[Yes, I know that's not actually Tuscany, but still]
In a straight line, it’s about ten miles from France. Indeed the background high hills, where I am headed tomorrow, probably are France, or at least the border thereof.
Meanwhile the dog for scale wishes to make it known that the apparent black eye is a photographic peculiarity, and doesn’t arise from any misjudged pursuit of his ball, an encounter with an Italian cat, or any interaction with his owner.
He also cannot explain how he managed to cast two opposing shadows.
What’s a clip from a children’s programme got to do with anything?
(Technically Dr Who is not a children's programme, being made by the Drama dept before it was outsourced. But I digress)
The episode in question is "Silence in the Library" and the villains are the Vashta Nerada, a race of tiny predators who hunt in packs and hide in shadows. They attach themselves to their victims and this attachment is visible as a second shadow. Since @IanB2 's pleasant dog has two shadows, I was suggesting he (the dog) would be predated by the Vashta Nerada and reduced to a skeleton
[Yes, I know that's not actually Tuscany, but still]
In a straight line, it’s about ten miles from France. Indeed the background high hills, where I am headed tomorrow, probably are France, or at least the border thereof.
Meanwhile the dog for scale wishes to make it known that the apparent black eye is a photographic peculiarity, and doesn’t arise from any misjudged pursuit of his ball, an encounter with an Italian cat, or any interaction with his owner.
He also cannot explain how he managed to cast two opposing shadows.
The other shadow is from the concrete post for the parapet rail.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
Weren't you saying last year that Trump was a lay?
Yeah, but he has a bit of a point here, Reform need to lay out a stall beyond immigration. Polls turn very fast when the small print is examined (see 2017)
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
Weren't you saying last year that Trump was a lay?
Yes but that wasn't a blinding flash. That was a deep seated conviction.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
Yep. If state pensions go above the tax free threshold, just reduce any pay above that threshold by 20% at source, as no one will be eligible for it regardless of tax status.
So if you announce a £15k state pension and £12.5k personal allowance, then plug in a £14.5k payment into the computer in terms of what actually gets paid.
Doesn't work, alas, - *at present*. State pensions vary from person to person; the pay depends on years of credit accumulated (at least for the older system). And DWP don't do P60s or take part in the tax code and PAYE system.
Someone is going to have to sit down with DWP and give them a stern talking to.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
The Tories were once a party which prided itself on fiscal rectitude.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
I think they were more concerned with laying elephant traps for Labour. I am fairly sure the July election was one, as the government started off on the wrong foot just before the summer recess
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Ooh, so much to argue with there.
2007/8 is a seriously bad baseline, right at the top of a boom when government was somehow running a deficit.
Spending as a percentage of GDP is also a terrible measure to use, as it goes up (good, yay!) as the productive economy shrinks.
Happy to use whatever year you like as a baseline, but the % on healthcare and on pensions is rising with an ageing population and the triple lock irrespective of which years you use.
Two points. Austerity as spending more is never true.
Secondly, returning to a question within the nest, why no real small state, low spend, low tax parties? The answer is this: we are the products of a developmental non revolutionary history.
This has two major impacts: firstly all actual (ignore the rhetoric) politics is a continuation of the moment at which any particular government takes office . (As Reform may be going to discover). So as Small State party takes over it finds the state payment systems already up and running to spend 44% or so of all GDP.
To alter this bigly is massively disruptive. Eg to shave £10 billion, a tiny sum in the scheme of things and less than 1% of state expenditure, off the welfare bill means removing £5000 per year and continuing from two million people. This is disruptive in the sense of riots, fires, protests, media storms, votes, MP support and so on.
That doesn't even begin on the realities of an actual small state - one in which say only 25-30% of GDP is TME.
Which is why (a) whenever Reform are asked about their fiscal plans they lie; and (b) why a Reform government will be social democrat, high spend and therefore high tax. As we shall discover.
A real small state low tax low spend government would arise only out of an actual, real revolution.
And how will you stop the oldies voting for the same healthcare and pension provisions after the revolution?
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury"
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
I think they were more concerned with laying elephant traps for Labour. I am fairly sure the July election was one, as the government started off on the wrong foot just before the summer recess
Why would they do that/ The Labour front bench is so monumentally dumb they dont need help to fk things up.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury"
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Ooh, so much to argue with there.
2007/8 is a seriously bad baseline, right at the top of a boom when government was somehow running a deficit.
Spending as a percentage of GDP is also a terrible measure to use, as it goes up (good, yay!) as the productive economy shrinks.
The focus should be on the scope of the State, and the size of the debt interest bill which now makes monetary policy more significant than fiscal policy.
What you're saying, I think, is that if spending on (say) the NHS rises, then it increases the size of the economy, skewing % of GDP.
My point is this:
Let's say you want government spending as a percentage of GDP to be flat to down. Let's say you want us to be below 40%. Well, if some elements are hardwired to grow faster than the economy as a whole, then that means that the other elements have to fall as a percentage of GDP. And that's what's happened.
I was saying it the other way around, that in a recession your favoured spending to GDP ratio would go up. In the same way as the bankers losing their bonuses made the “poverty” (inequality) numbers better.
Departmental spending as a ratio of all government spending would be a better measure - and also demonstrate how much the Department of Debt Interest has taken over government in recent years.
Well, interest expense has risen meaninfully. But it is worth remembering that -thanks to inflation- the real value of the government's stock of outstanding debt falls every year. It's why even in the 1970s UK government debt-to-GDP was falling, even as the amount paid in interest rose.
The increase in spending on interest expense is captured in the percentage of GDP figures: it's a meaningful contributor to increased government spending, but lags behind healthcare and pensions.
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Also 'fixing' social care. There are several things like this which have to be cross party. In fact I'm tempted to say that our politics has got to a place whereby if something desperately needs doing it can't be done.
Who is going to pay the the 8 billion compensation for the car finance scandal ?
‘Scandal’ 🙄
It does seem a bit proto-WASPI to me. Though that won't stop me claiming mine.
I don’t think you have to. You should get it automatically. Certainly no need for a claims company who takes 40% for little effort.
I'm registered directly with the bank which loaned the money to me, not a claims company. They at the very least would need to know my current address so I don't think it can be entirely automatic.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Also 'fixing' social care. There are several things like this which have to be cross party. In fact I'm tempted to say that our politics has got to a place whereby if something desperately needs doing it can't be done.
I'm wondering whether a Reform most seats at the next GE might give the impetus needed for a uni-party government that will commit to solving the problems.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Also 'fixing' social care. There are several things like this which have to be cross party. In fact I'm tempted to say that our politics has got to a place whereby if something desperately needs doing it can't be done.
I'm wondering whether a Reform most seats at the next GE might give the impetus needed for a uni-party government that will commit to solving the problems.
The risk of it should give that impetus ahead of the election.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury"
Isn't that the role of the bond market to step in and limit the amount of freebies that people vote for themselves?
French voters are seemingly next up to test that feedback loop.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
The Tories were once a party which prided itself on fiscal rectitude.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
I think they were more concerned with laying elephant traps for Labour. I am fairly sure the July election was one, as the government started off on the wrong foot just before the summer recess
Why would they do that/ The Labour front bench is so monumentally dumb they dont need help to fk things up.
I'm not sure they knew that at the time. And, politics.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
The Tories were once a party which prided itself on fiscal rectitude.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Also 'fixing' social care. There are several things like this which have to be cross party. In fact I'm tempted to say that our politics has got to a place whereby if something desperately needs doing it can't be done.
I'm wondering whether a Reform most seats at the next GE might give the impetus needed for a uni-party government that will commit to solving the problems.
LibLab would cooperate, I think. Reform biggest party but shut out would make for very troubled times though. I'm hoping they aren't.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Also 'fixing' social care. There are several things like this which have to be cross party. In fact I'm tempted to say that our politics has got to a place whereby if something desperately needs doing it can't be done.
I'm wondering whether a Reform most seats at the next GE might give the impetus needed for a uni-party government that will commit to solving the problems.
The risk of it should give that impetus ahead of the election.
Maybe impetus to contingency plans but before GEs, parties normally swear they'll not make deals afterwards. It's only when the facts of life are incontrovertible that deals get done.
Well someone needs to give these Tories at conference a whole load of free gaffer tape and tell them to button up while they've still got a party to save
LOL
youve spent years wishing death on the Conservative Party and now they are on their last legs youre calling in the medics
Okay so that’s not a power station, it’s a factory that makes jet turbines for long-range missiles.
In other news, a military train was derailed near St. Petersburg. The russian authorities denied that anything happened, but also cut off mobile phone networks in the area.
Properly lucked out, the Ukranians are probably going to give him a thorough debriefing and then deport him back to India.
Doesn’t that abrogate his right to a 15 year legal process fighting deportation? What about the fact that as a drug smuggler, he will possibly face persecution in India? What about his right to a family life with the pet parrot* he has, undoubtedly, acquired?
BBC R4 PM interview Conservative Peer Lord Tony Sewell as an impartial foil to Jenrick's commentary. Instead he agreed and doubled down on Jenrick's analysis.
The BBC has lost the plot. Jenrick has unfortunately had the greatest day of his career. He has put the Tories in the forefront of public opinion.
Properly lucked out, the Ukranians are probably going to give him a thorough debriefing and then deport him back to India.
Doesn’t that abrogate his right to a 15 year legal process fighting deportation? What about the fact that as a drug smuggler, he will possibly face persecution in India? What about his right to a family life with the pet parrot* he has, undoubtedly, acquired?
*Norwegian Blue, obviously
He isn’t in the UK.
Other countries just deport people and let them appeal from abroad at their own expense.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury"
Like so many sweeping quotes about the doom of democracy that's clearly bollocks as we've had a welfare state for at least eighty years, arguably more than a century, and have been a democracy all that time.
Just because a sweeping statement is in quotation marks doesn't make it accurate.
Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani · 7h The Greens are credibly talking of getting double figures when it comes to MPs. They have capable people, impressive leaders, almost 1000 councillors and I suspect will soon have over 100,000 members.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
Yup
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
Also 'fixing' social care. There are several things like this which have to be cross party. In fact I'm tempted to say that our politics has got to a place whereby if something desperately needs doing it can't be done.
I'm wondering whether a Reform most seats at the next GE might give the impetus needed for a uni-party government that will commit to solving the problems.
The risk of it should give that impetus ahead of the election.
I suspect the Conservatives have had a fantastic day today. They have been irrelevant since the Truss budget and Jenrick has turned that around today, albeit with some repulsive Powellesque rhetoric. They will take points off Reform to go second. How long that lasts is debatable.
Properly lucked out, the Ukranians are probably going to give him a thorough debriefing and then deport him back to India.
Doesn’t that abrogate his right to a 15 year legal process fighting deportation? What about the fact that as a drug smuggler, he will possibly face persecution in India? What about his right to a family life with the pet parrot* he has, undoubtedly, acquired?
*Norwegian Blue, obviously
Well, if he stays, he's probably in line for conscription by Ukraine.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury"
Like so many sweeping quotes about the doom of democracy that's clearly bollocks as we've had a welfare state for at least eighty years, arguably more than a century, and have been a democracy all that time.
Just because a sweeping statement is in quotation marks doesn't make it accurate.
It isn't inaccurate, it just needs adjusting. Voting for largesse from the public treasury seemed perfectly valid because we didn't realise it was a ponzi scheme. Now demographic change has exposed that.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Is this a problem for Starmer not least as the CPS blame him or at least the government ?
The Director of public prosecutions says Government refused over ‘many months’ to describe country as a national security threat
Britain’s most senior prosecutor has blamed Labour for the collapse of the China spies trial, The Telegraph can disclose.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said on Tuesday that the Government had refused over “many months” to describe China as a threat to national security in its evidence.
In a letter to the chairmen of the home affairs and justice committees, Mr Parkinson explained that this led to the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry last month, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it no longer had enough evidence to proceed.
In a rare public clash with the Government, Mr Parkinson said he had taken the decision to go public because “government briefings have been provided commenting on the evidential situation”.
The Telegraph recently revealed that the prosecution fell apart because the Government refused to disclose key evidence that could have secured a conviction under the Official Secrets Act 1911.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry were accused of collecting information about China-sceptic MPs and government policy under the last Conservative administration and passing it to high-ranking officials in Beijing.
To secure a conviction, prosecutors were required to show that China was an “enemy” of the UK, since espionage is not illegal under the Official Secrets Act if the recipient of the intelligence is an ally.
Mr Parkinson said that while the CPS believed it had enough to charge Mr Cash and Mr Berry in April 2024, his team was then required to collect more evidence because of new case law established in a High Court ruling on a Russian spy ring later that year.
The case found that the definition of an “enemy” was a country that represented a “threat to the national security of the UK” at the time the alleged offence took place.
Mr Parkinson said the CPS asked the Government for more evidence that would establish China was a threat to the UK, but officials refused to provide it.
He said: “Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security.
Well someone needs to give these Tories at conference a whole load of free gaffer tape and tell them to button up while they've still got a party to save
LOL
youve spent years wishing death on the Conservative Party and now they are on their last legs youre calling in the medics
Be careful what you wish for.
You might get it.
So often, the most cruel thing you can do, is to give people what they demand.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
Is this a problem for Starmer not least as the CPS blame him or at least the government ?
The Director of public prosecutions says Government refused over ‘many months’ to describe country as a national security threat
Britain’s most senior prosecutor has blamed Labour for the collapse of the China spies trial, The Telegraph can disclose.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said on Tuesday that the Government had refused over “many months” to describe China as a threat to national security in its evidence.
In a letter to the chairmen of the home affairs and justice committees, Mr Parkinson explained that this led to the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry last month, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it no longer had enough evidence to proceed.
In a rare public clash with the Government, Mr Parkinson said he had taken the decision to go public because “government briefings have been provided commenting on the evidential situation”.
The Telegraph recently revealed that the prosecution fell apart because the Government refused to disclose key evidence that could have secured a conviction under the Official Secrets Act 1911.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry were accused of collecting information about China-sceptic MPs and government policy under the last Conservative administration and passing it to high-ranking officials in Beijing.
To secure a conviction, prosecutors were required to show that China was an “enemy” of the UK, since espionage is not illegal under the Official Secrets Act if the recipient of the intelligence is an ally.
Mr Parkinson said that while the CPS believed it had enough to charge Mr Cash and Mr Berry in April 2024, his team was then required to collect more evidence because of new case law established in a High Court ruling on a Russian spy ring later that year.
The case found that the definition of an “enemy” was a country that represented a “threat to the national security of the UK” at the time the alleged offence took place.
Mr Parkinson said the CPS asked the Government for more evidence that would establish China was a threat to the UK, but officials refused to provide it.
He said: “Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security.
On what was already a fantastic day for your Party the day gets better and better.
Part of the problem with Jenrick's claim of no white faces and a lack of integration is that he appears to lump all non-white people into one bucket, as if different non-white people living together and integrating with each other doesn't count.
Don't those who use the phrase "global majority" do exactly that?
Is this a problem for Starmer not least as the CPS blame him or at least the government ?
The Director of public prosecutions says Government refused over ‘many months’ to describe country as a national security threat
Britain’s most senior prosecutor has blamed Labour for the collapse of the China spies trial, The Telegraph can disclose.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said on Tuesday that the Government had refused over “many months” to describe China as a threat to national security in its evidence.
In a letter to the chairmen of the home affairs and justice committees, Mr Parkinson explained that this led to the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry last month, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it no longer had enough evidence to proceed.
In a rare public clash with the Government, Mr Parkinson said he had taken the decision to go public because “government briefings have been provided commenting on the evidential situation”.
The Telegraph recently revealed that the prosecution fell apart because the Government refused to disclose key evidence that could have secured a conviction under the Official Secrets Act 1911.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry were accused of collecting information about China-sceptic MPs and government policy under the last Conservative administration and passing it to high-ranking officials in Beijing.
To secure a conviction, prosecutors were required to show that China was an “enemy” of the UK, since espionage is not illegal under the Official Secrets Act if the recipient of the intelligence is an ally.
Mr Parkinson said that while the CPS believed it had enough to charge Mr Cash and Mr Berry in April 2024, his team was then required to collect more evidence because of new case law established in a High Court ruling on a Russian spy ring later that year.
The case found that the definition of an “enemy” was a country that represented a “threat to the national security of the UK” at the time the alleged offence took place.
Mr Parkinson said the CPS asked the Government for more evidence that would establish China was a threat to the UK, but officials refused to provide it.
He said: “Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security.
As much as it damaged Blair when he intervened to stop the BAE/Saudi bribery investigation.
Reform also trail with the youngest voters and for her first few months Kemi actually saw the Tories gain voteshare with 18 to 24s. Stride's policy of enabling a National Insurance rebate for young voters to buy their first home was also a good pitch to young voters
Reform also trail with the youngest voters and for her first few months Kemi actually saw the Tories gain voteshare with 18 to 24s. Stride's policy of enabling a National Insurance rebate for young voters to buy their first home was also a good pitch to young voters
Farage on GB News just said 'I agree very strongly with Robert and his remarks in his speech today.'
Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right
Jenrick needs to say something so extreme and controversial that even Farage baulks at endorsing it. Only then will Jenrick's claim to be master of the New Right have achieved critical mass. But what?
Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani · 7h The Greens are credibly talking of getting double figures when it comes to MPs. They have capable people, impressive leaders, almost 1000 councillors and I suspect will soon have over 100,000 members.
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Do you have a number for local government to hand, @rcs1000 ?
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
And many of the Tories few remaining voters are going to drop from the register in the next decade. Where are the replacements coming from?
You mean me and my wife ?
Without being indelicate, death is the end for all of us. We all want a long and productive life but eventually all good things must come to an end.
The point Ian was making is that unless the Tory party can bring in younger voters, it will be in trouble over the coming years. And there are few signs that they are managing to do so.
Yes of course but seeking the demise of pensioners for political gain is not pleasant
We have no idea where the political climate will be in 10 years and even next year
I didn't read his post as seeking anything. Just a statement of reality.
Today's politics is a torment, but as a Tory do you think your conference will bring in members or drive them away? Bring in voters or drive them away?
No idea to be honest
The answer is "probably neither", because I suspect it won't impact much on most voters. (One of the things all politicos should do from time to time is have a week where they get all their news from what was Yourtown FM, and is now something networked. All the news you need in 180 seconds or thereabouts.)
But for those watching, 1 there's hardly anyone there from the party 2 there are very few operatives, which is why you get fails like the misspelt attack confectionery 3 the professional schmoozers are largely absent, because there's no point schmoozing a party with a one-way ticket to Obscurityville.
Something happened in the mid-2010s to turn the age-voting graph much steeper than before. It is showing no signs of flipping back, and the Conservatives are failing to convert people as they enter middle age. Unless that changes, the party has a problem.
Osborne decided to stuff pensioners faces with gold at the same time as imposing austerity on the rest of the country.
Labour had a chance when in government to take over the mantle of stuffing pensioners faces with gold but have rather bungled it. They made themselves massively unpopular with a minor cut to the winter fuel allowance, which they've since partially reversed, ensuring that they won't reap any electoral benefit from being the incumbent government stuffing pensioners faces with gold, while at the same time not saving any money by ending the gold face-stuffing.
I'd therefore assume that the Tories would benefit electorally as the pensioners' ally as the cohort of people in receipt of the state pension continues to grow. But this effect doesn't seem to be strong enough to counteract other reasons why they are losing votes.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...
Farage on GB News just said 'I agree very strongly with Robert and his remarks in his speech today.'
Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right
Jenrick needs to say something so extreme and controversial that even Farage baulks at endorsing it. Only then will Jenrick's claim to be master of the New Right have achieved critical mass. But what?
Rerunning the Battle of Long Island and reinvading the USA.
Farage on GB News just said 'I agree very strongly with Robert and his remarks in his speech today.'
Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right
It's all very murky isn't it?
Badenoch has to look at what Starmer did to make Labour vaguely competent in government. He strung along the idiots and then just cut the strings. It's very hard though with a the parliamentary resources she has. The Tory ranks really are quite awful compared with what has always prevailed in the past.
Reform also trail with the youngest voters and for her first few months Kemi actually saw the Tories gain voteshare with 18 to 24s. Stride's policy of enabling a National Insurance rebate for young voters to buy their first home was also a good pitch to young voters
Yes, I thought that was a very good policy.
Whilst I agree with the sentiment, it seems likely to increase the price of a house. Why not just bring back MIRAS, though?
Someone might point at the interest paid on student loans, I suppose.
Farage on GB News just said 'I agree very strongly with Robert and his remarks in his speech today.'
Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right
Jenrick needs to say something so extreme and controversial that even Farage baulks at endorsing it. Only then will Jenrick's claim to be master of the New Right have achieved critical mass. But what?
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
Well someone needs to give these Tories at conference a whole load of free gaffer tape and tell them to button up while they've still got a party to save
LOL
youve spent years wishing death on the Conservative Party and now they are on their last legs youre calling in the medics
Be careful what you wish for.
You might get it.
So often, the most cruel thing you can do, is to give people what they demand.
Interview with daughter of two Israeli hostages on C4 News was extraordinarily moving: one survived, the other died. She insists on the humanity we all share. Voices like hers far too rarely heard.
Okay so that’s not a power station, it’s a factory that makes jet turbines for long-range missiles.
In other news, a military train was derailed near St. Petersburg. The russian authorities denied that anything happened, but also cut off mobile phone networks in the area.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I disagree.
Absent some huge scandal blowing up, the time that Reform will be most vulnerable will be in the last 12 months of this parliament. That’s when most people will make the judgement call of how viable they feel as a government, and what impact they could have.
Up until then, I think they are the NOTA option of choice for most. Labour and the Tories are just so widely disliked, it’s hard to see either of them mount such a meaningful recovery mid-term (Starmer resigning could be a wildcard).
I still think we’ll see Reform polling 40% in this Parliament.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
Well someone needs to give these Tories at conference a whole load of free gaffer tape and tell them to button up while they've still got a party to save
LOL
youve spent years wishing death on the Conservative Party and now they are on their last legs youre calling in the medics
Be careful what you wish for.
You might get it.
So often, the most cruel thing you can do, is to give people what they demand.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Too wide and too shallow - wot, the average Reform voter?
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
Labour will change Leader and/or Chancellor before the GE. Doing so they will plunge into the abyss because they have the only viable combo now.
If Labour truly crash where do the votes go? It's a puzzle and 'not Reform' is part of the answer,
Okay so that’s not a power station, it’s a factory that makes jet turbines for long-range missiles.
In other news, a military train was derailed near St. Petersburg. The russian authorities denied that anything happened, but also cut off mobile phone networks in the area.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
I think another crucial factor for Labour will be perceived delivery of benefit.
We already have money hitting bank accounts (eg minimum wage uplift) and things coming around job security / restrictions on zero hours contracts (about which I am in two minds - I keep seeing surveys saying that they are liked), and maybe upticks in economic growth but not enough evidence yet that it will sustain.
But I still think it will be the second half of 2026 before we can see clearly.
And there are still massively too many unforced errors.
Okay so that’s not a power station, it’s a factory that makes jet turbines for long-range missiles.
In other news, a military train was derailed near St. Petersburg. The russian authorities denied that anything happened, but also cut off mobile phone networks in the area.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
Labour will change Leader and/or Chancellor before the GE. Doing so they will plunge into the abyss because they have the only viable combo now.
If Labour truly crash where do the votes go? It's a puzzle and 'not Reform' is part of the answer,
All politics is relative, and power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
Labour have been terrible but could change captains and survive. They are not completely devoid of sane talent; at least not as devoid as the other parties. They can sort of assemble an OK front bench that isn't a mixture of crooks, racists and the mentally challenged.
There is only a finite number of places for Labour's votes to go. Those that have gone are mostly to LD and Greens and some to Reform. Others will be a mixture of NOTA, sectarian independents and the non existent Jezbollah.
For most 2024 Labour voters who are still Labour, Reform and Tory are not an option, for obvious reasons. I think LD or not voting are the most likely, especially as the Greens by them will look little different from Corbynism.
But more likely is a modest Labour recovery. Someone has to lead the next government. It is easy to foget that Labour, for all their faults, seem to be the only outfit even close to being able to do it.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
I think another crucial factor for Labour will be perceived delivery of benefit.
We already have money hitting bank accounts (eg minimum wage uplift) and things coming around job security / restrictions on zero hours contracts (about which I am in two minds - I keep seeing surveys saying that they are liked), and maybe upticks in economic growth but not enough evidence yet that it will sustain.
But I still think it will be the second half of 2026 before we can see clearly.
And there are still massively too many unforced errors.
If a large proportion of Reform voters are either unemployed or retired, minimum wage and zero hours contracts won’t affect them.
If Jenrick takes over as Tory leader, it will either take votes away from Reform, as their voters return to the Tories, or will take votes away from the Tories to the Lib Dems. The two movements may cancel each other out. Neither, however, will benefit Labour.
A great interview from the Rest is Politics Leading channel, with John Healey (Def Sec).
Quite a lot of political history from the Blair times, his own life, and how he crossed the Atlantic from West to the Azores in a 30ft yacht with one other, and was reported missing to Lloyds.
Comments
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
Someone is going to have to sit down with DWP and give them a stern talking to.
Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.
Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.
(Famously, Chagos also made us money with the .io suffix)
The increase in spending on interest expense is captured in the percentage of GDP figures: it's a meaningful contributor to increased government spending, but lags behind healthcare and pensions.
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/1975608240919679384
French voters are seemingly next up to test that feedback loop.
https://www.terra-italia.com/properties/ba-1027-bajardo-country-house-with-garden-for-sale/
You might get it.
In other news, a military train was derailed near St. Petersburg. The russian authorities denied that anything happened, but also cut off mobile phone networks in the area.
https://x.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1975592403143680002
process fighting deportation? What about the fact that as a drug smuggler, he will possibly face persecution in India? What about his right to a family life with the pet parrot* he has, undoubtedly, acquired?
*Norwegian Blue, obviously
Other countries just deport people and let them appeal from abroad at their own expense.
Just because a sweeping statement is in quotation marks doesn't make it accurate.
Aaron Bastani
@AaronBastani
·
7h
The Greens are credibly talking of getting double figures when it comes to MPs. They have capable people, impressive leaders, almost 1000 councillors and I suspect will soon have over 100,000 members.
https://x.com/AaronBastani/status/1975511045591474492
If true then seems Corbyn's lot will have problems lifting off.
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The Director of public prosecutions says Government refused over ‘many months’ to describe country as a national security threat
Britain’s most senior prosecutor has blamed Labour for the collapse of the China spies trial, The Telegraph can disclose.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said on Tuesday that the Government had refused over “many months” to describe China as a threat to national security in its evidence.
In a letter to the chairmen of the home affairs and justice committees, Mr Parkinson explained that this led to the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry last month, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it no longer had enough evidence to proceed.
In a rare public clash with the Government, Mr Parkinson said he had taken the decision to go public because “government briefings have been provided commenting on the evidential situation”.
The Telegraph recently revealed that the prosecution fell apart because the Government refused to disclose key evidence that could have secured a conviction under the Official Secrets Act 1911.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry were accused of collecting information about China-sceptic MPs and government policy under the last Conservative administration and passing it to high-ranking officials in Beijing.
To secure a conviction, prosecutors were required to show that China was an “enemy” of the UK, since espionage is not illegal under the Official Secrets Act if the recipient of the intelligence is an ally.
Mr Parkinson said that while the CPS believed it had enough to charge Mr Cash and Mr Berry in April 2024, his team was then required to collect more evidence because of new case law established in a High Court ruling on a Russian spy ring later that year.
The case found that the definition of an “enemy” was a country that represented a “threat to the national security of the UK” at the time the alleged offence took place.
Mr Parkinson said the CPS asked the Government for more evidence that would establish China was a threat to the UK, but officials refused to provide it.
He said: “Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security.
Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
Labour had a chance when in government to take over the mantle of stuffing pensioners faces with gold but have rather bungled it. They made themselves massively unpopular with a minor cut to the winter fuel allowance, which they've since partially reversed, ensuring that they won't reap any electoral benefit from being the incumbent government stuffing pensioners faces with gold, while at the same time not saving any money by ending the gold face-stuffing.
I'd therefore assume that the Tories would benefit electorally as the pensioners' ally as the cohort of people in receipt of the state pension continues to grow. But this effect doesn't seem to be strong enough to counteract other reasons why they are losing votes.
Take back what's rightfully ours.
Badenoch has to look at what Starmer did to make Labour vaguely competent in government. He strung along the idiots and then just cut the strings. It's very hard though with a the parliamentary resources she has. The Tory ranks really are quite awful compared with what has always prevailed in the past.
Someone might point at the interest paid on student loans, I suppose.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
But clever disguised with *my* branding
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
Care to reconsider your conclusion?
Absent some huge scandal blowing up, the time that Reform will be most vulnerable will be in the last 12 months of this parliament. That’s when most people will make the judgement call of how viable they feel as a government, and what impact they could have.
Up until then, I think they are the NOTA option of choice for most. Labour and the Tories are just so widely disliked, it’s hard to see either of them mount such a meaningful recovery mid-term (Starmer resigning could be a wildcard).
I still think we’ll see Reform polling 40% in this Parliament.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
If Labour truly crash where do the votes go? It's a puzzle and 'not Reform' is part of the answer,
Tell The Truth
https://youtu.be/wj6Gd9sBQvM
or
The Happy Song (Dum-Dum-Didlee-Dee-Dum)
https://youtu.be/MHLB4BMSl74
We already have money hitting bank accounts (eg minimum wage uplift) and things coming around job security / restrictions on zero hours contracts (about which I am in two minds - I keep seeing surveys saying that they are liked), and maybe upticks in economic growth but not enough evidence yet that it will sustain.
But I still think it will be the second half of 2026 before we can see clearly.
And there are still massively too many unforced errors.
Labour have been terrible but could change captains and survive. They are not completely devoid of sane talent; at least not as devoid as the other parties. They can sort of assemble an OK front bench that isn't a mixture of crooks, racists and the mentally challenged.
There is only a finite number of places for Labour's votes to go. Those that have gone are mostly to LD and Greens and some to Reform. Others will be a mixture of NOTA, sectarian independents and the non existent Jezbollah.
For most 2024 Labour voters who are still Labour, Reform and Tory are not an option, for obvious reasons. I think LD or not voting are the most likely, especially as the Greens by them will look little different from Corbynism.
But more likely is a modest Labour recovery. Someone has to lead the next government. It is easy to foget that Labour, for all their faults, seem to be the only outfit even close to being able to do it.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po
The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced.
The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply.
The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets.
The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey.
The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
If Jenrick takes over as Tory leader, it will either take votes away from Reform, as their voters return to the Tories, or will take votes away from the Tories to the Lib Dems. The two movements may cancel each other out. Neither, however, will benefit Labour.
Quite a lot of political history from the Blair times, his own life, and how he crossed the Atlantic from West to the Azores in a 30ft yacht with one other, and was reported missing to Lloyds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZOs35GjheI