Farage is a big positive for Reform but that’s also a weakness for their election chances if his popularity falls .
The party is a one man band . For that reason I wouldn’t be writing off the Tories just yet .
They've led in the polls in the last 6 or 7 months, the 'Tories are finished' stuff is laughable. Immediacy bias. They might disintegrate. They might also win 160 seats next time and be either jointly in government or the opposition to a minority Reform or Labour administration.
Indeed, it is possible, indeed even arguably probable, that if the Tories are not back up to 20% in the polls by next summer and have terrible local, Holyrood and Senedd results in May then Badenoch will face a VONC from Tory MPs and likely lose it.
She would then probably be replaced by Cleverly, who should at least be able to get back nearly all the Sunak 2024 voters to the party
Betting on Ange's replacement continues to move one way on Betfair, albeit to small amounts.
Lucy Powell 1.32 Bridget Phillipson 4
or in old money, 1/3 and 3/1, giving implied chances of 75 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.
How on earth can they be making such a big mistake? Phillipson is hugely more impressive than Powell.
To describe either of them as impressive is somewhat more than overselling them - it's a contest between two utter non-entities, at the end of which it looks like one of them gets what's pretty much a non-job (given the DPM bit has gone to Lammy).
Should we consider another possibility for Tory MPs who can see their party circulating the plug-hole? Might some of them be tempted to defect leftwards, to the Lib Dems, or Labour? A few months ago I might have suggested one or two considering the Greens, but Mr Polanski has put the tin lid on that.
But, if the Tory Partty is in terminal decline (still unclear) and if some Tory MPs are careerist hacks (undoubtedly) then perhaps the remnants of the One Nation tendency might move elsewhere other than ReformUK.
A third of Tories would go LD, two thirds of Tories would go Reform if the Tories went extinct or near extinct and were taken over Canada style by Reform.
Barely any would go Labour, even Starmer Labour and as you say none would go Green
Kruger was a big beast inasmuch as there were any left in the Cons party. Good thinker, not my cup of tea but I get it.
Perhaps he thinks he can shape Reform around himself and the "drunken sailor spending" comment was one thing that made Reform approach him to define their spending plans rather than criticise them.
I doubt Nigel gives a flying fig about spending plans. His voters are all convinced that the mass expulsion of immigrants will rectify every financial problem. When that particular panacea fails to work under a Reform government, its leadership (as they did with Brexit) will just move on to something else.
(Guardian) ..The last question at the press conference came from my colleague Aletha Adu.
Q: [To Kruger] Do you take back your claim that Reform UK would spend money like drunken sailors?
Kruger said he was confident that the party would be able to come up with fully-costed, workable plans.
He said when he criticised Reform’s spending plans recently, he was referring to their welfare plans. But at the Reform conference, Farage committed the party to welfare reform, he said.
...
Farage ended by saying there would be a press conference next week where “we will show you how we propose to save huge amounts of money”.
Hopefully early next week so I'm around to watch the plans rapidly fall apart.
Danny Kruger, my goodness. Blanche has a Reform MP.
Pity, though Kruger is very socially conservative and an evangelical Christian, anti abortion, anti euthanasia and anti same sex marriage and hostile to much of Islam and economically very small state so no great surprise
Perfect fit for the narrow minded far right attracted to Farage
I am very pleased he has gone as that is not my conservative party, though it could be yours
The Tory Party can’t keep affording to lose people. If the response is “good riddance” every time someone defects then bit by bit it loses that broad church status and starts to serve a dwindling number of interests.
With one half of the party feeling more affinity with the LibDems, and the other half more affinity with ReFuk, what is the point of the Conservatives?
It is now the party of economically conservative, socially liberal voters ie more economically conservative than the LDs and more socially liberal than Reform
Given the spread of views on those two subjects in both Rerform and the Lib Dems, the window you are talking about between them appears to me to be vanishingly small.
Enough still to give them 18% of the vote even under Kemi.
Though if the Tories did cease to exist it would boost the Orange Book wing of the LDs as well as Reform
If the Tories ceased to exist, I'd expect Reform to be on c.40%, and the Lib Dems on c.20%.
Not far off, the LDs would be near level pegging with Labour on that scenario with Reform clearly in front though tactical voting against Farage would also be a factor
That's daft. "Confidence" is political judgement, not fact. You can have confidence in someone found to be a wrong'un as Boris had in Patel after being found in breach of the ministerial code.
Have we had any posts on why the Kruger defections puts more pressure on Starmer?
Well, off the top of my head ... it feels like a good news story for Reform? And we tend to believe good newa stories filter through to polling figures. And if Reforms lead increases, that makes a Labour win at the next election less likely.
Sonething like that? I certainly don't see that it helps Starmer. Not his fault, of course, this one. There's no way it can be chalked up to bad politics by Labour. But Labour's dream scenario is a split opposition: the more the oppositiom coalesces around the party which is ahead, the worse news for La our.
Farage is a big positive for Reform but that’s also a weakness for their election chances if his popularity falls .
The party is a one man band . For that reason I wouldn’t be writing off the Tories just yet .
They've led in the polls in the last 6 or 7 months, the 'Tories are finished' stuff is laughable. Immediacy bias. They might disintegrate. They might also win 160 seats next time and be either jointly in government or the opposition to a minority Reform or Labour administration.
Indeed, it is possible, indeed even arguably probable, that if the Tories are not back up to 20% in the polls by next summer and have terrible local, Holyrood and Senedd results in May then Badenoch will face a VONC from Tory MPs and likely lose it.
She would then probably be replaced by Cleverly, who should at least be able to get back nearly all the Sunak 2024 voters to the party
With a crowded field that we likely face, anything above the lowest 20s probably keeps Tories third at worst on treble figures of seats. How much work they have to get there depends in whether Find Out Now or Ashcroft (for example) are better modelling current voting projections. 35% in any constituency will win the majority of seats next time, 30% will win a fair few. The need to be in the 40s is gone, 30s for government, 20s for a good wodge of seats
Danny Kruger, my goodness. Blanche has a Reform MP.
Pity, though Kruger is very socially conservative and an evangelical Christian, anti abortion, anti euthanasia and anti same sex marriage and hostile to much of Islam and economically very small state so no great surprise
I'm not surprised by Kruger. He is a lynchpin of National Conservatism in the UK, which integrates religion and culture wars into politics. And he has made at least one speech in Parliament along those lines.
Imo there are a series of former MPs who are on a similar track to various extents - JRM (though more from a JD Vance angle, where JRM is John Cleese and JD Vance was Ronnie Corbett, but is now Ronnie Barker - he did not know his place), Miriam Cates, Daniel Kawczynski. Lee Anderson, of course, made the jump some time ago - though I think he was partly an opportunist.
Of sitting MPs, possibly Esther McVey. Or Suella Braverman as we have discussed - though there may be personal conflicts with Farage.
At a more "senior" level, Liz Truss and Michael Gove .. maybe. But Farage's need to dominate may interfere with those.
I'm not sure about Jenrick and Philp and Lam, who use the rhetoric.
Most of the above but JRM is a Tory to his bootstraps so would stay as long as the party exists as he has confirmed and Gove who is too liberal for Reform
An example: Amazon for a time refused to sell Ryan Anderson's book, When Harry Became Sally. I haven't checked recently to see if they are still following that policy.
(Oddly, they did not refuse to sell Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage.)
Analysts say the bilateral deal could play the role of a safety net for Korea’s foreign exchange market in case the country needs to gather the large investment sum in a short period of time.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the presidential office, the government recently made a proposal to the U.S. for an “unlimited” currency swap.
Seoul is seeking to revive a currency swap deal with Washington to help break through stalled talks over its $350 billion investment into the U.S. as part of tariff negotiations.
Analysts say the bilateral deal could play the role of a safety net for Korea’s foreign exchange market in case the country needs to gather the large investment sum in a short period of time.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the presidential office, the government recently made a proposal to the U.S. for an “unlimited” currency swap...
The pb Tories who did not bark in the night time. Is it just me who noticed that of all our party leaders, it is only Kemi who had a good week?
Keir Starmer – under attack from his own side over his lack of political judgement or even plain common sense when appointing and then backing up to the last moment Lord Mandelson who has now had to resign three times for what was, at least to a first approximation, the same pattern of behaviour, being entranced by men considerably richer than him: Geoffrey Robinson, the Hindujas, Jeffrey Epstein. (On second thoughts, who better to inveigle himself into the inner circle of a billionaire property developer and cryptocurrency grifter?)
Ed Davey – the honourable member for falling in the water is being criticised by his own side for irrelevant stunts.
Nigel Farage – stamp duty obviously but also risks being outflanked by Tommy Robinson who attracted somewhere north of 100,000 largely peaceful protestors to London, along with squillionaire cheque-writer Elon Musk.
Kemi Badenoch – widely praised for an excellent PMQs and now can lay claim to two top Labour scalps.
And where were pb's Conservatives? Arguing about crowd sizes and frantically trawling the interwebs for a culture war about the assassination of a man who this time last week they could not have picked out of a police line-up even if he wore his MAGA hat. Poor old Kemi.
I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday.
Two overrated things at the last election. Ed Davey's strategy and Morgan McSweeney's strategy. The results would have been roughly the same without either.
Have we had any posts on why the Kruger defections puts more pressure on Starmer?
Well, off the top of my head ... it feels like a good news story for Reform? And we tend to believe good newa stories filter through to polling figures. And if Reforms lead increases, that makes a Labour win at the next election less likely.
Sonething like that? I certainly don't see that it helps Starmer. Not his fault, of course, this one. There's no way it can be chalked up to bad politics by Labour. But Labour's dream scenario is a split opposition: the more the oppositiom coalesces around the party which is ahead, the worse news for La our.
The effect on Reform is a simple sum Does Danny Kruger attract more Tories (and others) than drive away the former non voters now Reform who do not want a Tory party mark 2 full of retreads?
Analysts say the bilateral deal could play the role of a safety net for Korea’s foreign exchange market in case the country needs to gather the large investment sum in a short period of time.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the presidential office, the government recently made a proposal to the U.S. for an “unlimited” currency swap.
Seoul is seeking to revive a currency swap deal with Washington to help break through stalled talks over its $350 billion investment into the U.S. as part of tariff negotiations.
Analysts say the bilateral deal could play the role of a safety net for Korea’s foreign exchange market in case the country needs to gather the large investment sum in a short period of time.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the presidential office, the government recently made a proposal to the U.S. for an “unlimited” currency swap...
You know those talks are stalled because after last week no-one in South Korea is going to go on secondment to a USA factory without African levels of danger money...
The pb Tories who did not bark in the night time. Is it just me who noticed that of all our party leaders, it is only Kemi who had a good week?
Keir Starmer – under attack from his own side over his lack of political judgement or even plain common sense when appointing and then backing up to the last moment Lord Mandelson who has now had to resign three times for what was, at least to a first approximation, the same pattern of behaviour, being entranced by men considerably richer than him: Geoffrey Robinson, the Hindujas, Jeffrey Epstein. (On second thoughts, who better to inveigle himself into the inner circle of a billionaire property developer and cryptocurrency grifter?)
Ed Davey – the honourable member for falling in the water is being criticised by his own side for irrelevant stunts.
Nigel Farage – stamp duty obviously but also risks being outflanked by Tommy Robinson who attracted somewhere north of 100,000 largely peaceful protestors to London, along with squillionaire cheque-writer Elon Musk.
Kemi Badenoch – widely praised for an excellent PMQs and now can lay claim to two top Labour scalps.
And where were pb's Conservatives? Arguing about crowd sizes and frantically trawling the interwebs for a culture war about the assassination of a man who this time last week they could not have picked out of a police line-up even if he wore his MAGA hat. Poor old Kemi.
I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday.
Two overrated things at the last election. Ed Davey's strategy and Morgan McSweeney's strategy. The results would have been roughly the same without either.
I very much doubt that. The LDs won almost everything they could possibly win. They get starved of publicity, so the stupid stunts were a brilliant way of getting publicity. OK it will have put some people off as being non serious, but if he hadn't done them those same people would have heard absolutely nothing from him. To say they would have been roughly the same, when there was little scope to do better seems odd.
Just had a picnic with a murderer. Yes ok he’s killed people but he makes excellent Sardinian crisp bread and fennel salami
What was in the picnic !!
A cheese that is, arguably, even more disgusting than the maggot cheese
Here’s how you make it. Take one milk fed lamb, let it gorge on milk, then immediately kill it, cut out the 2nd stomach full of milk, wash & dry it (with milk inside) then let it hang & cure. Eat the resulting cheese straight from the lamb’s stomach sac three months later
They make the cheese inside the stomach. Yes
It’s called Caglia. It is exceptionally rare. The only reason it hasn’t been banned by the EU is because probably they’ve never heard of it. This cheese is also prehistoric. This is probably how Stone Age men discovered cheese in the first place. Milk decaying in an animal’s stomach with natural rennet enzymes therein
We ate it with the murderer’s own wine (excellent cannonau) from his own vineyard. Deep deep deep in the supramonte mountains, an hour after visiting a unique nuragic human sacrifice water shrine
From many previous threads: For two centuries, many American leaders believed that the wide ownership of guns helped train men for combat -- should they be needed. It is not difficult to find examples to support that belief; one of the most famous is Audie Murphy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
Whether that belief makes sense with modern weapons is a question that Americans should think about, rationally. but we find it hard to do so.
For the record: When I was a teenager, I sometimes used the family shotgun to protect our cherries against birds, and I bought a .22 rifle to learn more about guns, but gave guns up at 18, when I went away to college.
Just had a picnic with a murderer. Yes ok he’s killed people but he makes excellent Sardinian crisp bread and fennel salami
What was in the picnic !!
A cheese that is, arguably, even more disgusting than the maggot cheese
Here’s how you make it. Take one milk fed lamb, let it gorge on milk, then immediately kill it, cut out the 2nd stomach full of milk, wash & dry it (with milk inside) then let it hang & cure. Eat the resulting cheese straight from the lamb’s stomach sac three months later
They make the cheese inside the stomach. Yes
It’s called Caglia. It is exceptionally rare. The only reason it hasn’t been banned by the EU is because probably they’ve never heard of it. This cheese is also prehistoric. This is probably how Stone Age men discovered cheese in the first place. Milk decaying in an animal’s stomach with natural rennet enzymes therein
We ate it with the murderer’s own wine (excellent cannonau) from his own vineyard. Deep deep deep in the supramonte mountains, an hour after visiting a unique nuragic human sacrifice water shrine
I am completely in love with Sardinia
I’m off on a cruise shortly and we have 6 hours in Cagliari.
I love my cheese, that sounds grim. Especially for the poor Lamb.
Just had a picnic with a murderer. Yes ok he’s killed people but he makes excellent Sardinian crisp bread and fennel salami
What was in the picnic !!
A cheese that is, arguably, even more disgusting than the maggot cheese
Here’s how you make it. Take one milk fed lamb, let it gorge on milk, then immediately kill it, cut out the 2nd stomach full of milk, wash & dry it (with milk inside) then let it hang & cure. Eat the resulting cheese straight from the lamb’s stomach sac three months later
They make the cheese inside the stomach. Yes
It’s called Caglia. It is exceptionally rare. The only reason it hasn’t been banned by the EU is because probably they’ve never heard of it. This cheese is also prehistoric. This is probably how Stone Age men discovered cheese in the first place. Milk decaying in an animal’s stomach with natural rennet enzymes therein
We ate it with the murderer’s own wine (excellent cannonau) from his own vineyard. Deep deep deep in the supramonte mountains, an hour after visiting a unique nuragic human sacrifice water shrine
I am completely in love with Sardinia
I’m off on a cruise shortly and we have 6 hours in Cagliari.
I love my cheese, that sounds grim. Especially for the poor Lamb.
The lamb stomach sac cheese is impossibly hard to find. Even for Sardinians. I lucked out massively
Maggot cheese can be found if you get the right guide and tour company. They know bold tourists want to try it because Antony Bourdain ate it on tv etc
On Labour, 3/1 is a very good price for Phillipson to win DL, so I've had a punt. I've no idea what the bookies' odds are based on, as nobody inside Labour has a clue as to who will win. Members (like me) haven't really started to discuss it yet. Rationally, it's 50:50 at the moment, but on the grounds that Phillipson is a much better performer than Powell, and the hustings, interviews and so on have yet to start, I'd make her narrow favourite. She also has the advantage of being able to sell solid achievements in government - child care, breakfast clubs, VAT on posh school fees etc. Powell? Not so much.
Politically, there's nothing between them at all - both sensible left - though I guess Phillipson may feel the need to stay more loyal to the leadership during the campaign because of her Cabinet position.
He's probably recommending that because the US economy is doing so well due to his fantastic leadership. If only we could have someone as wise, like say Farage, running our country, then we too could say that government stats are lies, and companies are doing great but they aren't allowed to tell us.
Just had a picnic with a murderer. Yes ok he’s killed people but he makes excellent Sardinian crisp bread and fennel salami
What was in the picnic !!
A cheese that is, arguably, even more disgusting than the maggot cheese
Here’s how you make it. Take one milk fed lamb, let it gorge on milk, then immediately kill it, cut out the 2nd stomach full of milk, wash & dry it (with milk inside) then let it hang & cure. Eat the resulting cheese straight from the lamb’s stomach sac three months later
They make the cheese inside the stomach. Yes
It’s called Caglia. It is exceptionally rare. The only reason it hasn’t been banned by the EU is because probably they’ve never heard of it. This cheese is also prehistoric. This is probably how Stone Age men discovered cheese in the first place. Milk decaying in an animal’s stomach with natural rennet enzymes therein
We ate it with the murderer’s own wine (excellent cannonau) from his own vineyard. Deep deep deep in the supramonte mountains, an hour after visiting a unique nuragic human sacrifice water shrine
I am completely in love with Sardinia
I’m off on a cruise shortly and we have 6 hours in Cagliari.
I love my cheese, that sounds grim. Especially for the poor Lamb.
The lamb stomach sac cheese is impossibly hard to find. Even for Sardinians. I lucked out massively
Maggot cheese can be found if you get the right guide and tour company. They know bold tourists want to try it because Antony Bourdain ate it on tv etc
I went beyond Bourdain. Heh
Gordon Ramsay had maggot cheese when he was working on a C4 show too.
Kruger was a big beast inasmuch as there were any left in the Cons party. Good thinker, not my cup of tea but I get it.
Perhaps he thinks he can shape Reform around himself and the "drunken sailor spending" comment was one thing that made Reform approach him to define their spending plans rather than criticise them.
There are of course two separate questions about Reform: Can they win the election? And, secondly, How will they govern?
People who join them because they can win are not all that interesting. If people start joining them because they can help sort a programme which can deal with the hard questions, they would be interesting.
The hard questions are almost always the ones you don't intend to ask or be asked in public. For Reform the hard questions are not about boats and migration - with massive effort they can if they really want to more or less close our borders.
The hard questions are about: Growth, investment, borrowing, debt, deficit, tax, spend, the post WWII social democratic consensus in which the Reform voters of Clacton, Boston and Skegness get free stuff that they like.
Personally I don't think Reform are the sort of threat Trump is; I don't think they plan to abolish free and fair elections, but the hard questions they are not dealing with are quite enough for now. Decent journalists need to get on the case and not let go.
Farage admires Trump. Farage hero-worships Trump. I imagine Farage, thus, wants to do the same as Trump.
Doesn't PB realise Burnham is a very popular mayor of three million people? (Indeed one opined that he assumed he was as popular as Khan, just the other day). I believe @cookie who is not a Labour supporter will confirm this. I mean. He wasn't over successful as a Minister under Brown. But then who was? And that was 15 years ago.
I’d reply that: Yes, I’m not a Labour supporter, and yes, he is indeed a popular mayor. Remarkably, at the last mayoral election, he came first in every single ward in Greater Manchester. From a personal point of view, I’d say he’s been a good advocate of GM’s interests, and while for my tastes he has an occasional tendency to wander into the sort of left-wing concerns that the party would be electorally advised to keep away from, he’s definitely not as bad as many in the Labour party in that respect. And name recognition is hugely important. I’d qualify that as following: - The last mayoral election was held at a time when Labour were doing pretty well in the polls and hoovered up anti-Tory votes. - Reform appear to have grown a lot in GM since then, winning several traditionally-Labour wards at by-elections. - I think he’d suffer something of a backlash if he were to resign the mayoralty for a crack at national party leadership.
I’ve seen (and indulged in!) speculation about a few potential seats for engineered by-eelctions: Denton and Gorton (with his Whatsapply-embarassed friend Andrew Gwynne standing down in his favour); Blackley and Middleton South (speculation of a ‘Manchester MP standing down due to ill health’ – Graham Stringer seems suspect #1 for this) and Manchester Central (in some sort of mayoralty-for-seat swapsie arrangement with Lucy Powell – can’t see this one myself). I’d say taking into account the above, Andy Burnham SHOULD win any of these – but only Manchester Central is 100% nailed on – for either of the others I’d be on Reform if the odds were 3-1 or more generous.
Ok im getting bored looking but Thirsk and Malton has Filey (6981) as its largest town. Thirsk is under 5000 civil parish (but 10k 'built up area')
So a fair few rural seats with 6 to 10k largest towns
Which are really large villages
Filey has a town council. It isnt a village. Large or otherwise . Ditto Thirsk
In US terms anywhere with a population under 10,000 is classified as no longer even a small town but rural
Why would I use US terms? The Megalopolis of Epping Forest be damned
Loughton, Epping, Waltham Abbey, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill are all towns not villages even on that US definition.
Loughton is even a medium sized town on the UK government definition and too big to be a small town (essentially it is an Outer London suburb in most respects)
The South Stafforshire constituency had a largest town of Womborne with a population of about 14,000 IIRC. But it's been altered by the most recent boundary changes.
Apparently Marlborough, population 9,129 (2021 Census), is the largest town in the constituency
What's the smallest largest town in a UK constituency?
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale? (Annan 8760) is an early contender Na h'eilean etc is a cheat as too small (Stornoway 4000 odd)
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Thurso 7500 or so)
Weald of Kent (Tenterden 8186) and Katie Lam in England a good one
Lam has lots of SPAD experience in the last Government, which may be a positive or maybe a negative.
How would Reformers view a single lady as their MP ?
I’d been trying to remember where I had come across Katie Lam before. Then I remembered: I shared a panel with her (plus another MP and a think tanker) at the last Tory conference.
As others have commented, there was definitely a bit of a Thatcher tribute vibe going on there with the clothes and hairdo.
On the rally, I think the Brotherhood of Christ hoodie people are linked to a New Zealand fundamentalist preacher called Brian Raymond Tamaki, and have flown in to show support and promote themselves. He embraces far-right type politics, nationalism, anti-vax type conspiracy theories, and so on. And for tying his politics tightly into his theology, which is a mark of Christian Nationalism.
His core setup is known as "Destiny Church".
From wiki: Founded by Tamaki in the 1980s, the Destiny Church is known for its position against homosexuality, its patriarchal views, and for its calls for a return to biblical conservative family values and morals. Tamaki has also stated the COVID-19 pandemic is a sign the world has "strayed from God".[3] This, alongside many comments he has made, has made him a controversial figure in New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki
On the rally, I think the Brotherhood of Christ hoodie people are linked to a New Zealand fundamentalist preacher called Brian Raymond Tamaki, and have flown in to show support and promote themselves. He embraces far-right type politics, nationalism, anti-vax type conspiracy theories, and so on. And for tying his politics tightly into his theology, which is a mark of Christian Nationalism.
His core setup is known as "Destiny Church".
From wiki: Founded by Tamaki in the 1980s, the Destiny Church is known for its position against homosexuality, its patriarchal views, and for its calls for a return to biblical conservative family values and morals. Tamaki has also stated the COVID-19 pandemic is a sign the world has "strayed from God".[3] This, alongside many comments he has made, has made him a controversial figure in New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki
So there's more than one B of C? As well as the Christian Brotherhood, the Christian Brothers ...
Apparently Marlborough, population 9,129 (2021 Census), is the largest town in the constituency
What's the smallest largest town in a UK constituency?
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale? (Annan 8760) is an early contender Na h'eilean etc is a cheat as too small (Stornoway 4000 odd)
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Thurso 7500 or so)
Weald of Kent (Tenterden 8186) and Katie Lam in England a good one
Lam has lots of SPAD experience in the last Government, which may be a positive or maybe a negative.
How would Reformers view a single lady as their MP ?
I’d been trying to remember where I had come across Katie Lam before. Then I remembered: I shared a panel with her (plus another MP and a think tanker) at the last Tory conference.
As others have commented, there was definitely a bit of a Thatcher tribute vibe going on there with the clothes and hairdo.
I first noticed her when she repeated one of Philp's lines almost word-for-word in Parliament.
OOOOOOH. I wonder if this is related to what I heard t’other day
Mandys revenge perhaps
Tbh there is now so much murkiness surrounding starmer it could be any of half a dozen things. Or something entirely new. A defection? A resignation? A baleful rumour?
On the rally, I think the Brotherhood of Christ hoodie people are linked to a New Zealand fundamentalist preacher called Brian Raymond Tamaki, and have flown in to show support and promote themselves. He embraces far-right type politics, nationalism, anti-vax type conspiracy theories, and so on. And for tying his politics tightly into his theology, which is a mark of Christian Nationalism.
His core setup is known as "Destiny Church".
From wiki: Founded by Tamaki in the 1980s, the Destiny Church is known for its position against homosexuality, its patriarchal views, and for its calls for a return to biblical conservative family values and morals. Tamaki has also stated the COVID-19 pandemic is a sign the world has "strayed from God".[3] This, alongside many comments he has made, has made him a controversial figure in New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki
So there's more than one B of C? As well as the Christian Brotherhood, the Christian Brothers ...
There's a lot more than that, the Christian Brothers being a Roman Catholic something (Order?) famous for running schools in Ireland where pupils were I think caned and physically abused for may decades.
The one to really take care with is "Turning Point UK", because there are least two mental health / disability charities using almost identical names.
Betting on Ange's replacement continues to move one way on Betfair, albeit to small amounts.
Lucy Powell 1.32 Bridget Phillipson 4
or in old money, 1/3 and 3/1, giving implied chances of 75 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.
How on earth can they be making such a big mistake? Phillipson is hugely more impressive than Powell.
I think punters are getting carried away by all this Burnham ramping mischief making in the right wing press.
I'll be voting for Bridget - the choice of both heart (lad from The Heed voting for a lass from The Heed) and head (a much more accomplished politician than her opponent).
On the rally, I think the Brotherhood of Christ hoodie people are linked to a New Zealand fundamentalist preacher called Brian Raymond Tamaki, and have flown in to show support and promote themselves. He embraces far-right type politics, nationalism, anti-vax type conspiracy theories, and so on. And for tying his politics tightly into his theology, which is a mark of Christian Nationalism.
His core setup is known as "Destiny Church".
From wiki: Founded by Tamaki in the 1980s, the Destiny Church is known for its position against homosexuality, its patriarchal views, and for its calls for a return to biblical conservative family values and morals. Tamaki has also stated the COVID-19 pandemic is a sign the world has "strayed from God".[3] This, alongside many comments he has made, has made him a controversial figure in New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki
So there's more than one B of C? As well as the Christian Brotherhood, the Christian Brothers ...
(May have replied to an earlier post, but this was intended for you so I'll leave it here.)
The big difference from more traditional Evangelical or Political Conservatism in that view (and in CHarlie Kirk's ideology) is that the two are heavily integrated, and the religious language and altar calls and so on are used to embed a religious-level of belief in a political message. It was a hallmark of Charlie Kirk's national tours to events in the mega-churches when he developed "Turning Point Faith"; he would use the style, setting, music and messaging of what the USA calls "Revivals" to drive White Evangelicals to his politics. The driver is fear of the loss of white, Christian America which builds on traditional Evangelical Conservative politics.
I've been reflecting on how I could do a header (or several headers) to show how his campaigns worked, but PB is a British community where we don't really "get" how the USA does religion, or the traditions that made it what it is.
The best comparison for Kirk is probably Father Coughlin, who built up a radio audience of 20% of the US population in the 1930s for his support for Mussolini etc, but Coughlin did not have a national organisation. One of Kirk's messages is that Church should control State in a "Christian USA", which is Christian Nationalism and requires essentially a new Constitution. The tradition has always been there, but the framers of the Constitution rejected it.
There's a good set of podcasts from earlier this year about what happened in White Evangelical churches - an internal culture war, but it's 6 x 40 minute episodes. A good place to start would be the "Tale of Two Churches" episode.
Comments
She would then probably be replaced by Cleverly, who should at least be able to get back nearly all the Sunak 2024 voters to the party
Barely any would go Labour, even Starmer Labour and as you say none would go Green
Donald Trump calls on US companies to ditch quarterly reporting
US president says taking a quarterly view on company is ‘not good’
https://www.ft.com/content/d5d46365-a2ad-41ee-9c6b-6f382e8d1ce8
Sonething like that? I certainly don't see that it helps Starmer.
Not his fault, of course, this one. There's no way it can be chalked up to bad politics by Labour. But Labour's dream scenario is a split opposition: the more the oppositiom coalesces around the party which is ahead, the worse news for La our.
35% in any constituency will win the majority of seats next time, 30% will win a fair few. The need to be in the 40s is gone, 30s for government, 20s for a good wodge of seats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Hentoff
An example: Amazon for a time refused to sell Ryan Anderson's book, When Harry Became Sally. I haven't checked recently to see if they are still following that policy.
(Oddly, they did not refuse to sell Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage.)
Currency swap to help minimize impact from $350 bil. US investment
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/economy/20250915/currency-swap-to-help-minimize-impact-from-350-bil-us-investment-analysts
Seoul is seeking to revive a currency swap deal with Washington to help break through stalled talks over its $350 billion investment into the U.S. as part of tariff negotiations.
Analysts say the bilateral deal could play the role of a safety net for Korea’s foreign exchange market in case the country needs to gather the large investment sum in a short period of time.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the presidential office, the government recently made a proposal to the U.S. for an “unlimited” currency swap.
Seoul is seeking to revive a currency swap deal with Washington to help break through stalled talks over its $350 billion investment into the U.S. as part of tariff negotiations.
Analysts say the bilateral deal could play the role of a safety net for Korea’s foreign exchange market in case the country needs to gather the large investment sum in a short period of time.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the presidential office, the government recently made a proposal to the U.S. for an “unlimited” currency swap...
Does Danny Kruger attract more Tories (and others) than drive away the former non voters now Reform who do not want a Tory party mark 2 full of retreads?
What's the smallest largest town in a UK constituency?
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/adabbf738ca14bd6b8d5391b5be69fb9
I like her a lot.
Talking of which Trevor Phillips was on WATO. He was bloody awful!
(I know BigG is quite a fan)
How do you kill a circus?
Go for the Juggler...
Na h'eilean etc is a cheat as too small (Stornoway 4000 odd)
Here’s how you make it. Take one milk fed lamb, let it gorge on milk, then immediately kill it, cut out the 2nd stomach full of milk, wash & dry it (with milk inside) then let it hang & cure. Eat the resulting cheese straight from the lamb’s stomach sac three months later
They make the cheese inside the stomach. Yes
It’s called Caglia. It is exceptionally rare. The only reason it hasn’t been banned by the EU is because probably they’ve never heard of it. This cheese is also prehistoric. This is probably how Stone Age men discovered cheese in the first place. Milk decaying in an animal’s stomach with natural rennet enzymes therein
We ate it with the murderer’s own wine (excellent cannonau) from his own vineyard. Deep deep deep in the supramonte mountains, an hour after visiting a unique nuragic human sacrifice water shrine
I am completely in love with Sardinia
Did not one of the senior leaders have a model farm in the Third Reich?
Whether that belief makes sense with modern weapons is a question that Americans should think about, rationally. but we find it hard to do so.
For the record: When I was a teenager, I sometimes used the family shotgun to protect our cherries against birds, and I bought a .22 rifle to learn more about guns, but gave guns up at 18, when I went away to college.
I love my cheese, that sounds grim. Especially for the poor Lamb.
Maggot cheese can be found if you get the right guide and tour company. They know bold tourists want to try it because Antony Bourdain ate it on tv etc
I went beyond Bourdain. Heh
So a fair few rural seats with 6 to 10k largest towns
Steyning and Storrington both about 6000
How would Reformers view a single lady as their MP ?
Politically, there's nothing between them at all - both sensible left - though I guess Phillipson may feel the need to stay more loyal to the leadership during the campaign because of her Cabinet position.
Reform fanatic thinks reform defection is huge for reform shocker
https://bsky.app/profile/alastairmeeks.bsky.social/post/3lyule3dcfs2g
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulborough
Yes, I’m not a Labour supporter, and yes, he is indeed a popular mayor. Remarkably, at the last mayoral election, he came first in every single ward in Greater Manchester. From a personal point of view, I’d say he’s been a good advocate of GM’s interests, and while for my tastes he has an occasional tendency to wander into the sort of left-wing concerns that the party would be electorally advised to keep away from, he’s definitely not as bad as many in the Labour party in that respect. And name recognition is hugely important.
I’d qualify that as following:
- The last mayoral election was held at a time when Labour were doing pretty well in the polls and hoovered up anti-Tory votes.
- Reform appear to have grown a lot in GM since then, winning several traditionally-Labour wards at by-elections.
- I think he’d suffer something of a backlash if he were to resign the mayoralty for a crack at national party leadership.
I’ve seen (and indulged in!) speculation about a few potential seats for engineered by-eelctions: Denton and Gorton (with his Whatsapply-embarassed friend Andrew Gwynne standing down in his favour); Blackley and Middleton South (speculation of a ‘Manchester MP standing down due to ill health’ – Graham Stringer seems suspect #1 for this) and Manchester Central (in some sort of mayoralty-for-seat swapsie arrangement with Lucy Powell – can’t see this one myself). I’d say taking into account the above, Andy Burnham SHOULD win any of these – but only Manchester Central is 100% nailed on – for either of the others I’d be on Reform if the odds were 3-1 or more generous.
The government defines a UK small town as having a population between 7,500 and 24,999. A population under 7,500 is a village
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8322/#:~:text=How does the classification work,Frith, Cottenham, Menai Bridge)
The Megalopolis of Epping Forest be damned
Loughton is even a medium sized town on the UK government definition and too big to be a small town (essentially it is an Outer London suburb in most respects)
If Reform have got a new MP doesn’t one of the others have to resign due to a scandal? Isn’t that the rule?
I’ve just been googling his criminal record. Wow
No wonder he’s not that fussed about making illegal cheese. Serious bad boy
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1967577924934172846?s=19
"(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
Keir Starmer's problems are about to get a whole lot worse I understand.
2:15 PM · Sep 15, 2025"
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1967577924934172846
As others have commented, there was definitely a bit of a Thatcher tribute vibe going on there with the clothes and hairdo.
His core setup is known as "Destiny Church".
From wiki:
Founded by Tamaki in the 1980s, the Destiny Church is known for its position against homosexuality, its patriarchal views, and for its calls for a return to biblical conservative family values and morals. Tamaki has also stated the COVID-19 pandemic is a sign the world has "strayed from God".[3] This, alongside many comments he has made, has made him a controversial figure in New Zealand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tamaki
Twitter. Photo in the tweet.
Over 100 Kiwis have flown in from New Zealand to be here at Unite the Kingdom - Commonwealth Faith Family Freedom of Speech. God Speed.
#CharlieKirkshot #UniteTheKingdom @Advanceuk_wales @_AdvanceUK @TRobinsonNewEra @VoWalesOfficial
https://x.com/StanVoWales/status/1966839601093636548
The one to really take care with is "Turning Point UK", because there are least two mental health / disability charities using almost identical names.
NEW THREAD
I'll be voting for Bridget - the choice of both heart (lad from The Heed voting for a lass from The Heed) and head (a much more accomplished politician than her opponent).
Our MP is a Powellite.
The big difference from more traditional Evangelical or Political Conservatism in that view (and in CHarlie Kirk's ideology) is that the two are heavily integrated, and the religious language and altar calls and so on are used to embed a religious-level of belief in a political message. It was a hallmark of Charlie Kirk's national tours to events in the mega-churches when he developed "Turning Point Faith"; he would use the style, setting, music and messaging of what the USA calls "Revivals" to drive White Evangelicals to his politics. The driver is fear of the loss of white, Christian America which builds on traditional Evangelical Conservative politics.
I've been reflecting on how I could do a header (or several headers) to show how his campaigns worked, but PB is a British community where we don't really "get" how the USA does religion, or the traditions that made it what it is.
The best comparison for Kirk is probably Father Coughlin, who built up a radio audience of 20% of the US population in the 1930s for his support for Mussolini etc, but Coughlin did not have a national organisation. One of Kirk's messages is that Church should control State in a "Christian USA", which is Christian Nationalism and requires essentially a new Constitution. The tradition has always been there, but the framers of the Constitution rejected it.
There's a good set of podcasts from earlier this year about what happened in White Evangelical churches - an internal culture war, but it's 6 x 40 minute episodes. A good place to start would be the "Tale of Two Churches" episode.
https://www.ruthbraunstein.com/podcast
You coward.