The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Do we believe him? He does have this strange habit of when things go to pear shaped, he never saw nothing, was just following orders. His time at the CPS, all the wins he was directly involved in and down to his leadership, all the screw ups, never went near his desk.
The NU10K take pride in not knowing anything about the organisations they are in charge of.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Never do the course, it's an act of submission. Deny, deny, deny. Then pay up if you have to.
God, this government is pathetic. Reinstating the absolutely absurd WFA and now this. Boxed in on tax rises, making seriously ambitious promises on defence, Labour has run out of other peoples' money once again.
We urgently need a government, of whatever stripe, that takes our public spending commitments seriously. Its a little hard to take Kemi at face value on this, given the profligacy of the last government, but she is at least acknowledging the existence of the problem.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Never do the course, it's an act of submission. Deny, deny, deny. Then pay up if you have to.
They send you the calibration certificate of the speed camera that snapped you these days.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
He should take a cue from Estelle Morris:
"Estelle Morris, the education secretary, sensationally resigned last night arguing that she was incapable of providing the right strategic management to run a big government department.
In an extraordinary confession, she also insisted: "I was not good at dealing with the modern media. I have not done the job as well as I should have done. ""
In all the noise of Starmer's U-Turn, the report on ONS got lost. Its pretty brutal, sounds like it is a poorly managed, struggling to get decent staff as they pay poorly, they have messed up attempts to bring together public sector data and in the new spending review announced by the government they will be suffering more cuts.
China is doing what Japan, and then Korea did before it, but much faster.
BYD sold just 700 cars in Mexico in 2023 & then 40k in 2024. From Jan to May, it sold 28639 in Mexico. It expects to hit 80k mark sold overall in July... https://x.com/tphuang/status/1938539833841848426
I feel none of you have read the final paragraph in the header.
The most brutal thing in The Spectator article is this observation about Badenoch ‘Another senior Tory concluded: ‘She seems to be auditioning to be a Spectator columnist’ which is not something someone aspiring to be Prime Minister should ever audition for in my humble opinion.
In my experience, to become a Spectator columnist - let alone a successful Spectator columnist - you need a lot more brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft than is available to the average British politician
This is a job writing for the world’s oldest and most prestigious magazine. Not just “leader of the Opposition” or “senior Cabinet Minister” or whatever daft names they give themselves
Two things are required to be a successful Spectator columnist:
(1) A tendency to hyperbole (2) A willingness to pander to the prejudices of its readers
If you have those two in spades - like your slightly less good looking doppleganger - then you're golden.
One thing the Spectator did always have, along with all its shallow and ill-informed views and prejudices, obviously, was a tendency to be much stylish and expensive than its equivalent left-wing publications.
It could either be stylishly critical, at times, or stylishly louche. Having not read it for a long time, I don't know if it can still conjure this.
No, it can't. The shallowness is to the fore. But unlike the New Statesman it has the Dear Mary column which, along with Matt in the DTel, is the funniest thing around.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
Most jobs have a probation period. Voters should be able to sack the PM and call for another GE after 6 months or a year when a government is as shit as this one has been.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
I remember pre election where he was arguing with Sunak about terrorists and got on his high horse saying that he actually had been in the room arranging to prosecute them.
I desperately wanted Sunak to respond with, “yeah mate, I’ve been in the cabinet room when we’ve taken them out”.
He was like someone who has just gone tobogganing down Box Hill on a rare snowy day bragging to a chap who spends the ski season at their chalet in Aspen.
The big deal he had was that he was a top prosecutor and on top of brief and yet now he claims he didn’t read a speech prepared for him.
He brings zero to the table short of being not the Tories/Reform. No vision, no plan, no charisma, no political skills, just “not them”.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
Most jobs have a probation period. Voters should be able to sack the PM and call for another GE after 6 months or a year when a government is as shit as this one has been.
I do wonder if we should have rolling parliamentary elections like some councils do. Perhaps a 1/3 turnover per year?
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
And yet £ seems to be on a bit of a mini-roll just now, so somebody somewhere must think our credit is good. "Slightly less crap than his contemporaries" could still be history's verdict on Starmer.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
Most jobs have a probation period. Voters should be able to sack the PM and call for another GE after 6 months or a year when a government is as shit as this one has been.
I do wonder if we should have rolling parliamentary elections like some councils do. Perhaps a 1/3 turnover per year?
China is doing what Japan, and then Korea did before it, but much faster.
BYD sold just 700 cars in Mexico in 2023 & then 40k in 2024. From Jan to May, it sold 28639 in Mexico. It expects to hit 80k mark sold overall in July... https://x.com/tphuang/status/1938539833841848426
The scale of sales in cars in China alone is crazy. One model from Xiaomi (who are relatively a small player compared to BYD / Geely) sold 250k last year.
Here is their new model, and they think they can sell 750k of them in a single year.
The "terrorism" definition still doesn't really make sense, but there does seem to be something along the lines of an organised conspiracy to commit criminal damage going on,
Around 150 pro-Palestinian activists broke into the warehouses of a company in Tournai, Belgium, and vandalized armored vehicles… that were intended for Ukraine.
As part of the “Stop Arming Israel” campaign, the 150 “activists” destroyed the company’s offices with hammers before turning their rage on the armored vehicles inside the workshops.
The targeted company specializes in the maintenance, repair, and modernization of military vehicles. The damage is estimated at around one million euros.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
I remember pre election where he was arguing with Sunak about terrorists and got on his high horse saying that he actually had been in the room arranging to prosecute them.
I desperately wanted Sunak to respond with, “yeah mate, I’ve been in the cabinet room when we’ve taken them out”.
He was like someone who has just gone tobogganing down Box Hill on a rare snowy day bragging to a chap who spends the ski season at their chalet in Aspen.
The big deal he had was that he was a top prosecutor and on top of brief and yet now he claims he didn’t read a speech prepared for him.
He brings zero to the table short of being not the Tories/Reform. No vision, no plan, no charisma, no political skills, just “not them”.
He has also been in the room working out how to try and get them off....
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Never do the course, it's an act of submission. Deny, deny, deny. Then pay up if you have to.
They send you the calibration certificate of the speed camera that snapped you these days.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Never do the course, it's an act of submission. Deny, deny, deny. Then pay up if you have to.
They send you the calibration certificate of the speed camera that snapped you these days.
I have never swerved a fine with that stratagem. Most of the times I fought the law and the law didn't win was when the copper didn't turn up for court or they fucked up the paperwork somehow. 50% win rate when guilty as fuck. Of course, the most important thing is not to incriminate yourself in the first place.
Police: Was, there any reason you were doing 109mph sir? Dura: I wasn't. Prove it.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
There was a C19 politician - possibly Irish -who used to end all of his speeches "and furthermore I agree with everything I have just said". Unfortunately this is a fact I remember from the pre-internet era and I can find no evidence of this on the internet.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
McSweeney is his best asset, is my read. The problem is that McSweeney is working with very difficult material.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
He was economical with the truth about what he knew when, and went all in on it being all the "far-right" organised, which it wasn't, and in doing so has alienated lots of people.
It isn't exactly rocket science to say riots are unacceptable and they will be punished with the full force of the law. And we already have special laws on the books for much harsher punishments for rioters.
A Tory councillor in Westminster, Laila Cunningham, has defected to Reform UK. Oddly enough, she was the Conservative candidate for Rotherham at the last election who mysteriously disappeared at the last minute, meaning the party didn't have time to nominate a replacement. It was the only seat in Britain apart from the Speaker's not to have a Tory candidate.
"Councillor Laila Cunningham @policylaila I can no longer defend 14 years of failure. I’ve left the Conservatives and joined @reformparty_uk to fight for real change — lower taxes, controlled borders, and putting Britain first.” My letter 👇"
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
McSweeney is his best asset, is my read. The problem is that McSweeney is working with very difficult material.
And a piss poor team e.g. sounds like Big Ange has pissed off her staff again and they now working to rule.
The biggest problem (as I keep saying) they haven't done any homework and once you are in government stuff comes at your fast and you rarely get a break. The treadmill never stops, so you don't get a huge amount of time to be considering a broad range of new policies ideas reading speeches.
I feel none of you have read the final paragraph in the header.
The most brutal thing in The Spectator article is this observation about Badenoch ‘Another senior Tory concluded: ‘She seems to be auditioning to be a Spectator columnist’ which is not something someone aspiring to be Prime Minister should ever audition for in my humble opinion.
In my experience, to become a Spectator columnist - let alone a successful Spectator columnist - you need a lot more brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft than is available to the average British politician
This is a job writing for the world’s oldest and most prestigious magazine. Not just “leader of the Opposition” or “senior Cabinet Minister” or whatever daft names they give themselves
Two things are required to be a successful Spectator columnist:
(1) A tendency to hyperbole (2) A willingness to pander to the prejudices of its readers
If you have those two in spades - like your slightly less good looking doppleganger - then you're golden.
I have to say that two tier benefits is really shit. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?
I don't see it lasting. The press are bound to find some examples where people with identical issues get radically different benefits.
It will be challenged under the Equality act in court immediately. They cant Primary legislation their way out of its provisions and we will see what they make of it. If it survives this weekend/Tuesday. Not all rebels are convinced, and not all of them are Socialist Campaign Group types.
They could, of course, go back to cutting PIP for everyone.
No-one seems to be making the obvious point that the PIP provisions only apply to people with the very lowest level of disability who maybe don't need additional support at all.
I think that's entirely the wrong way to look at it. PIP is there to provide disabled people with just enough to live their daily lives and work without being a further cost to the state. If you take it away most won't suddenly take up their mat and walk straight back to full time employment, they'll become more economically inactive and a further cost to the state. The problem in my view is that it is inadequate to provide support with mental health issues because it's very inflexible. It takes a long time to get and there's no mechanism for coming off of it if things improve and going back on again during any relapse. Once you have PIP and think you might need it in the future then you're almost obliged to stay on it. I would separate out the mental health component and make it so that a diagnosis means you're automatically eligible. Then issue a grant for a limited time based on a doctor's report. I know that would be administratively difficult but it would be a much fairer and more helpful system.
All benefits should be time-limited.
They are as they are subject to review depending on the type. You are also obliged to report any changes in circumstances which triggers a review of the benefits.
The "terrorism" definition still doesn't really make sense, but there does seem to be something along the lines of an organised conspiracy to commit criminal damage going on,
Around 150 pro-Palestinian activists broke into the warehouses of a company in Tournai, Belgium, and vandalized armored vehicles… that were intended for Ukraine.
As part of the “Stop Arming Israel” campaign, the 150 “activists” destroyed the company’s offices with hammers before turning their rage on the armored vehicles inside the workshops.
The targeted company specializes in the maintenance, repair, and modernization of military vehicles. The damage is estimated at around one million euros.
By the way, I saw some of those clips of Angela Rayner at PMQs the other day.
Could barely understand her. She appears really quite painfully uncouth.
Astonishing that she is, in theory, the second most powerful person in the country.
In reality she isn't. They have bumped her off out of the way for the most part. They aren't even holding cabinet meetings when Starmer is away, which in the past the Deputy PM would host.
There is a perception that her feisty nature is good for things like PMQs where she can sock it to the Tories for the 14 years of failure and the £15bn blackhole, on repeat. The modern day Two Jags.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
I remember pre election where he was arguing with Sunak about terrorists and got on his high horse saying that he actually had been in the room arranging to prosecute them.
I desperately wanted Sunak to respond with, “yeah mate, I’ve been in the cabinet room when we’ve taken them out”.
He was like someone who has just gone tobogganing down Box Hill on a rare snowy day bragging to a chap who spends the ski season at their chalet in Aspen.
The big deal he had was that he was a top prosecutor and on top of brief and yet now he claims he didn’t read a speech prepared for him.
He brings zero to the table short of being not the Tories/Reform. No vision, no plan, no charisma, no political skills, just “not them”.
I don’t believe he will be in situ by 2028. He’s been found out, he’s not up to the job, and he clearly doesn’t like doing it
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Do we believe him? He does have this strange habit of when things go to pear shaped, he never saw nothing, was just following orders. His time at the CPS, all the wins he was directly involved in and down to his leadership, all the screw ups, never went near his desk.
The "terrorism" definition still doesn't really make sense, but there does seem to be something along the lines of an organised conspiracy to commit criminal damage going on,
Around 150 pro-Palestinian activists broke into the warehouses of a company in Tournai, Belgium, and vandalized armored vehicles… that were intended for Ukraine.
As part of the “Stop Arming Israel” campaign, the 150 “activists” destroyed the company’s offices with hammers before turning their rage on the armored vehicles inside the workshops.
The targeted company specializes in the maintenance, repair, and modernization of military vehicles. The damage is estimated at around one million euros.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
McSweeney is his best asset, is my read. The problem is that McSweeney is working with very difficult material.
And a piss poor team e.g. sounds like Big Ange has pissed off her staff again and they now working to rule.
The biggest problem (as I keep saying) they haven't done any homework and once you are in government stuff comes at your fast and you rarely get a break. The treadmill never stops, so you don't get a huge amount of time to be considering a broad range of new policies ideas reading speeches.
They had Sue Gray in charge of administrative prep, and Annaliese Dodds in charge of policy development and both were a) utter disasters, and b) now nowhere to be seen.
And as often pointed out, Starmer himself is not actually interested in policy, economics, the country itself, or anything really.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Do we believe him? He does have this strange habit of when things go to pear shaped, he never saw nothing, was just following orders. His time at the CPS, all the wins he was directly involved in and down to his leadership, all the screw ups, never went near his desk.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
He was economical with the truth about what he knew when, and went all in on it being all the "far-right" organised, which it wasn't, and in doing so has alienated lots of people.
It isn't exactly rocket science to say riots are unacceptable and they will be punished with the full force of the law. And we already have special laws on the books for much harsher punishments for rioters.
I think his experience of being a prosecutor in the public eye during the 2011 riots was crucial.
He was on television day after day telling people they would be jailed, when some on the right were regularly recommending a more equivocal approach, and also made sure that scarce pedal resources were redirected so that trials could go ahead very quickly. All the while several figures on the right, like Jenrick and Farage, were equivocating..
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
McSweeney is his best asset, is my read. The problem is that McSweeney is working with very difficult material.
And a piss poor team e.g. sounds like Big Ange has pissed off her staff again and they now working to rule.
The biggest problem (as I keep saying) they haven't done any homework and once you are in government stuff comes at your fast and you rarely get a break. The treadmill never stops, so you don't get a huge amount of time to be considering a broad range of new policies ideas reading speeches.
They had Sue Gray in charge of administrative prep, and Annaliese Dodds in charge of policy development and both were a) utter disasters, and b) no nowhere to be seen.
Yes, I think the idea was Sue Gray would be the person with the real power to deal with things behind the scenes getting the civil service to do what they wanted.
Even some of the sensible hires like Patrick Vallance and Cobbler Timpson, they are absolutely invisible. Vallance big idea was much better use of public sector data to bring better productivity and efficiencies, but as I noted down thread it seems like the ONS has messed up their attempts at this and also will be seeing further cuts.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
Starmer has - incredibly - reached a state of pitiable wankerdom after just one year. His pitch to the voters now is basically “yes I’m quite shit and I don’t know what I’m doing and I keep getting it wrong but I’m tired”
Most jobs have a probation period. Voters should be able to sack the PM and call for another GE after 6 months or a year when a government is as shit as this one has been.
Annual Parliaments is the only demand of the Chartists not to be implemented. One week to polling day!
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Do we believe him? He does have this strange habit of when things go to pear shaped, he never saw nothing, was just following orders. His time at the CPS, all the wins he was directly involved in and down to his leadership, all the screw ups, never went near his desk.
Does anyone respect him?
I do because he represented the McLibel Two for free.
His performance is government is just about as I expected. Continuity Sunakism with a less punchable face.
By the way, I saw some of those clips of Angela Rayner at PMQs the other day.
Could barely understand her. She appears really quite painfully uncouth.
Astonishing that she is, in theory, the second most powerful person in the country.
The chip on her shoulder is so big and heavy it presses on her neck and restricts the blood flow to her brain by squishing the arteries hence the inability of that brain to coordinate thought or intelligible speech.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
I feel none of you have read the final paragraph in the header.
The most brutal thing in The Spectator article is this observation about Badenoch ‘Another senior Tory concluded: ‘She seems to be auditioning to be a Spectator columnist’ which is not something someone aspiring to be Prime Minister should ever audition for in my humble opinion.
In my experience, to become a Spectator columnist - let alone a successful Spectator columnist - you need a lot more brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft than is available to the average British politician ...
...Rod Liddell, Julie Birchill, Toby Young. Not the first people you think of when discussing "brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft". Or the second.
I like (I think it was) Stephen Daldry, who was the only one who objected out loud to the punishment of that man who tweeted about Captain Tom, but most of them are just media tarts. These days it's all screaming-at-trans and metropolitan elite stuff. That bloke who sends in his travel postcards is sort of OK, but it's a small diamond amongst the very rough
The last time I took a look, it was actually v good. Certainly better than the Spectator which has been mid-brow bilge for years. And it has just taken on a new editor, the impressive Tom McTague.
Yes I like Tom McTague's stuff too. He's possibly one of the only reasons to read Unherd (Is he still there?)
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
McSweeney is his best asset, is my read. The problem is that McSweeney is working with very difficult material.
And a piss poor team e.g. sounds like Big Ange has pissed off her staff again and they now working to rule.
The biggest problem (as I keep saying) they haven't done any homework and once you are in government stuff comes at your fast and you rarely get a break. The treadmill never stops, so you don't get a huge amount of time to be considering a broad range of new policies ideas reading speeches.
They had Sue Gray in charge of administrative prep, and Annaliese Dodds in charge of policy development and both were a) utter disasters, and b) no nowhere to be seen.
Yes, I think the idea was Sue Gray would be the person with the real power to deal with things behind the scenes getting the civil service to do what they wanted.
Even some of the sensible hires like Patrick Vallance and Cobbler Timpson, they are absolutely invisible. Vallance big idea was much better use of public sector data to bring better productivity and efficiencies, but as I noted down thread it seems like the ONS has messed up their attempts at this and also will be seeing further cuts.
Starmer himself realised early on that the blob made actual governance nigh-impossible, and made remarks that he later “regretted”.
Vallance and Timpson don’t have a chance.
Believe Blair’s first term timidity was in part an actual inability to wield governmental power. And that was in the late 90s before the various reforms which themselves empowered judges at the expense of the executive.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Do we believe him? He does have this strange habit of when things go to pear shaped, he never saw nothing, was just following orders. His time at the CPS, all the wins he was directly involved in and down to his leadership, all the screw ups, never went near his desk.
Unfortunately I do believe him. He genuinely thinks it's not his fault, he's only the Prime Minister, and people should stop being nasty to him because he has a Good Heart. I sympathise with him as a human being, but that's not the point of the job.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
To be fair, SKS was always going to be a one term PM. That’s been obvious from the beginning, hasn’t it?
No, I don’t think so. He was in for his Decade of National Renewal (don’t hear much about that now).
He’ll be what, 66, at the next GE? That’s hardly too old to fight one more. It would make him a tad older than most PMs during their time in office, but not severely so.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
He was economical with the truth about what he knew when, and went all in on it being all the "far-right" organised, which it wasn't, and in doing so has alienated lots of people.
It isn't exactly rocket science to say riots are unacceptable and they will be punished with the full force of the law. And we already have special laws on the books for much harsher punishments for rioters.
I think his experience of being a prosecutor in the public eye during the 2011 riots was crucial.
He was on television day after day telling people they would be jailed, when some on the right were regularly recommending a more equivocal approach, and also made sure that scarce pedal resources were redirected so that trials could go ahead very quickly. All the while several figures on the right, like Jenrick and Farage, were equivocating..
Also, the template for action was in place after the Mark Duggan riots. Charge the maximum possible in magistrates courts, immediately.
Regarding Sir Keir’s speech that he hadn’t read and didn’t like
Tom McTague reported this a couple weeks back in his New Statesman piece and Number 10 immediately said it wasn’t true … only for Keir Starmer to confirm it himself now.
This administration really does sometimes feel a bit like Boris Johnson’s.
Trump dies and goes to Hell. On arrival the Devil tells Trump "we are overbooked but I can let you in if I let someone else out". "You get to choose" says the Devil.
The Devil takes Trump to three closed doors. "See if any of these activities float your boat and you can replace the person in question" says the Devil.
Trump looks inside door one and he sees Barack Obama diving into a swimming pool, swimming to the side, climbing out and then diving in again. "Do I have to do this for eternity?" questions Trump. "Yes" replies the Devil. "What with my bone spurs?" said Trump.
Trump moves on to door two. Inside he sees George Bush breaking rocks. "I can't break rocks for eternity, just look at my bone spurs" complains Trump.
Trump moves on to door three, and inside he sees Monica Lewinsky pleasuring Bill Clinton as is Monica's way. "Well I think I can handle that smiles a smug Trump". " Are you sure?" questions the Devil, "you bet" exclaims Trump. "OK Monica, you can go" said the Devil.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Do we believe him? He does have this strange habit of when things go to pear shaped, he never saw nothing, was just following orders. His time at the CPS, all the wins he was directly involved in and down to his leadership, all the screw ups, never went near his desk.
Does anyone respect him?
I do because he represented the McLibel Two for free.
His performance is government is just about as I expected. Continuity Sunakism with a less punchable face.
There was a R4 documentary last year about the McLibel 2 with as you’d expect quite a bit of Starmer talking at the time. He sounded pretty non-nasally normal, persuasive and even idealistic. I wonder if what ever has afflicted his adenoids has also done for his principles.
Regarding Sir Keir’s speech that he hadn’t read and didn’t like
Tom McTague reported this a couple weeks back in his New Statesman piece and Number 10 immediately said it wasn’t true … only for Keir Starmer to confirm it himself now.
This administration really does sometimes feel a bit like Boris Johnson’s.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Just pay the fine and move on. Her Maj doesn't want to waste a day of her life in a room full of boy racers being lectured about the bleeding obvious.
So much bad advice.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Regarding Sir Keir’s speech that he hadn’t read and didn’t like
Tom McTague reported this a couple weeks back in his New Statesman piece and Number 10 immediately said it wasn’t true … only for Keir Starmer to confirm it himself now.
This administration really does sometimes feel a bit like Boris Johnson’s.
If he is too tired to do the job after 11 months, what is he going to be like after 4 years...there is no denying it is a brutal job, but if you put yourself up for it, everybody knows what it will be like.
The last time I took a look, it was actually v good. Certainly better than the Spectator which has been mid-brow bilge for years. And it has just taken on a new editor, the impressive Tom McTague.
I do - I enjoy the in-depth coverage of current events and although left-leaning it seems to be able to present a broad range of views. I think it has declined slightly over the last couple of years though, it'll be interesting to see if the new editor shakes it up.
When I started taking the NS, I also took out a subscription to the Spectator in the interests of balance. I stopped it when I no longer needed it for the commute, all their regular columnists (apart from Matthew Parris) were, as far as I could tell, the same person ranting and raving about how awful everything is under the yoke of our socialist government (this was under Johnson) and when will we do Brexit properly? It doesn't seem like it's improved much since then. There were some good articles, possibly better than the NS but the rest didn't match up so when I no longer needed both I didn't have to think hard about which to drop.
I feel none of you have read the final paragraph in the header.
The most brutal thing in The Spectator article is this observation about Badenoch ‘Another senior Tory concluded: ‘She seems to be auditioning to be a Spectator columnist’ which is not something someone aspiring to be Prime Minister should ever audition for in my humble opinion.
In my experience, to become a Spectator columnist - let alone a successful Spectator columnist - you need a lot more brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft than is available to the average British politician ...
...Rod Liddell, Julie Birchill, Toby Young. Not the first people you think of when discussing "brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft". Or the second.
I like (I think it was) Stephen Daldry, who was the only one who objected out loud to the punishment of that man who tweeted about Captain Tom, but most of them are just media tarts. These days it's all screaming-at-trans and metropolitan elite stuff. That bloke who sends in his travel postcards is sort of OK, but it's a small diamond amongst the very rough
Given his flint knapping inclinations, that bloke is surely more a semi precious stone than a small diamond.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Just pay the fine and move on. Her Maj doesn't want to waste a day of her life in a room full of boy racers being lectured about the bleeding obvious.
So much bad advice.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
Maybe I am super saddo, but I actually found it quite interesting (it only lasted 2-3hrs so it wasn't like it was a long time). What was scary was how few people seemed to have any idea of the rules of the road.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Thee only hope for Labour, and for renewal of the country is for Starmer to be replaced by someone with vision.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it. I think that's one of the few very good things to come out of the budget.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Thee only hope for Labour, and for renewal of the country is for Starmer to be replaced by someone with vision.
Looks at the list of potential candidates...Houston we have a problem.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Just pay the fine and move on. Her Maj doesn't want to waste a day of her life in a room full of boy racers being lectured about the bleeding obvious.
So much bad advice.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
That’s the intention, but the site won’t load. Whether it’s because it’s Friday I don’t know.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
All cliffedges are bad as they result in nudge to not go beyond that.
Regarding Sir Keir’s speech that he hadn’t read and didn’t like
Tom McTague reported this a couple weeks back in his New Statesman piece and Number 10 immediately said it wasn’t true … only for Keir Starmer to confirm it himself now.
This administration really does sometimes feel a bit like Boris Johnson’s.
If he is too tired to do the job after 11 months, what is he going to be like after 4 years...there is no denying it is a brutal job, but if you put yourself up for it, everybody knows what it will be like.
He had received some shocking news that morning (the house he is renting to his sister in law was firebombed) but I can’t help but compare that with Maggie Thatcher giving a speech at the Conservative Conference the day after the IRA tried to kill her by bombing The Grand in Brighton. Main difference being that Thatcher said what she meant I suppose
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
This is my go-to site for speeding and parking. There are a few experienced lawyers on it plus a judge or two. Plenty of people in a similar situation every day, so a chance to read up on others' progress through the court. You'll get a good idea of the success of different approaches e.g. police or camera generated tickets.
The last time I took a look, it was actually v good. Certainly better than the Spectator which has been mid-brow bilge for years. And it has just taken on a new editor, the impressive Tom McTague.
I do - I enjoy the in-depth coverage of current events and although left-leaning it seems to be able to present a broad range of views. I think it has declined slightly over the last couple of years though, it'll be interesting to see if the new editor shakes it up.
When I started taking the NS, I also took out a subscription to the Spectator in the interests of balance. I stopped it when I no longer needed it for the commute, all their regular columnists (apart from Matthew Parris) were, as far as I could tell, the same person ranting and raving about how awful everything is under the yoke of our socialist government (this was under Johnson) and when will we do Brexit properly? It doesn't seem like it's improved much since then. There were some good articles, possibly better than the NS but the rest didn't match up so when I no longer needed both I didn't have to think hard about which to drop.
Back in the mid 1950’s, when I was a VIth former at a grammar school, the Head arranged for us to have a cheap sub to the Spectator. I took up the offer but soon switched to the NS.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
I've previously looked at how stuff like this affects contracts and there wasn't anything significant. Mandatory breaks were a bigger issue (4 hours) and even then the impact was minuscule. Most employers like to get substantial hours in a week just to reduce training overheads.
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
The quality of writing in the New Statesman is usually better than the Spectator imo. Happy to say that even though I often don't agree with its politics.
“Ipsos has found Kemi Badenoch has the worst ratings six month in for any Leader of the Opposition since Ipsos started polling in the 1970s”
TSE - where do you stand on the argument such comparisons, and all opinion pieces draped from them, are utter garbage, on basis data collected 1970’s was 2.2 party politics, data collected 2025 is 5 or in places more party politics?
It’s comparing apples with alligators, and psephologically foolish. a scientifically Meaningless comparison. And to hang an opinion piece from it, Journalistic drivel.
Regarding Sir Keir’s speech that he hadn’t read and didn’t like
Tom McTague reported this a couple weeks back in his New Statesman piece and Number 10 immediately said it wasn’t true … only for Keir Starmer to confirm it himself now.
This administration really does sometimes feel a bit like Boris Johnson’s.
If he is too tired to do the job after 11 months, what is he going to be like after 4 years...there is no denying it is a brutal job, but if you put yourself up for it, everybody knows what it will be like.
He had received some shocking news that morning (the house he is renting to his sister in law was firebombed) but I can’t help but compare that with Maggie Thatcher giving a speech at the Conservative Conference the day after the IRA tried to kill her by bombing The Grand in Brighton. Main difference being that Thatcher said what she meant I suppose
Obviously that is terrible, but he is claiming he didn't read this super important speech that was part of a big relaunch before the day he was supposed to give it? It will have been written days / weeks beforehand, nobody was asking for feedback or edits? Pinnocho nose....
Compare to Cameron, who had young kids and his reputation for chillaxing, but everybody who worked with him, including civil servants who weren't politically big fans, said without fail red box done, everything signed off promptly, all documents read and understood ahead of time, etc.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
I've previously looked at how stuff like this affects contracts and there wasn't anything significant. Mandatory breaks were a bigger issue (4 hours) and even then the impact was minuscule. Most employers like to get substantial hours in a week just to reduce training overheads.
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
The British Retail Consortium has said they think 1 in 10 jobs will go because of this change to the threshold. Of might say of course they are a lobby group, so they would say that wouldn't they.
On the second thing, my argument is that this is a classic behavioural economics issue. The situation is slightly better than before economically (although higher minimum wages, higher business rates, etc), but you have now put an artificial barrier in place, which we know people negatively react to. They don't look at the money saved from before, they will look at the extra money due if they expand. Tapering all the way up the scale is the solution.
Its a real problem in the UK economy. One man band isn't too bad, mega corp the government seems to listen to them and not go too hard (and they have scale to adjust), but turn over taxes on small businesses are crippling. Trying to grow from 2-3 people to 50 to 500 is brutal because of all these taxes on just existing rather than profit.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Just pay the fine and move on. Her Maj doesn't want to waste a day of her life in a room full of boy racers being lectured about the bleeding obvious.
So much bad advice.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
It depends on how much you value time (every minute is precious) compared to money (more than enough, thank the lord). This equation changes as you get older, so anyone who's been driving for 60 years may think differently to someone half their age. Last time I got a ticket I declared it on my insurance renewal and they said it makes no difference. This means the system actually works. With three points on my licence I became a little more cautious, and back in the day when I had six I was very cautious indeed. If I sold car insurance I'd consider offering a discount to anyone with nine points. They'll be the ones crawling along at 20mph in front of you.
Comments
We urgently need a government, of whatever stripe, that takes our public spending commitments seriously. Its a little hard to take Kemi at face value on this, given the profligacy of the last government, but she is at least acknowledging the existence of the problem.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
"Estelle Morris, the education secretary, sensationally resigned last night arguing that she was incapable of providing the right strategic management to run a big government department.
In an extraordinary confession, she also insisted: "I was not good at dealing with the modern media. I have not done the job as well as I should have done. ""
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/24/uk.schools2
(2002. A moment as rare as the one AndyJS describes.)
More disasters on the horizon.
BYD sold just 700 cars in Mexico in 2023 & then 40k in 2024. From Jan to May, it sold 28639 in Mexico. It expects to hit 80k mark sold overall in July...
https://x.com/tphuang/status/1938539833841848426
I desperately wanted Sunak to respond with, “yeah mate, I’ve been in the cabinet room when we’ve taken them out”.
He was like someone who has just gone tobogganing down Box Hill on a rare snowy day bragging to a chap who spends the ski season at their chalet in Aspen.
The big deal he had was that he was a top prosecutor and on top of brief and yet now he claims he didn’t read a speech prepared for him.
He brings zero to the table short of being not the Tories/Reform. No vision, no plan, no charisma, no political skills, just “not them”.
Here is their new model, and they think they can sell 750k of them in a single year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IMIDQOQzf4
All these Chinese cars come with masses of cameras, often LiDAR, advanced driver assist, etc etc etc.
Around 150 pro-Palestinian activists broke into the warehouses of a company in Tournai, Belgium, and vandalized armored vehicles… that were intended for Ukraine.
As part of the “Stop Arming Israel” campaign, the 150 “activists” destroyed the company’s offices with hammers before turning their rage on the armored vehicles inside the workshops.
The targeted company specializes in the maintenance, repair, and modernization of military vehicles. The damage is estimated at around one million euros.
Since the Russian invasion, the company has already delivered around 260 armored vehicles to the Ukrainian army...
https://x.com/HenMazzig/status/1937838551812465082
Do you want to have a think about that?
20 years and they found nothing on him... need to disinter Norris McWhirter to award a Guinness World Record for the longest overtime piss-take.
He's managed Trump pretty well.
He managed last summer's unrest pretty well.
The new workers' rights are welcome.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
Police: Was, there any reason you were doing 109mph sir?
Dura: I wasn't. Prove it.
Etc.
Unfortunately this is a fact I remember from the pre-internet era and I can find no evidence of this on the internet.
The problem is that McSweeney is working with very difficult material.
It isn't exactly rocket science to say riots are unacceptable and they will be punished with the full force of the law. And we already have special laws on the books for much harsher punishments for rioters.
CNN: Trump’s New Offer to Iran:
•$30B aid package for a civilian nuclear program (funded by Gulf Arab allies)
•No uranium enrichment allowed
•Release of Iran’s frozen $6B
•New nuclear site to replace Fordow, but without enrichment capabilities
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1938318525166166239
"Councillor Laila Cunningham
@policylaila
I can no longer defend 14 years of failure. I’ve left the Conservatives and joined
@reformparty_uk
to fight for real change — lower taxes, controlled borders, and putting Britain first.”
My letter 👇"
https://x.com/policylaila/status/1937043702125371712
The biggest problem (as I keep saying) they haven't done any homework and once you are in government stuff comes at your fast and you rarely get a break. The treadmill never stops, so you don't get a huge amount of time to be
considering a broad range of new policies ideasreading speeches.Could barely understand her.
She appears really quite painfully uncouth.
Astonishing that she is, in theory, the second most powerful person in the country.
The operation began in the mid-to-late 1990s after the CIA told its counterparts in British intelligence about its concerns...
There is a perception that her feisty nature is good for things like PMQs where she can sock it to the Tories for the 14 years of failure and the £15bn blackhole, on repeat. The modern day Two Jags.
Hard to precisely categorise now.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
And as often pointed out, Starmer himself is not actually interested in policy, economics, the country itself, or anything really.
He was on television day after day telling people they would be jailed, when some on the right were regularly recommending a more equivocal approach, and also made sure that scarce pedal resources were redirected so that trials could go ahead very quickly. All the while several figures on the right, like Jenrick and Farage, were equivocating..
Even some of the sensible hires like Patrick Vallance and Cobbler Timpson, they are absolutely invisible. Vallance big idea was much better use of public sector data to bring better productivity and efficiencies, but as I noted down thread it seems like the ONS has messed up their attempts at this and also will be seeing further cuts.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Governor Janet Mills' favorability is 51/41
Senator Susan Collins' is ... 14/57.
Among independents, Collins' favorability is a startling 8/60.
https://x.com/Taniel/status/1938360510061416696
Her level of "concern" must be off the charts, too.
His performance is government is just about as I expected. Continuity Sunakism with a less punchable face.
That’s been obvious from the beginning, hasn’t it?
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
I like (I think it was) Stephen Daldry, who was the only one who objected out loud to the punishment of that man who tweeted about Captain Tom, but most of them are just media tarts. These days it's all screaming-at-trans and metropolitan elite stuff. That bloke who sends in his travel postcards is sort of OK, but it's a small diamond amongst the very rough
Vallance and Timpson don’t have a chance.
Believe Blair’s first term timidity was in part an actual inability to wield governmental power. And that was in the late 90s before the various reforms which themselves empowered judges at the expense of the executive.
He’ll be what, 66, at the next GE? That’s hardly too old to fight one more. It would make him a tad older than most PMs during their time in office, but not severely so.
All he had to do was tell the civil service “Go”
Tom McTague reported this a couple weeks back in his New Statesman piece and Number 10 immediately said it wasn’t true … only for Keir Starmer to confirm it himself now.
This administration really does sometimes feel a bit like Boris Johnson’s.
https://x.com/stefan_boscia/status/1938547833575190866?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
The Devil takes Trump to three closed doors. "See if any of these activities float your boat and you can replace the person in question" says the Devil.
Trump looks inside door one and he sees Barack Obama diving into a swimming pool, swimming to the side, climbing out and then diving in again. "Do I have to do this for eternity?" questions Trump. "Yes" replies the Devil. "What with my bone spurs?" said Trump.
Trump moves on to door two. Inside he sees George Bush breaking rocks. "I can't break rocks for eternity, just look at my bone spurs" complains Trump.
Trump moves on to door three, and inside he sees Monica Lewinsky pleasuring Bill Clinton as is Monica's way. "Well I think I can handle that smiles a smug Trump". " Are you sure?" questions the Devil, "you bet" exclaims Trump. "OK Monica, you can go" said the Devil.
Also linked to Trump's growing unpopularity, as she regularly enables him without any real question.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
When I started taking the NS, I also took out a subscription to the Spectator in the interests of balance. I stopped it when I no longer needed it for the commute, all their regular columnists (apart from Matthew Parris) were, as far as I could tell, the same person ranting and raving about how awful everything is under the yoke of our socialist government (this was under Johnson) and when will we do Brexit properly? It doesn't seem like it's improved much since then. There were some good articles, possibly better than the NS but the rest didn't match up so when I no longer needed both I didn't have to think hard about which to drop.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
All cliffedges are bad as they result in nudge to not go beyond that.
https://www.ftla.uk/index.php?action=todayspost
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
TSE - where do you stand on the argument such comparisons, and all opinion pieces draped from them, are utter garbage, on basis data collected 1970’s was 2.2 party politics, data collected 2025 is 5 or in places more party politics?
It’s comparing apples with alligators, and psephologically foolish. a scientifically Meaningless comparison. And to hang an opinion piece from it, Journalistic drivel.
Compare to Cameron, who had young kids and his reputation for chillaxing, but everybody who worked with him, including civil servants who weren't politically big fans, said without fail red box done, everything signed off promptly, all documents read and understood ahead of time, etc.
On the second thing, my argument is that this is a classic behavioural economics issue. The situation is slightly better than before economically (although higher minimum wages, higher business rates, etc), but you have now put an artificial barrier in place, which we know people negatively react to. They don't look at the money saved from before, they will look at the extra money due if they expand. Tapering all the way up the scale is the solution.
Its a real problem in the UK economy. One man band isn't too bad, mega corp the government seems to listen to them and not go too hard (and they have scale to adjust), but turn over taxes on small businesses are crippling. Trying to grow from 2-3 people to 50 to 500 is brutal because of all these taxes on just existing rather than profit.
Ref 35%, Lab 31%, Grn 11%, Con 10%, LD 8%, Oth 4%.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52437-first-yougov-mrp-since-2024-election-shows-a-hung-parliament-with-reform-uk-as-largest-party