cymru/
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/06/21/the-challenge-for-reform-uk/
Suppressive forces (basijis) are patrolling through the streets, harassing everyone just like in previous uprisings and massacres (2022, 2019).
You can’t walk through streets without facing trouble.
If even one of Khamenei's dogs suspects you and checks your phone, they’ll handcuff you on the spot and take you away They accuse you of collaborating with Israel."
I didn't know Draper was number 4 in the world a few days ago, now number 6.
Your first nomination, Omsk, is much more reasonable. And as I've shown it looks OK. It's not Singapore, but it's not that different to Sunderland
Not all Tories would join Reform even if the Conservative party ceased to exist, at least a third of current Tories would go LD in that scenario
Do you want to perhaps revisit your suggestion from a few days ago that its Israel that have bitten off more than they can chew and will soon be looking for a way out of the conflict?
Edit - I see @BartholomewRoberts beat me to it.
But, I think this might be Closing Time for the Conservative Party
Or, better, just stay there and walk the talk.
Rugby is the other joke. There is no way all those players have been clean their whole lives. The bulk they now carrier on that rig with very little fat and certain nations that will remain nameless their forwards to a man have absolutely superhuman sized delts.
I shall still support the Conservative Party, if it ceased to exist I would stop being a party member and be just a swing voter between the LDs and Reform (most of the rump Tories would join the latter but the One Nation wing would join the former)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14825399/Mini-black-holes-hiding-HOME.html