Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
Fascinated by the Hegseth ‘office junior accidentally gets to be the boss for a day, gets carried away’ vibe of this speech www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... where he’s apparently summoned a load of generals in the middle of escalating tension with Russia just to say they’re fatter than him?
Hegseth appears to be quite popular with the retired junior ranks, rather than the brass hats who were in the room. He’s apparently been talking to a lot of active junior officers and enlists, which is where the idea of reading the riot act to the brass hats originated.
One example, replying to a critical journalist, that has over 2m views: https://x.com/cynicalpublius/status/1973094695996887166 Today's speech by Secretary Hegseth was both entirely necessary and entirely spectacular. Those of us rank and file who fought in the wars you and your yellow, slobbering neocon chickenhawk buddies sent us off to die in applaud this effort with the utmost enthusiasm. These clownish, dangerous, senior generals and admirals have been the architects of American military failure for 20+ years. Their silence is indicative of nothing more than the fact that they know the gig is up and their fatcat days of being Perfumed Princes are no more. So howzabout you shut your trap and let us warriors decide what this speech meant? Good day, sir.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
But unlike Kier Starmer, John Major was actually a very fun and apparently very charismatic man off radar, only he was never able to convey that to the UK public! I still remember the very cutting Spitting Image portrayal of him as the grey boring man pushing peas around his plate! And I also still remember pottering around my kitchen tidying up and listening to Five Live late one Saturday night for the Sunday paper review and disappointed Edwina Curry had taken the weekend off until the news broke of her memoirs being serialised and the shock in the radio station when the first big revelation was her affair with John Major, no wonder she took the time off presenting that weekend!
I have a very electic range of political books that I have been gathering over the last thirty years, and most of them have not been sycophantic memoirs from tribally favourable politicians, and I have collected some great political/foreign journalists books as well. I highly recommend John Simpson's various books on his foreign jaunts as journalist during the many years he has worked for the BBC as well as his own memoir even if I didn't always agree with his views, and I really enjoyed Labour MP Chris Mullin's A View From The Foothills.
But I put off bothering to read John Major's autobiography for a while thinking it would be a bit boring and very depressing considering what happened between 1992-1997. But it just goes to show you cannot judge a book by its cover and his early life and journey into politics had me both surprised and hooked and that was when I realised I should not have been shocked about the affair with Edwina Curry! He was a dark horse, and it ended up being no surprise he stood up to Magaret Thatcher and then got her backing for the leadership. Something tells me that Keir Starmer will not be able to produce such an interesting back story despite his claim to be the son of tool maker when he retires from frontline politics .
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
Fascinated by the Hegseth ‘office junior accidentally gets to be the boss for a day, gets carried away’ vibe of this speech www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... where he’s apparently summoned a load of generals in the middle of escalating tension with Russia just to say they’re fatter than him?
Hegseth appears to be quite popular with the retired junior ranks, rather than the brass hats who were in the room. He’s apparently been talking to a lot of active junior officers and enlists, which is where the idea of reading the riot act to the brass hats originated.
One example, replying to a critical journalist, that has over 2m views: https://x.com/cynicalpublius/status/1973094695996887166 Today's speech by Secretary Hegseth was both entirely necessary and entirely spectacular. Those of us rank and file who fought in the wars you and your yellow, slobbering neocon chickenhawk buddies sent us off to die in applaud this effort with the utmost enthusiasm. These clownish, dangerous, senior generals and admirals have been the architects of American military failure for 20+ years. Their silence is indicative of nothing more than the fact that they know the gig is up and their fatcat days of being Perfumed Princes are no more. So howzabout you shut your trap and let us warriors decide what this speech meant? Good day, sir.
I might suggest that someone who uses the phrase "slobbering neocon chickenhawk buddies" does not come across as the most insightful or reasoned commenter...
In fact, it's the sort of thing a Russian troll might say.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
Fascinated by the Hegseth ‘office junior accidentally gets to be the boss for a day, gets carried away’ vibe of this speech www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... where he’s apparently summoned a load of generals in the middle of escalating tension with Russia just to say they’re fatter than him?
Hegseth appears to be quite popular with the retired junior ranks, rather than the brass hats who were in the room. He’s apparently been talking to a lot of active junior officers and enlists, which is where the idea of reading the riot act to the brass hats originated.
One example, replying to a critical journalist, that has over 2m views: https://x.com/cynicalpublius/status/1973094695996887166 Today's speech by Secretary Hegseth was both entirely necessary and entirely spectacular. Those of us rank and file who fought in the wars you and your yellow, slobbering neocon chickenhawk buddies sent us off to die in applaud this effort with the utmost enthusiasm. These clownish, dangerous, senior generals and admirals have been the architects of American military failure for 20+ years. Their silence is indicative of nothing more than the fact that they know the gig is up and their fatcat days of being Perfumed Princes are no more. So howzabout you shut your trap and let us warriors decide what this speech meant? Good day, sir.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
Instead, they're being gaslit by the racists - and I use that word knowingly - into thinking that immigrants are the cause of all the problems. I don't have a job, not because I didn't work hard at school, but because of immigrants. Rapes are not done by people like me, but by immigrants. The litter is on the streets not because I just dropped my McDonalds wrapper on the verge, but because of immigrants.
There is zero balance; no acknowledgement of all the immigrants who help our country.
In short, the talk is that immigrants are the enemy. And it's not just the illegal immigrants: it's all immigrants.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
Instead, they're being gaslit by the racists - and I use that word knowingly - into thinking that immigrants are the cause of all the problems. I don't have a job, not because I didn't work hard at school, but because of immigrants. Rapes are not done by people like me, but by immigrants. The litter is on the streets not because I just dropped my McDonalds wrapper on the verge, but because of immigrants.
There is zero balance; no acknowledgement of all the immigrants who help our country.
In short, the talk is that immigrants are the enemy. And it's not just the illegal immigrants: it's all immigrants.
And that's simply wrong.
Morning, P.B.
Yes, this is entirely correct. But it cannot be fully understood by the public until the process behind it is acknowledged.
A key segment of extremely wealthy people have made this choice, because it deflects so much blame for the more negative and unpopular aspects of the post-Thatcherite and post-Reaganite settlements.
This tactic actively needs people like Paul.Marshall, the Koch brothers, Crispin Odey, or Trump himself, who have personally contributed billions to the deflection process.
Fascinated by the Hegseth ‘office junior accidentally gets to be the boss for a day, gets carried away’ vibe of this speech www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... where he’s apparently summoned a load of generals in the middle of escalating tension with Russia just to say they’re fatter than him?
The most important meeting in the entire 6 or so months of this administration.
The largest collection of US generals in decades did not clap like circus seals on prozac as Hegseth and Trump did their faux hard green beret vaudeville act.
They remained silent.
The line has been drawn imho - its subtle but clear - and Trump would be very very stupid to push this further.
The military is the only institution remaining between Trump and a dictatorship. That the meeting was called is extremely worrying; that the military kept its composure in the face of a clear attempt to compromise its political independence is reassuring.
Another view on Hesketh from a genuine retired US Army man, who is also steadfastly in favour of Ukraine:
"pete drunk sec of war wants 60 year old 4 star generals with decades of combat exp to pass a PT test or get out....
do you know how much combat experience we are about to lose???
peace time armies are notorious at promoting shit bags as long as they can get a 300 on the PT test.. in the 1990s that was nearly the only thing that mattered.. and the army promoted many sub standard troops due to that metric."
Not forgetting Musk himself, ofcourse, deflecting vast amounts of blame, and frustration at inequality and personal blocks on the road to opportunity, away from vast wealth.
A very interesting conversation about the Nayanayhu / Trump "peace plan" from The Rest is Politics.
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart have some significant experience of peace plans in other arenas, from Northern Ireland to Iraq and the Balkans.
They are good on identifying the black holes in the deal, that are usually essential to success.
(To my eye this is like the early attempted Trump-Putin 'deals' in Ukraine - set up entirely over the heads of one side, with the intention to impose it on that party.)
I watched the longer version of that video, and I think Gary almost assumes that Reform will win the next Election. 3+ years is a long time in politics, as we know here.
"Are you saying I'm X?" in as outraged a voice as possible is a standard bit of deflection. There will be thousands of instances of it in secondary schools across the land today.
The aim is to make it uncomfortable to probe whether x is going on.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
That's only one Farage "view", and Farage has no viable policy to address it.
It's Labour's to win or lose, and Farage is just a shouty spectator in a clown car with a megaphone, shit-stirring because there is nothing else he can do.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
But unlike Kier Starmer, John Major was actually a very fun and apparently very charismatic man off radar, only he was never able to convey that to the UK public! I still remember the very cutting Spitting Image portrayal of him as the grey boring man pushing peas around his plate! And I also still remember pottering around my kitchen tidying up and listening to Five Live late one Saturday night for the Sunday paper review and disappointed Edwina Curry had taken the weekend off until the news broke of her memoirs being serialised and the shock in the radio station when the first big revelation was her affair with John Major, no wonder she took the time off presenting that weekend!
I have a very electic range of political books that I have been gathering over the last thirty years, and most of them have not been sycophantic memoirs from tribally favourable politicians, and I have collected some great political/foreign journalists books as well. I highly recommend John Simpson's various books on his foreign jaunts as journalist during the many years he has worked for the BBC as well as his own memoir even if I didn't always agree with his views, and I really enjoyed Labour MP Chris Mullin's A View From The Foothills.
But I put off bothering to read John Major's autobiography for a while thinking it would be a bit boring and very depressing considering what happened between 1992-1997. But it just goes to show you cannot judge a book by its cover and his early life and journey into politics had me both surprised and hooked and that was when I realised I should not have been shocked about the affair with Edwina Curry! He was a dark horse, and it ended up being no surprise he stood up to Magaret Thatcher and then got her backing for the leadership. Something tells me that Keir Starmer will not be able to produce such an interesting back story despite his claim to be the son of tool maker when he retires from frontline politics .
I always remember, from the time before he became PM, that one of my close friends was working directly to Major inside the civil service on some project or other, and he said that Major was the most intelligent and thoughtful politician he had met. Which surprised us at the time, if reducing ever so slightly the surprise when he went on to become PM.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
That's only one Farage "view", and Farage has no viable policy to address it.
It's Labour's to win or lose, and Farage is just a shouty spectator in a clown car, shit-stirring because there is nothing else he can do.
Elections are always the Government's to win or lose. Thankfully for Reform (but sadly for the nation) this Government is the shittest in living history, and is becoming uniformally loathed.
"Are you saying I'm X?" in as outraged a voice as possible is a standard bit of deflection. There will be thousands of instances of it in secondary schools across the land today.
The aim is to make it uncomfortable to probe whether x is going on.
That's the common playbook when I listen to a bit of GB News in the car, to avoid them looking in the mirror at themselves, and keep their listeners siloed.
"X called us far right." "Are we Nazis". Followed by 2-3 minutes of GB News presenter and panel gibbering away to themselves refuting the straw man they just created that they might be Nazis.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
Instead, they're being gaslit by the racists - and I use that word knowingly - into thinking that immigrants are the cause of all the problems. I don't have a job, not because I didn't work hard at school, but because of immigrants. Rapes are not done by people like me, but by immigrants. The litter is on the streets not because I just dropped my McDonalds wrapper on the verge, but because of immigrants.
There is zero balance; no acknowledgement of all the immigrants who help our country.
In short, the talk is that immigrants are the enemy. And it's not just the illegal immigrants: it's all immigrants.
And that's simply wrong.
Morning, P.B.
Yes, this is entirely correct. But it cannot be fully understood by the public until the process behind it is acknowledged.
A key segment of extremely wealthy people have made this choice, because it deflects so much blame for the more negative and unpopular aspects of the post-Thatcherite and post-Reaganite settlements.
This tactic actively needs people like Paul.Marshall, the Koch brothers, Crispin Odey, or Trump himself, who have personally contributed billions to the deflection process.
People on the pro- immigrant side (such as myself) need to acknowledge that immigration was used for wage suppression.
It’s the coda to the “Do the jobs lazy Brits won’t do”…. “At that wage”.
Which was, of course, for the benefit of other very wealth people and companies.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
But unlike Kier Starmer, John Major was actually a very fun and apparently very charismatic man off radar, only he was never able to convey that to the UK public! I still remember the very cutting Spitting Image portrayal of him as the grey boring man pushing peas around his plate! And I also still remember pottering around my kitchen tidying up and listening to Five Live late one Saturday night for the Sunday paper review and disappointed Edwina Curry had taken the weekend off until the news broke of her memoirs being serialised and the shock in the radio station when the first big revelation was her affair with John Major, no wonder she took the time off presenting that weekend!
I have a very electic range of political books that I have been gathering over the last thirty years, and most of them have not been sycophantic memoirs from tribally favourable politicians, and I have collected some great political/foreign journalists books as well. I highly recommend John Simpson's various books on his foreign jaunts as journalist during the many years he has worked for the BBC as well as his own memoir even if I didn't always agree with his views, and I really enjoyed Labour MP Chris Mullin's A View From The Foothills.
But I put off bothering to read John Major's autobiography for a while thinking it would be a bit boring and very depressing considering what happened between 1992-1997. But it just goes to show you cannot judge a book by its cover and his early life and journey into politics had me both surprised and hooked and that was when I realised I should not have been shocked about the affair with Edwina Curry! He was a dark horse, and it ended up being no surprise he stood up to Magaret Thatcher and then got her backing for the leadership. Something tells me that Keir Starmer will not be able to produce such an interesting back story despite his claim to be the son of tool maker when he retires from frontline politics .
I always remember, from the time before he became PM, that one of my close friends was working directly to Major inside the civil service on some project or other, and he said that Major was the most intelligent and thoughtful politician he had met. Which surprised us at the time, if reducing ever so slightly the surprise when he went on to become PM.
When my brother worked at the Treasury, John Major was Chief Secretary there. Normally ministers would eat separately, but Major would eat in the staff canteen with the office staff. He is a genuinely decent bloke.
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
That's only one Farage "view", and Farage has no viable policy to address it.
It's Labour's to win or lose, and Farage is just a shouty spectator in a clown car, shit-stirring because there is nothing else he can do.
Elections are always the Government's to win or lose. Thankfully for Reform (but sadly for the nation) this Government is the shittest in living history, and is becoming uniformally loathed.
The most unpopular government until the next one!
How anyone looks across the pond to Trumpistan and thinks that we ought to copy that coterie of nincompoops, addicts and grifters...
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
Instead, they're being gaslit by the racists - and I use that word knowingly - into thinking that immigrants are the cause of all the problems. I don't have a job, not because I didn't work hard at school, but because of immigrants. Rapes are not done by people like me, but by immigrants. The litter is on the streets not because I just dropped my McDonalds wrapper on the verge, but because of immigrants.
There is zero balance; no acknowledgement of all the immigrants who help our country.
In short, the talk is that immigrants are the enemy. And it's not just the illegal immigrants: it's all immigrants.
And that's simply wrong.
Morning, P.B.
Yes, this is entirely correct. But it cannot be fully understood by the public until the process behind it is acknowledged.
A key segment of extremely wealthy people have made this choice, because it deflects so much blame for the more negative and unpopular aspects of the post-Thatcherite and post-Reaganite settlements.
This tactic actively needs people like Paul.Marshall, the Koch brothers, Crispin Odey, or Trump himself, who have personally contributed billions to the deflection process.
People on the pro- immigrant side (such as myself) need to acknowledge that immigration was used for wage suppression.
It’s the coda to the “Do the jobs lazy Brits won’t do”…. “At that wage”.
Which was, of course, for the benefit of other very wealth people and companies.
Immigration has sometimes suppressed wages, but not always, as supposed by some as an iron law on the new populist right .
As so often, there's also the significant question of countries and alternative like Germany, that have had high immigration but retain higher wages than the U.S and U..K. Why should that be ?
Most importantly, it's very possible to, on balance, benefit economically from immigration, and then simultaneously and then for the public seek to redirect blane to it.
One of the other great successes, and lies, of the modern plutucrat class, is that it's only a "special class " of liberal plutucrats who have benefitted from this process. People like George Soros, not Elon Musk. It's "liberal elites" themselves who have moved your factory to Asia, and moved immigrants in, because they look down on you, not post-1980s globalised capitalism.
A very interesting conversation about the Nayanayhu / Trump "peace plan" from The Rest is Politics.
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart have some significant experience of peace plans in other arenas, from Northern Ireland to Iraq and the Balkans.
They are good on identifying the black holes in the deal, that are usually essential to success.
(To my eye this is like the early attempted Trump-Putin 'deals' in Ukraine - set up entirely over the heads of one side, with the intention to impose it on that party.)
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
The thing is, the above has been known since 1945.
The Allied Oil Plan (bombing oil production and storage) crippled the Germany economy in the last year of the war. At the end, the Germans were towing planes around their bases with horses to save fuel.
The Americans did similar to Japan.
Oil refineries are miles square of pipes, often filled with high pressure flammable liquid. Lots of joints to crack, break and dislodge.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
Instead, they're being gaslit by the racists - and I use that word knowingly - into thinking that immigrants are the cause of all the problems. I don't have a job, not because I didn't work hard at school, but because of immigrants. Rapes are not done by people like me, but by immigrants. The litter is on the streets not because I just dropped my McDonalds wrapper on the verge, but because of immigrants.
There is zero balance; no acknowledgement of all the immigrants who help our country.
In short, the talk is that immigrants are the enemy. And it's not just the illegal immigrants: it's all immigrants.
And that's simply wrong.
Morning, P.B.
Yes, this is entirely correct. But it cannot be fully understood by the public until the process behind it is acknowledged.
A key segment of extremely wealthy people have made this choice, because it deflects so much blame for the more negative and unpopular aspects of the post-Thatcherite and post-Reaganite settlements.
This tactic actively needs people like Paul.Marshall, the Koch brothers, Crispin Odey, or Trump himself, who have personally contributed billions to the deflection process.
People on the pro- immigrant side (such as myself) need to acknowledge that immigration was used for wage suppression.
It’s the coda to the “Do the jobs lazy Brits won’t do”…. “At that wage”.
Which was, of course, for the benefit of other very wealth people and companies.
Immigration has sometimes suppressed wages, but not always, as supposed by some as an iron law on the new populist right .
As so si often, there's also the question of countries like Germany, that have had high immigration but retain higher wages than the U.S and U..K.
Most importantly, it's very possible to, on balance, benefit economically from immigration, and then simultaneously seek to redirect blane to it.
One of the other great successes, and lies, of the modern plutucrat class, is that it's only a "special class " of liberal plutucrats who have benefitted from this process. People like George Soros, rather than Elon Musk.
One of the dirty secrets we all share is that we pretty much all want to get as much as possible for the work we do, and to pay as little as possible for the work others do for us.
That's not a good thing, and it's roughly why employment law is needed. But it is a thing.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
That's only one Farage "view", and Farage has no viable policy to address it.
It's Labour's to win or lose, and Farage is just a shouty spectator in a clown car, shit-stirring because there is nothing else he can do.
Elections are always the Government's to win or lose. Thankfully for Reform (but sadly for the nation) this Government is the shittest in living history, and is becoming uniformally loathed.
The most unpopular government until the next one!
How anyone looks across the pond to Trumpistan and thinks that we ought to copy that coterie of nincompoops, addicts and grifters...
I have seen snippets of Starmer's speech and yes it was absolutely awful. Farage's presentation which far and away eclipsed Starmer was highly polished. It was very Trumpian in construction hinting that the culture of hatred Starmer is fostering over here is not dissimilar to the hatred fostered by Democrats (although the name wasn't mentioned) is responsible for the left wing Antifa assassination of Kirk ( he did accuse Antifa).
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
The thing is, the above has been known since 1945.
The Allied Oil Plan (bombing oil production and storage) crippled the Germany economy in the last year of the war. At the end, the Germans were towing planes around their bases with horses to save fuel.
The Americans did similar to Japan.
Oil refineries are miles square of pipes, often filled with high pressure flammable liquid. Lots of joints to crack, break and dislodge.
Yep, it’s an old but effective tactic.
It’s taken Ukraine a while to produce their own weapons to do it though, because until about three days ago there was some reticence from their allies to use Western weapons against russia directly. Most of the weapons are American in origin, and both Biden and Trump administrations were concerned about escalation.
Looks like gloves off now though, Trump is not happy at all with Putin’s failure to even think about ending the war.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
A very interesting conversation about the Nayanayhu / Trump "peace plan" from The Rest is Politics.
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart have some significant experience of peace plans in other arenas, from Northern Ireland to Iraq and the Balkans.
They are good on identifying the black holes in the deal, that are usually essential to success.
(To my eye this is like the early attempted Trump-Putin 'deals' in Ukraine - set up entirely over the heads of one side, with the intention to impose it on that party.)
The plan is supported by many sides. Only Hamas have yet to agree!
If Hamas wanted peace, they should have released all the hostages ASAP after they were taken. There is no way Netanyahu can end the war whilst the hostages are kept. And it's pointless keeping them from the Palestinian POV: it's not as though the Israeli military are going easy because of the hostages.
Hamas don't want peace. And meanwhile, innocent Palestinians die.
(This in no way excuses Israeli actions; just condemning Hamas' actions)
A very interesting conversation about the Nayanayhu / Trump "peace plan" from The Rest is Politics.
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart have some significant experience of peace plans in other arenas, from Northern Ireland to Iraq and the Balkans.
They are good on identifying the black holes in the deal, that are usually essential to success.
(To my eye this is like the early attempted Trump-Putin 'deals' in Ukraine - set up entirely over the heads of one side, with the intention to impose it on that party.)
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
Do you mean JSO should be taking out oil refineries in the UK? I'm all for reducing our reliance on a commodity controlled by our greatest adversary, but that's a step too far even for me...
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
The thing is, the above has been known since 1945.
The Allied Oil Plan (bombing oil production and storage) crippled the Germany economy in the last year of the war. At the end, the Germans were towing planes around their bases with horses to save fuel.
The Americans did similar to Japan.
Oil refineries are miles square of pipes, often filled with high pressure flammable liquid. Lots of joints to crack, break and dislodge.
All that cracking, breaking and dislodging could have been happening years ago, if the West had provided the weapons. It has taken until now for the Ukrainians to develop the means. In that time, they've had to destroy the vast Soviet weapons stockpiles.
There are those who think that was the strategy all along. Give Ukraine just enough to do the job, but no more.
Honestly, calling your opponents Racists and/or Hitler does seem a little desperate doesn’t it?
They need some more vigorous condemnation of Farage so that the new cycle moves on.
Perhaps about his fake support for the working man, having voted against the Workers' Rights bill? Compared with his multimillionaire lineup at the top of Reform, his income, and their tax dodging activities?
Or his sequence of liesfabrications about ... well ... everything. If they run out of these to point out, there'll be another one along by about Friday.
Unfortunately his view, that mass immigration has negatively affected the lives of millions of working class people in provincial Britain, is shared by millions of working class people in provincial Britain.
When other politicians try to combat it with complex arguments, or invoke bills and clauses, people feel like they’re being gaslit and switch off. Others can can try to imitate his policies, but their hearts aren’t in that. He must be a fiendishly difficult character to take on.
That's only one Farage "view", and Farage has no viable policy to address it.
It's Labour's to win or lose, and Farage is just a shouty spectator in a clown car, shit-stirring because there is nothing else he can do.
Elections are always the Government's to win or lose. Thankfully for Reform (but sadly for the nation) this Government is the shittest in living history, and is becoming uniformally loathed.
The most unpopular government until the next one!
How anyone looks across the pond to Trumpistan and thinks that we ought to copy that coterie of nincompoops, addicts and grifters...
I have seen snippets of Starmer's speech and yes it was absolutely awful. Farage's presentation which far and away eclipsed Starmer was highly polished. It was very Trumpian in construction hinting that the culture of hatred Starmer is fostering over here is not dissimilar to the hatred fostered by Democrats (although the name wasn't mentioned) is responsible for the left wing Antifa assassination of Kirk ( he did accuse Antifa).
Farage's broadcast was brilliant, yet chilling.
Yep, it looks like we are going to have to learn the hard way not to copy Trumpistan.
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
Do you mean JSO should be taking out oil refineries in the UK? I'm all for reducing our reliance on a commodity controlled by our greatest adversary, but that's a step too far even for me...
I meant that we should offer them a free trip to Russia!
Oh, if they tried to blow up refineries in the UK they’d definitely be looking at terrorism charges.
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
Capital tied up
There’s that, but vs higher house prices achieved later.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
Capital tied up
True, but how does the cost of that tied-up capital compare with the extra profits of dribbling out new houses slowly and expensively?
Presumably all homebuilders operate this way because it's the rational way to play under irrational rules.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
I disagree. Here's a prediction: the first houses will go up on the Wintringham site in 2026. They've spent far too much money for it to stop now.
My question is why it's been stopped for as long as it has. It isn't so that they can say work has started; there must be some other reason. Planning, or resources, perhaps.
(There's always the possibility that the road works and initial site preparation finished very early, and they had a lot of buffer before the planned start of housebuiding. In other words, there's nothing gone wrong.)
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
If things can be fixed by internal clarification, rather than ripping up a long-standing treaty, that's a good thing... Isn't it?
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
Our judiciary will bend over backwards to find reasons why claimants should be allowed to remain in this country.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
If things can be fixed by internal clarification, rather than ripping up a long-standing treaty, that's a good thing... Isn't it?
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
I've met John Major a couple of times. He is by some distance the nicest politician I have ever met.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
Left wing people are just as patriotic as right wing people. This is something that those on the right seem to struggle with.
They are indeed, it’s a subset of each grouping who don’t like their country but have no doubt that your average Labour voter in some small town is as likely to want to defend their country/wants the country to succeed as your average reform voter in Clacton.
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
Do you mean JSO should be taking out oil refineries in the UK? I'm all for reducing our reliance on a commodity controlled by our greatest adversary, but that's a step too far even for me...
I meant that we should offer them a free trip to Russia!
Oh, if they tried to blow up refineries in the UK they’d definitely be looking at terrorism charges.
You think people you disagree with should be deported to Russia?
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
Our judiciary will bend over backwards to find reasons why claimants should be allowed to remain in this country.
I have a lot of respect for UK judges and our system which doesn’t politicise them but there are clearly problems with how the ECHR has been interpreted.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
I've met John Major a couple of times. He is by some distance the nicest politician I have ever met.
I met him, at Wood Green Animal Shelters, when he was the local MP. I agree, he was very pleasant.
Sometimes, people are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
The overnight 1992 General Election still remains my favourite shock surprise result of all time,, the BBC coverage as it unfolded was priceless!
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
Surely it's over for Starmer. The worst presented and received Conference speech since Theresa May's 2019 effort and now he has to face Nick Ferrari.
Nick is figuratively going to eat him for breakfast. Watch this space...
Once you take account of the difficulties in a social media age of being in government and believing in the rule of law and the separation of powers, and that stuff is complicated, Starmer didn't do too badly.
I think, for now he set two agendas: That he intends to have a public fight with Reform with Queensbury rules put aside sometimes; and that he is trying to tell a story and create a narrative.
Can't see it lasting long, but keep hoping.
Even harder for the Tories, stuck between their history of centrist sanity, recent uselessness and populist pressures.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
I disagree. Here's a prediction: the first houses will go up on the Wintringham site in 2026. They've spent far too much money for it to stop now.
My question is why it's been stopped for as long as it has. It isn't so that they can say work has started; there must be some other reason. Planning, or resources, perhaps.
(There's always the possibility that the road works and initial site preparation finished very early, and they had a lot of buffer before the planned start of housebuiding. In other words, there's nothing gone wrong.)
The only way to tell for sure would be a fly on the wall for their internal meetings.
I’ve seen similar a number of times. Sometimes the sites languish in that state for years. Often the start is made to meeting conditions in the consent for the project - that they “start” by X.
Could be phasing, finance, corporate politics… a list of things.
There’s no especial shortage of trades, any more than the usual, at the moment. Which is down to “there’s a shortage of trades at the rate I want to pay” usually. Uppity serfs wanting more than minimum wage.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
Left wing people are just as patriotic as right wing people. This is something that those on the right seem to struggle with.
They are indeed, it’s a subset of each grouping who don’t like their country but have no doubt that your average Labour voter in some small town is as likely to want to defend their country/wants the country to succeed as your average reform voter in Clacton.
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
I don't think that to be necessarily true. During the Salisbury poisonings the Labour Party under Corbyn were unsure whether they should be condemning or celebrating on behalf of Putin the attempted murder of the Skripals. If Russia had attacked Ukraine, what side would the UK have been on?
OK so you might punt me in the direction of Gill and Johnson on the right. Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to taking a bung from an associate of Putin and Johnson made the son of a KGB Grandee a Peer of the Realm and attended (but presumably remained simply as a bystander) their sex parties in Italy, but greed and hedonism don't necessarily make for traitors. Johnson of course was four square behind Ukraine when Putin invaded.
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
Our judiciary will bend over backwards to find reasons why claimants should be allowed to remain in this country.
I have a lot of respect for UK judges and our system which doesn’t politicise them but there are clearly problems with how the ECHR has been interpreted.
Quite a lot of the “immigration judges” aren’t grave, ancient lawyers with deep knowledge etc.
Housing is what the government should be concentrating on -
- building more - Building a variety of high quality homes - sorting out the post-Grenfell mess - Training proper construction tradesmen and craftsmen - Improving standards in existing homes - Sorting out leasehold issues & the rental market
Not faffing around calling Reform voters names.
Peter Apps who has written extensively about Grenfell and the housing market could give them a few ideas.
They should just get on with their fucking job rather than making adenoidal speeches written by half-witted interns and AI which sound like the sort of rubbish you see printed on overpriced mugs.
Starmer could have, and perhaps should have, aped Blair in his speech yesterday, saying that his government’s three priorities were housing, housing, and housing.
The problem the government has been are all over the map, we had "change", quickly onto it was all about the foundations, we had further and faster, 27 other attempted catchphrases and now we are onto patriotic renewal, Every relaunch comes with a different slogan, none of which hit the mark and disappear rapidly after they are used.
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
If housing were his priority then he wouldn't have given the portfolio to deadbeat Angela Rayner. And now we have the glorious Steve Reed, the worst Agriculture Secretary ever, by far put into local government simply because there was no-one else to replace our Ange.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
There's a new housing development being built on the eastern edge of St Neots near me (*). Over the last year or so, they've built the access roundabouts, laid tarmac roads, and built little buildings that house utility things. You can see them scattered around like little pimples on the green grass.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
You’ve answered the question. They are waiting until the other development across the road is done.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
I don't think so. Phase 2 of Wintringham will be a long job - perhaps five years - to build. It's a massive site. Then there's Phase 3 to come as well. The people developing Monksfield will have spent a fair few million getting it to this stage, and I cannot see them waiting for Wintringham to finish before starting to recoup their investment.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
Why not wait? If they finish at the same time there would be a glut of houses on the market (from their point of view). Prices would fall.
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
Capital tied up
True, but how does the cost of that tied-up capital compare with the extra profits of dribbling out new houses slowly and expensively?
Presumably all homebuilders operate this way because it's the rational way to play under irrational rules.
Capital velocity is more important.
For example:
80 capital comprising 30 debt and 50 equity
Sell today for 100 = profit of 20 and return on capital of 20% pa assuming it’s a 2 year project (20/50/2)
Redeploy the capital into another project and make a further 20% ROIC per year for 2 years. So total profit from the capital in the period is 40 and a consistent ROIC of 20%
Alternative is to wait for 2 years doing nothing and then hope that they can sell the properties for 120 (so their profit is 40 and their ROIC = 40/50/4 = 20% pa)
Do you think house prices are going to go up by 20% over the next 2 years?
Additionally the companies are also changing their business model to being a pint on house prices vs adding value in construction and delivering consistent returns to shareholders
It very rarely makes sense to delay construction. The situations where it might are (I) not adding more stock in a falling market; (II) phasing development when you control both sites; (iii) where there is a lack of attractive reinvestment opportunities - although in (iii) you should develop, sell and return the excess capital to shareholders
The Ukrainian branch of Just Stop Oil is still active, then.
They’ve been doing a fantastic job for the last couple of months.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
Do you mean JSO should be taking out oil refineries in the UK? I'm all for reducing our reliance on a commodity controlled by our greatest adversary, but that's a step too far even for me...
I meant that we should offer them a free trip to Russia!
Oh, if they tried to blow up refineries in the UK they’d definitely be looking at terrorism charges.
You think people you disagree with should be deported to Russia?
Deported no.
“Look, you don’t like oil refineries. We don’t like Russian oil refineries. Here’s a pile of drones, $50k in cash, and a free trip to Russia. Have a lovely holiday.”
Starmer didn’t have any problems with Nick Ferrari on LBC .
And given the run up to the Labour conference wasn’t exactly ideal I think it’s gone as well as could be expected .
Did Ferrari try his usual trick of asking for some statistic relevant to the ministers job and then trying to make a big thing of their not knowing or getting it wrong? What politicians recognise as infinite variations on the ‘price of a pint of milk’ question.
Starmer wants rethink on international law to tackle migration
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
The application of the ECHR by UK judges has been an issue for many years and I’m surprised previous governments haven’t looked at this. Starmer will never countenance leaving the ECHR or other international rights treaties so I believe him on that .
Our judiciary will bend over backwards to find reasons why claimants should be allowed to remain in this country.
I have a lot of respect for UK judges and our system which doesn’t politicise them but there are clearly problems with how the ECHR has been interpreted.
Quite a lot of the “immigration judges” aren’t grave, ancient lawyers with deep knowledge etc.
Which is why their rulings are often overturned.
There was one a few weeks ago who was discovered to have been on the board of an asylum charity.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
I've met John Major a couple of times. He is by some distance the nicest politician I have ever met.
I met him, at Wood Green Animal Shelters, when he was the local MP. I agree, he was very pleasant.
Sometimes, people are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Given his highly successful career in politics and afterwards it’s hard to argue that it was “erong place wrong time”
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
Left wing people are just as patriotic as right wing people. This is something that those on the right seem to struggle with.
They are indeed, it’s a subset of each grouping who don’t like their country but have no doubt that your average Labour voter in some small town is as likely to want to defend their country/wants the country to succeed as your average reform voter in Clacton.
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
I don't think that to be necessarily true. During the Salisbury poisonings the Labour Party under Corbyn were unsure whether they should be condemning or celebrating on behalf of Putin the attempted murder of the Skripals. If Russia had attacked Ukraine, what side would the UK have been on?
OK so you might punt me in the direction of Gill and Johnson on the right. Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to taking a bung from an associate of Putin and Johnson made the son of a KGB Grandee a Peer of the Realm and attended (but presumably remained simply as a bystander) their sex parties in Italy, but greed and hedonism don't necessarily make for traitors. Johnson of course was four square behind Ukraine when Putin invaded.
Without defending the decision in Lebedev, he was a major media owner in the UK and a long time resident. I wouldn’t have made the same judgement as Johnson but it wasn’t intrinsically wrong
In a historical context the British for enacting the Balfour Declaration?
My boss around 30 years ago lived in Collingtree Park in Northampton next door to Derek Redmond and Sharon Davies. Every now and again I was summoned over for a kicking. Sharon was often seen wondering her garden on a summer's day, resplendent in her bikini. Her dabbling in political discourse over the years has been less easy on the eye.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
Left wing people are just as patriotic as right wing people. This is something that those on the right seem to struggle with.
They are indeed, it’s a subset of each grouping who don’t like their country but have no doubt that your average Labour voter in some small town is as likely to want to defend their country/wants the country to succeed as your average reform voter in Clacton.
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
I don't think that to be necessarily true. During the Salisbury poisonings the Labour Party under Corbyn were unsure whether they should be condemning or celebrating on behalf of Putin the attempted murder of the Skripals. If Russia had attacked Ukraine, what side would the UK have been on?
OK so you might punt me in the direction of Gill and Johnson on the right. Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to taking a bung from an associate of Putin and Johnson made the son of a KGB Grandee a Peer of the Realm and attended (but presumably remained simply as a bystander) their sex parties in Italy, but greed and hedonism don't necessarily make for traitors. Johnson of course was four square behind Ukraine when Putin invaded.
I think attitudes to WWII are quite a good litmus test.
The West-hating Right think the Soviets were worse than the Nazis. The West-hating Left think the USA and UK were indistinguishable from the Nazis.
I watched the longer version of that video, and I think Gary almost assumes that Reform will win the next Election. 3+ years is a long time in politics, as we know here.
I thought it was stupid. Labour put it out there that there are a load of racists afoot and they want no part of it. It was something that needed saying. Bare faced racism was becoming acceptable and becoming confused with patriotism. The labour conference said NO IT ISN'T.
Anyone who watched the BBC vox pop from Barnsley. (why barnsley. I have no idea!) will have seen a middle aged buxom blond when asked what she thought of Starmer's speech say "But he never said what he's going to do about the small boats!!" She looked like she was part of a comedy sketch. Labour have got this right and as long as they don't row back it'll be successful
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
I've met John Major a couple of times. He is by some distance the nicest politician I have ever met.
I met him, at Wood Green Animal Shelters, when he was the local MP. I agree, he was very pleasant.
Sometimes, people are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
And vice versa. Once you eliminate the blatantly corrupt and extremely stupid, how we do depends much more on the underlying climate and seasonal cycles than the day-to-day weather, let alone the choices we make.
Study geology, everyone. The perspective on time is bracing.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
Left wing people are just as patriotic as right wing people. This is something that those on the right seem to struggle with.
They are indeed, it’s a subset of each grouping who don’t like their country but have no doubt that your average Labour voter in some small town is as likely to want to defend their country/wants the country to succeed as your average reform voter in Clacton.
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
I don't think that to be necessarily true. During the Salisbury poisonings the Labour Party under Corbyn were unsure whether they should be condemning or celebrating on behalf of Putin the attempted murder of the Skripals. If Russia had attacked Ukraine, what side would the UK have been on?
OK so you might punt me in the direction of Gill and Johnson on the right. Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to taking a bung from an associate of Putin and Johnson made the son of a KGB Grandee a Peer of the Realm and attended (but presumably remained simply as a bystander) their sex parties in Italy, but greed and hedonism don't necessarily make for traitors. Johnson of course was four square behind Ukraine when Putin invaded.
Without defending the decision in Lebedev, he was a major media owner in the UK and a long time resident. I wouldn’t have made the same judgement as Johnson but it wasn’t intrinsically wrong
I do like the way some on the left go on about Johnson's stupidity in this regard, and ignore the many people on the left who met, and had business dealings with, Russia. They make it sound not only as though Johnson was unique, but the worst. He wasn't, and wasn't.
Starmer didn’t have any problems with Nick Ferrari on LBC .
And given the run up to the Labour conference wasn’t exactly ideal I think it’s gone as well as could be expected .
That was probably his biggest test of the week. Ferrari of course tied Farage in knots last week over his linkage of Paracetamol to autism (via Trump) although the BBC in particular chose not to report the chaos.
In a historical context the British for enacting the Balfour Declaration?
My boss around 30 years ago lived in Collingtree Park in Northampton next door to Derek Redmond and Sharon Davies. Every now and again I was summoned over for a kicking. Sharon was often seen wondering her garden on a summer's day, resplendent in her bikini. Her dabbling in political discourse over the years has been less easy on the eye.
The existence of Israel is only one of many reasons why the Middle East is so murderous.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
I've met John Major a couple of times. He is by some distance the nicest politician I have ever met.
I met him, at Wood Green Animal Shelters, when he was the local MP. I agree, he was very pleasant.
Sometimes, people are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Was he? He was in the right place to be Thatcher's heir against Heseltine, then to offer a gentler form of Thatcherism to beat Kinnock.
Major had notable successes eg the Gulf War, NI peace process and a low tax, low inflation, growing economy left in 1997 for New Labour.
He is also the second longest serving PM of the last thirty years after Blair
A myriad of people, some wittingly, others unwittingly.
The Persian capture of Jerusalem in 614 and the Islamic capture in 638 both had destabilising aspects. Pompey in 63 BCE, and Titus in 70 didn't help either.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
Left wing people are just as patriotic as right wing people. This is something that those on the right seem to struggle with.
They are indeed, it’s a subset of each grouping who don’t like their country but have no doubt that your average Labour voter in some small town is as likely to want to defend their country/wants the country to succeed as your average reform voter in Clacton.
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
I don't think that to be necessarily true. During the Salisbury poisonings the Labour Party under Corbyn were unsure whether they should be condemning or celebrating on behalf of Putin the attempted murder of the Skripals. If Russia had attacked Ukraine, what side would the UK have been on?
OK so you might punt me in the direction of Gill and Johnson on the right. Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to taking a bung from an associate of Putin and Johnson made the son of a KGB Grandee a Peer of the Realm and attended (but presumably remained simply as a bystander) their sex parties in Italy, but greed and hedonism don't necessarily make for traitors. Johnson of course was four square behind Ukraine when Putin invaded.
I think attitudes to WWII are quite a good litmus test.
The West-hating Right think the Soviets were worse than the Nazis. The West-hating Left think the USA and UK were indistinguishable from the Nazis.
In terms of numbers alone, Stalin was indeed head and shoulders worse than Hitler.
It's that old conundrum again of who is the least guilty, "Fred" Shipman or Fred West.
A myriad of people, some wittingly, others unwittingly.
The Persian capture of Jerusalem in 614 and the Islamic capture in 638 both had destabilising aspects. Pompey in 63 BCE, and Titus in 70 didn't help either.
I'm sure these events figure in Sharron's evolving hypothesis.
There is something deeply pathetic about an uncharismatic man trying to appear charismatic - I call that the "John Major problem".
Just as there's something equally sad about an incompetent technocrat.
Just as there's something totally phony about an Islington lefty pretending to understand patriotism.
In fact what the f@ck is that man doing as Prime Minister?
John Major had some charisma, my first involvement in politics was attending a rally in 1992 when Major was on his soapbox taking on all comers. He also had real connection one on one and ladies who shook his hand said they would not wash them for a week.
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general election before or since and not being too surprised. Majorism also had a legacy, even Blair and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
I've met John Major a couple of times. He is by some distance the nicest politician I have ever met.
I met him, at Wood Green Animal Shelters, when he was the local MP. I agree, he was very pleasant.
Sometimes, people are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Was he? He was in the right place to be Thatcher's heir against Heseltine, then to offer a gentler form of Thatcherism to beat Kinnock.
Major had notable successes eg the Gulf War, NI peace process and a low tax, low inflation, growing economy left in 1997 for New Labour.
He is also the second longest serving PM of the last thirty years after Blair
Major, like Starmer, didn't look like or have the charisma of a Prime Minister. He was also undermined by some dark figures within his party. The Spectre of Maastricht and the (metaphorical) ghost of Prime Minister Thatcher did for him in office and his legacy.
Generally a decent man, who lost all credibility by sh@gging a Currie.
Whenever I see Major I am reminded by the late Tony Banks's incredulity from his earlier days on the GLC. "Why is Councillor Major at the Despatch Box?"
In a historical context the British for enacting the Balfour Declaration?
My boss around 30 years ago lived in Collingtree Park in Northampton next door to Derek Redmond and Sharon Davies. Every now and again I was summoned over for a kicking. Sharon was often seen wondering her garden on a summer's day, resplendent in her bikini. Her dabbling in political discourse over the years has been less easy on the eye.
The existence of Israel is only one of many reasons why the Middle East is so murderous.
The Middle East would nonetheless be a safer place had Israel been located on the Isle of Wight.
A myriad of people, some wittingly, others unwittingly.
The Persian capture of Jerusalem in 614 and the Islamic capture in 638 both had destabilising aspects. Pompey in 63 BCE, and Titus in 70 didn't help either.
In a historical context the British for enacting the Balfour Declaration?
My boss around 30 years ago lived in Collingtree Park in Northampton next door to Derek Redmond and Sharon Davies. Every now and again I was summoned over for a kicking. Sharon was often seen wondering her garden on a summer's day, resplendent in her bikini. Her dabbling in political discourse over the years has been less easy on the eye.
The existence of Israel is only one of many reasons why the Middle East is so murderous.
The Middle East would nonetheless be a safer place had Israel been located on the Isle of Wight.
Until they decided they wanted most of London all of East Anglia and the whole of Cornwall for extra security
This is the first time this oil refinery has been hit. Several other refineries have been hit on more than half a dozen different occasions. Hopefully they won't leave it too long until hitting this refinery again too.
If you draw a line connecting Kyiv and Moscow this refinery is on that line, a couple of hundred kilometres further away from Kyiv than Moscow, so it should benefit from Moscow's air defences. Will be interesting if we find out whether it was hit by a drone/missile launched from Ukraine, or if it was a more unusual operation.
Comments
Blair / Bad Al were extremely good at having the slogan / message and marshalling the troops to crowbar it into every interview for seemingly ever.
One example, replying to a critical journalist, that has over 2m views:
https://x.com/cynicalpublius/status/1973094695996887166
Today's speech by Secretary Hegseth was both entirely necessary and entirely spectacular. Those of us rank and file who fought in the wars you and your yellow, slobbering neocon chickenhawk buddies sent us off to die in applaud this effort with the utmost enthusiasm. These clownish, dangerous, senior generals and admirals have been the architects of American military failure for 20+ years. Their silence is indicative of nothing more than the fact that they know the gig is up and their fatcat days of being Perfumed Princes are no more. So howzabout you shut your trap and let us warriors decide what this speech meant? Good day, sir.
I have a very electic range of political books that I have been gathering over the last thirty years, and most of them have not been sycophantic memoirs from tribally favourable politicians, and I have collected some great political/foreign journalists books as well. I highly recommend John Simpson's various books on his foreign jaunts as journalist during the many years he has worked for the BBC as well as his own memoir even if I didn't always agree with his views, and I really enjoyed Labour MP Chris Mullin's A View From The Foothills.
But I put off bothering to read John Major's autobiography for a while thinking it would be a bit boring and very depressing considering what happened between 1992-1997. But it just goes to show you cannot judge a book by its cover and his early life and journey into politics had me both surprised and hooked and that was when I realised I should not have been shocked about the affair with Edwina Curry! He was a dark horse, and it ended up being no surprise he stood up to Magaret Thatcher and then got her backing for the leadership. Something tells me that Keir Starmer will not be able to produce such an interesting back story despite his claim to be the son of tool maker when he retires from frontline politics
.
Anyone who wondered why the farming community so hated Steve Reed really ought to listen to his conference speech. It was a great tragedy for him that there were brief elements of his speech which were clearly audible.
In fact, it's the sort of thing a Russian troll might say.
There is zero balance; no acknowledgement of all the immigrants who help our country.
In short, the talk is that immigrants are the enemy. And it's not just the illegal immigrants: it's all immigrants.
And that's simply wrong.
And it's green grass because, for the last couple of months, nothing seems to have been happening. No houses are going up, and the site seems relatively deserted. Everything *appears* ready to go.
So why isn't it? Why this pause?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, work is ongoing on the Wintringham development, and it looks as though Phase 2 is starting.
(*) apparently it's going to be called the 'Monksfield' development. Which will cause no confusion with our Monkfield Medical Practice, our Monkfield School, our Monkfield Arms, just eight mils away...
https://x.com/chuckpfarrer/status/1973092180735520925
Perhaps that's the fault of real journalists, all too many of whom have forgotten little things like sources, evidence and journalistic integrity...
Yes, this is entirely correct. But it cannot be fully understood by the public until the process behind it is acknowledged.
A key segment of extremely wealthy people have made this choice, because it deflects so much blame for the more negative and unpopular aspects of the post-Thatcherite and post-Reaganite settlements.
This tactic actively needs people like Paul.Marshall, the Koch brothers, Crispin Odey, or Trump himself, who have personally contributed billions to the deflection process.
https://www.tiktok.com/@uklabour/video/7555918761056931094?lang=en
"pete drunk sec of war wants 60 year old 4 star generals with decades of combat exp to pass a PT test or get out....
do you know how much combat experience we are about to lose???
peace time armies are notorious at promoting shit bags as long as they can get a 300 on the PT test.. in the 1990s that was nearly the only thing that mattered.. and the army promoted many sub standard troops due to that metric."
https://x.com/secretsqrl123/status/1973038168690573823
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart have some significant experience of peace plans in other arenas, from Northern Ireland to Iraq and the Balkans.
They are good on identifying the black holes in the deal, that are usually essential to success.
(To my eye this is like the early attempted Trump-Putin 'deals' in Ukraine - set up entirely over the heads of one side, with the intention to impose it on that party.)
https://youtu.be/1ZhifRHYLfA?t=39
I watched the longer version of that video, and I think Gary almost assumes that Reform will win the next Election. 3+ years is a long time in politics, as we know here.
The aim is to make it uncomfortable to probe whether x is going on.
It's Labour's to win or lose, and Farage is just a shouty spectator in a clown car with a megaphone, shit-stirring because there is nothing else he can do.
They’ve done enough work to claim that they are being active.
This one is a biggie, Yaroslavl is the fifth largest in the country and it’s 700km from Ukraine.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1973254320394215675
"X called us far right."
"Are we Nazis".
Followed by 2-3 minutes of GB News presenter and panel gibbering away to themselves refuting the straw man they just created that they might be Nazis.
It’s the coda to the “Do the jobs lazy Brits won’t do”…. “At that wage”.
Which was, of course, for the benefit of other very wealth people and companies.
Russia has stopped exporting oil, has dropped tariffs on oil *imports*, the military have turned to using horses instead of cars, and there’s petrol queues now pretty much everywhere except central Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The British great unwashed idiots have a lot to learn from their Ukranian counterparts.
How anyone looks across the pond to Trumpistan and thinks that we ought to copy that coterie of nincompoops, addicts and grifters...
As so often, there's also the significant question of countries and alternative like Germany, that have had high immigration but retain higher wages than the U.S and U..K. Why should that be ?
Most importantly, it's very possible to, on balance, benefit economically from immigration, and then simultaneously and then for the public seek to redirect blane to it.
One of the other great successes, and lies, of the modern plutucrat class, is that it's only a "special class " of liberal plutucrats who have benefitted from this process. People like George Soros, not Elon Musk. It's "liberal elites" themselves who have moved your factory to Asia, and moved immigrants in, because they look down on you, not post-1980s globalised capitalism.
The prime minister gave the clearest sign yet the government is planning a major overhaul on the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases, but insisted he would not pull the UK out of existing treaties.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd72p30v574o
The Allied Oil Plan (bombing oil production and storage) crippled the Germany economy in the last year of the war. At the end, the Germans were towing planes around their bases with horses to save fuel.
The Americans did similar to Japan.
Oil refineries are miles square of pipes, often filled with high pressure flammable liquid. Lots of joints to crack, break and dislodge.
That's not a good thing, and it's roughly why employment law is needed. But it is a thing.
Farage's broadcast was brilliant, yet chilling.
So why?
I do wonder if it's a lack of skilled labourers; There's a lot going on around here: Cambourne West; Wintringham; Monksfield; Northstowe; Waterbeach Barracks; Cambridge Eddington. Anyone who says we're not building anything should just visit us!
Or perhaps it's something legal/planning related.
It’s taken Ukraine a while to produce their own weapons to do it though, because until about three days ago there was some reticence from their allies to use Western weapons against russia directly. Most of the weapons are American in origin, and both Biden and Trump administrations were concerned about escalation.
Looks like gloves off now though, Trump is not happy at all with Putin’s failure to even think about ending the war.
Just sayin'...
Spend a few millions to make a start. So they can push back claims of land banking. Then wait.
Nick is figuratively going to eat him for breakfast. Watch this space...
Hamas don't want peace. And meanwhile, innocent Palestinians die.
(This in no way excuses Israeli actions; just condemning Hamas' actions)
There are those who think that was the strategy all along. Give Ukraine just enough to do the job, but no more.
Oh, if they tried to blow up refineries in the UK they’d definitely be looking at terrorism charges.
Some fun calculations to make, there.
Presumably all homebuilders operate this way because it's the rational way to play under irrational rules.
My question is why it's been stopped for as long as it has. It isn't so that they can say work has started; there must be some other reason. Planning, or resources, perhaps.
(There's always the possibility that the road works and initial site preparation finished very early, and they had a lot of buffer before the planned start of housebuiding. In other words, there's nothing gone wrong.)
Moscow Times: Russia is looking to import fuel.
https://x.com/prune602/status/1973072827566674082
The rest of the world needs to make it clear that there will be sanctions on anyone selling fuel to the Russians.
But it’s hard not to laugh out loud at the thought of them importing fuel in the first place!
I well remember going to bed on election night with the BBC expecting PM Kinnock and ending up with PM Major still in office having won more votes than any PM at a general
election before or since and not
being too surprised. Majorism
also had a legacy, even Blair
and Starmer weren't too far off what he did in office
They just see different problems to prioritise fixing and different routes to fixing them.
Sometimes, people are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I think, for now he set two agendas: That he intends to have a public fight with Reform with Queensbury rules put aside sometimes; and that he is trying to tell a story and create a narrative.
Can't see it lasting long, but keep hoping.
Even harder for the Tories, stuck between their history of centrist sanity, recent uselessness and populist pressures.
R4 Today gave SKS a very easy ride this morning.
I’ve seen similar a number of times. Sometimes the sites languish in that state for years. Often the start is made to meeting conditions in the consent for the project - that they “start” by X.
Could be phasing, finance, corporate politics… a list of things.
There’s no especial shortage of trades, any more than the usual, at the moment. Which is down to “there’s a shortage of trades at the rate I want to pay” usually. Uppity serfs wanting more than minimum wage.
OK so you might punt me in the direction of Gill and Johnson on the right. Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to taking a bung from an associate of Putin and Johnson made the son of a KGB Grandee a Peer of the Realm and attended (but presumably remained simply as a bystander) their sex parties in Italy, but greed and hedonism don't necessarily make for traitors. Johnson of course was four square behind Ukraine when Putin invaded.
And given the run up to the Labour conference wasn’t exactly ideal I think it’s gone as well as could be expected .
Which is why their rulings are often overturned.
Sharron Davies MBE
@sharrond62
Remind me again who it was that destabilised the Middle East?
6:59 pm · 30 Sep 2025
·
86.8K
Views
https://x.com/sharrond62/status/1973085420473778387
For example:
80 capital comprising 30 debt and 50 equity
Sell today for 100 = profit of 20 and return on capital of 20% pa assuming it’s a 2 year project (20/50/2)
Redeploy the capital into another project and make a further 20% ROIC per year for 2 years. So total profit from the capital in the period is 40 and a consistent ROIC of 20%
Alternative is to wait for 2 years doing nothing and then hope that they can sell the properties for 120 (so their profit is 40 and their ROIC = 40/50/4 = 20% pa)
Do you think house prices are going to go up by 20% over the next 2 years?
Additionally the companies are also changing their business model to being a pint on house prices vs adding value in construction and delivering consistent returns to shareholders
It very rarely makes sense to delay construction. The situations where it might are (I) not adding more stock in a falling market; (II) phasing development when you control both sites; (iii) where there is a lack of attractive reinvestment opportunities - although in (iii) you should develop, sell and return the excess capital to shareholders
“Look, you don’t like oil refineries. We don’t like Russian oil refineries. Here’s a pile of drones, $50k in cash, and a free trip to Russia. Have a lovely holiday.”
https://ground.news/article/judge-who-let-blade-carrying-migrant-remain-in-britain-revealed-as-former-pro-asylum-aid-executive
A myriad of people, some wittingly, others unwittingly.
My boss around 30 years ago lived in Collingtree Park in Northampton next door to Derek Redmond and Sharon Davies. Every now and again I was summoned over for a kicking. Sharon was often seen wondering her garden on a summer's day, resplendent in her bikini. Her dabbling in political discourse over the years has been less easy on the eye.
The West-hating Right think the Soviets were worse than the Nazis. The West-hating Left think the USA and UK were indistinguishable from the Nazis.
Anyone who watched the BBC vox pop from Barnsley. (why barnsley. I have no idea!) will have seen a middle aged buxom blond when asked what she thought of Starmer's speech say "But he never said what he's going to do about the small boats!!" She looked like she was part of a comedy sketch. Labour have got this right and as long as they don't row back it'll be successful
NEW THREAD
Study geology, everyone. The perspective on time is bracing.
https://x.com/tykestakeonit/status/1973100772301607215
Major had notable successes eg the Gulf War, NI peace process and a low tax, low inflation, growing economy left in 1997 for New Labour.
He is also the second longest serving PM of the last thirty years after Blair
It's that old conundrum again of who is the least guilty, "Fred" Shipman or Fred West.
Generally a decent man, who lost all credibility by sh@gging a Currie.
Whenever I see Major I am reminded by the late Tony Banks's incredulity from his earlier days on the GLC. "Why is Councillor Major at the Despatch Box?"
Whom Saddam Hussein yearned to emulate:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jan/04/iraq1
If you draw a line connecting Kyiv and Moscow this refinery is on that line, a couple of hundred kilometres further away from Kyiv than Moscow, so it should benefit from Moscow's air defences. Will be interesting if we find out whether it was hit by a drone/missile launched from Ukraine, or if it was a more unusual operation.