Crikey, Survation have found there's a 37% Lab to Reform swing in Caerphilly
Headline Voting Intention (likely voters vs 2021 Senedd elections)
Base: All those likely to vote with undecided squeezed and those still undecided and refused removed If the by-election were held today:
Llŷr Tomos Powell – Reform UK: 42% (+40)
Lindsay Whittle – Plaid Cymru: 38% (+10)
Richard Tunnicliffe – Labour: 12% (-34)
Gareth John Potter – Conservative: 4% (-14)
Steve Aicheler – Liberal Democrat: 1% (-1)
Gareth Hughes – Green Party: 3% (+3)
Excellent for Plaid, east Glamorganshire is quite a way from their normal hunting grounds I think. Looks disastrous for Labour, if that's repeated across the valleys.
Point of order. Caerphilly is now considered as part of Gwent. They have also won the neighbouring Islwyn seat previously, so not that unknown for them.
I prefer historic counties, the ones where Middlesborough is in the right place.
Middlesbrough !
It is historic? Not even two centuries old. (Seriously, an interesting place ...)
Crikey, Survation have found there's a 37% Lab to Reform swing in Caerphilly
Headline Voting Intention (likely voters vs 2021 Senedd elections)
Base: All those likely to vote with undecided squeezed and those still undecided and refused removed If the by-election were held today:
Llŷr Tomos Powell – Reform UK: 42% (+40)
Lindsay Whittle – Plaid Cymru: 38% (+10)
Richard Tunnicliffe – Labour: 12% (-34)
Gareth John Potter – Conservative: 4% (-14)
Steve Aicheler – Liberal Democrat: 1% (-1)
Gareth Hughes – Green Party: 3% (+3)
Excellent for Plaid, east Glamorganshire is quite a way from their normal hunting grounds I think. Looks disastrous for Labour, if that's repeated across the valleys.
Point of order. Caerphilly is now considered as part of Gwent. They have also won the neighbouring Islwyn seat previously, so not that unknown for them.
I prefer historic counties, the ones where Middlesborough is in the right place.
Middlesbrough !
It is historic? Not even two centuries old. (Seriously, an interesting place ...)
Latest poll has: Connolly (Independent Left) 38% Humphreys (Fine Gale) 20% Gavin (Fianna Fail; withdrawn, but still on the ballot paper) 5% Don't Know 18% Won't Vote 12% Spoiling Vote 8%
Excluding don't knows, etc, that works out as: Connolly 60% Humphreys 32% Gavin 8%
Looks like a Connolly landslide on the face of it, but there's always the potential for a campaign to change late on. In 2011 the last three polls of the campaign had Gallagher leading on 39-40% and Higgins well behind on 25-27%. The result of the first preference vote was Higgins 39.6% to Gallagher 28.5%. In between was a debate in which Gallagher admitted accepting a cheque from a "convicted criminal and fuel smuggler" for a Fianna Fail fundraising event. This somewhat derailed his campaign.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
Essentially the SNP are able to present themselves as "Scotland's party" and are best able to to extricate a deal from Westminster. And, to be fair, judging by the Barnett consequentials, the threat from Indy has worked the trick. Scotland gets a great deal but the Westminster parties get very little credit. Always easier to feel hard-done-by than satisfied.
Also, supporters of the SNP are much less transactional than those for the other parties. More like football fans. You don't stop supporting Celtic because the management is rubbish, or they keep scoring own goals.
On that transactional analysis, when did you stop supporting the Tories?
Shocking how the state broadcaster continually lets off the EssEnPee.
Google search: Scottish ferry scandal bbc
About 67,200 results (0.36s)
Time they put objective Scottish commentators like FTP1690 in charge.
Yep. The ferry story has gained some traction. That's certainly true. It even piqued the interest of the UK media.
But that's because it goes well beyond politics, and affects people very personally. Missed hospital appointments. Broken businesses. And the islands make for an attractive, even fashionable, setting. And because it just keeps on going on and on. And, of course, there's the baroque farce of the launch with false funnels and painted-on windows, and the humiliation of Ferguson Marine on Clydeside. Catnip.
Crikey, Survation have found there's a 37% Lab to Reform swing in Caerphilly
Headline Voting Intention (likely voters vs 2021 Senedd elections)
Base: All those likely to vote with undecided squeezed and those still undecided and refused removed If the by-election were held today:
Llŷr Tomos Powell – Reform UK: 42% (+40)
Lindsay Whittle – Plaid Cymru: 38% (+10)
Richard Tunnicliffe – Labour: 12% (-34)
Gareth John Potter – Conservative: 4% (-14)
Steve Aicheler – Liberal Democrat: 1% (-1)
Gareth Hughes – Green Party: 3% (+3)
If this is the actual result, it will not be good news for those who believe in the motto Cymru am byth. Hopefully, there will be a last minute swing to PC.
Crikey, Survation have found there's a 37% Lab to Reform swing in Caerphilly
Headline Voting Intention (likely voters vs 2021 Senedd elections)
Base: All those likely to vote with undecided squeezed and those still undecided and refused removed If the by-election were held today:
Llŷr Tomos Powell – Reform UK: 42% (+40)
Lindsay Whittle – Plaid Cymru: 38% (+10)
Richard Tunnicliffe – Labour: 12% (-34)
Gareth John Potter – Conservative: 4% (-14)
Steve Aicheler – Liberal Democrat: 1% (-1)
Gareth Hughes – Green Party: 3% (+3)
Excellent for Plaid, east Glamorganshire is quite a way from their normal hunting grounds I think. Looks disastrous for Labour, if that's repeated across the valleys.
Point of order. Caerphilly is now considered as part of Gwent. They have also won the neighbouring Islwyn seat previously, so not that unknown for them.
I prefer historic counties, the ones where Middlesborough is in the right place.
Middlesbrough !
It is historic? Not even two centuries old. (Seriously, an interesting place ...)
Crikey, Survation have found there's a 37% Lab to Reform swing in Caerphilly
Headline Voting Intention (likely voters vs 2021 Senedd elections)
Base: All those likely to vote with undecided squeezed and those still undecided and refused removed If the by-election were held today:
Llŷr Tomos Powell – Reform UK: 42% (+40)
Lindsay Whittle – Plaid Cymru: 38% (+10)
Richard Tunnicliffe – Labour: 12% (-34)
Gareth John Potter – Conservative: 4% (-14)
Steve Aicheler – Liberal Democrat: 1% (-1)
Gareth Hughes – Green Party: 3% (+3)
...Looks disastrous for Labour, if that's repeated across the valleys.
This is why I keep muttering "Olympus has fallen" whenever things like this come out. We have discussed the end of Conservative Party as a serious force, but we haven't internalised a similar fate for Labour. If the valleys go Reform, where is left for them?
You have to look more than one step ahead for possibilities. Labour (and Tory) future rests on outcomes. The first essential step is to remain structurally in existence. The rest is about being prepared to be in place as and when Reform and friends find running things a little harder than they think and the voters, who are in a remarkably fickle mood, wonder for whom to vote instead.
Since about 2007/8 governing the country has been exceptionally hard. at the moment there is no reason to think that Reform are prepared for this, or will find it any easier, or the voters any more loyal. IMHO there ae still reasons to think Reform may struggle to get a majority.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
ALL of that has been pretty clear for a decade. We've certainly been arguing about it here for at least as long as that.
The difference is that all the stuff people said wouldn't happen - renewables cheaper than fossil fuel; EVs cheaper than ICE cars; battery storage capable of solving daily intermittency economically etc has either now happened, or is about to be delivered within this decade.
We've not seriously planned for any of that - while China bet their future on it.
Time to end the denial.
Government, the related state run institutions and large companies in the UK (and Europe in general) operate on the basis of
1) talk but don’t do. 2) denial of change until a decade after it has happened. 3) bankrupt legalism dominating debate and policy. So we have a debate about how many Chinese spies can stand on the head of a pin. Rather than passing an amendment to the law.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
Essentially the SNP are able to present themselves as "Scotland's party" and are best able to to extricate a deal from Westminster. And, to be fair, judging by the Barnett consequentials, the threat from Indy has worked the trick. Scotland gets a great deal but the Westminster parties get very little credit. Always easier to feel hard-done-by than satisfied.
Also, supporters of the SNP are much less transactional than those for the other parties. More like football fans. You don't stop supporting Celtic because the management is rubbish, or they keep scoring own goals.
On that transactional analysis, when did you stop supporting the Tories?
Fair question. I guess in that respect I'm more like a Nat. Support out of principle, ie, support Tory principles which means that supporting another party which opposes them is tricky. And, also, because in a parliamentary democracy its best to have reasonably strong resilient broad-based parties otherwise you fall prey to the populists. You can't do that if you walk away, fold your arms, and be too precious.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
RochdalePioneers, seconded. But we have the added the problem of such poor and hollowed out journalistic reporting from BBC Scotland and STV News which I jokingly call SNP News. Thank god for the again now hollowed out printed media in Scotland for doing all the heavy lifting mostly on their own and mostly ignored by BBC Scotland and STV. I am trying to remember which SNP scandal it was that broke a couple of years ago, but the STV teatime news didn't mention it for two days!
I read an article a couple of days ago about how BBC Scotland was struggling to invest and make enough content and as a result it was struggling to compete with streaming channels. But thanks to the pressure from the SNP Government in Scotland they launched that white elephant of a second channel and all to produce a fecking 'Scottish' evening news programme that no one watches and they were left to fill the rest of their small evening programme with mostly repeats from the BBC Scotland archives from years ago!
How many news journalists or new Scottish programming fell by the way side funding this ridiculous demand by the SNP Government. Its just yet another example of their wasteful incompetent demands in an attempt to appear a nation in waiting for Indy. And do not get me started on the wasteful 'Scottish' extortionately expensive' embassies that do sod all to promote or help Scots abroad and simple give Angus Robertson a reason to visit them on his many travels abroad!
I think you must not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers.
Scotsman - went from middle of the road to hard Unionist DT emulator, and abandoned its central Edinburgh office building for a new one opposite Holyrood which it then abandoned for some industrial estate somewhere I can't remember
Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income
Edit: A decade and more later, I'm still bitterly angry about the Scotsman. I grew up on it and miss it enormously.
One of the many things that sets off Brillo on twitter is accusing him of fckng up the Scotsman - 'You're blocked!'
A major factor in disqualifying Yoons from any consideration that they have an attachment to objectivity is their repeated cry that the media landscape is in any way favourable to the SNP or independence. I see it as the increasing need on the right (and many Yoons are on the right) to see themselves as victims, and that the continuing & increasing irrelevance of the minor party they support is somehow caused by not enough SNPbad.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
ALL of that has been pretty clear for a decade. We've certainly been arguing about it here for at least as long as that.
The difference is that all the stuff people said wouldn't happen - renewables cheaper than fossil fuel; EVs cheaper than ICE cars; battery storage capable of solving daily intermittency economically etc has either now happened, or is about to be delivered within this decade.
We've not seriously planned for any of that - while China bet their future on it.
Time to end the denial.
China has no ideological opposition to either coal or solar. They are using terawatts of both, an entirely practical energy policy.
Meanwhile, Europe is mandating electric cars on a tight schedule, but without putting much thinking into either the infrastructure nor the supply chain, and risks handing a massive industry almost entirely to China inside a decade.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
Latest poll has: Connolly (Independent Left) 38% Humphreys (Fine Gale) 20% Gavin (Fianna Fail; withdrawn, but still on the ballot paper) 5% Don't Know 18% Won't Vote 12% Spoiling Vote 8%
Excluding don't knows, etc, that works out as: Connolly 60% Humphreys 32% Gavin 8%
Looks like a Connolly landslide on the face of it, but there's always the potential for a campaign to change late on. In 2011 the last three polls of the campaign had Gallagher leading on 39-40% and Higgins well behind on 25-27%. The result of the first preference vote was Higgins 39.6% to Gallagher 28.5%. In between was a debate in which Gallagher admitted accepting a cheque from a "convicted criminal and fuel smuggler" for a Fianna Fail fundraising event. This somewhat derailed his campaign.
On the bits I've seen on twitter the campaign seems unrelentingly negative (aren't they all nowadays), lots of gotchas and they said this and voted for that.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
RochdalePioneers, seconded. But we have the added the problem of such poor and hollowed out journalistic reporting from BBC Scotland and STV News which I jokingly call SNP News. Thank god for the again now hollowed out printed media in Scotland for doing all the heavy lifting mostly on their own and mostly ignored by BBC Scotland and STV. I am trying to remember which SNP scandal it was that broke a couple of years ago, but the STV teatime news didn't mention it for two days!
I read an article a couple of days ago about how BBC Scotland was struggling to invest and make enough content and as a result it was struggling to compete with streaming channels. But thanks to the pressure from the SNP Government in Scotland they launched that white elephant of a second channel and all to produce a fecking 'Scottish' evening news programme that no one watches and they were left to fill the rest of their small evening programme with mostly repeats from the BBC Scotland archives from years ago!
How many news journalists or new Scottish programming fell by the way side funding this ridiculous demand by the SNP Government. Its just yet another example of their wasteful incompetent demands in an attempt to appear a nation in waiting for Indy. And do not get me started on the wasteful 'Scottish' extortionately expensive' embassies that do sod all to promote or help Scots abroad and simple give Angus Robertson a reason to visit them on his many travels abroad!
I think you must not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers.
Scotsman - went from middle of the road to hard Unionist DT emulator, and abandoned its central Edinburgh office building for a new one opposite Holyrood which it then abandoned for some industrial estate somewhere I can't remember
Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income
Edit: A decade and more later, I'm still bitterly angry about the Scotsman. I grew up on it and miss it enormously.
One of the many things that sets off Brillo on twitter is accusing him of fckng up the Scotsman - 'You're blocked!'
A major factor in disqualifying Yoons from any consideration that they have an attachment to objectivity is their repeated cry that the media landscape is in any way favourable to the SNP or independence. I see it as the increasing need on the right (and many Yoons are on the right) to see themselves as victims, and that the continuing & increasing irrelevance of the minor party they support is somehow caused by not enough SNPbad.
Interesting - I don't dive into Twitter so you've done that for me, poor you. What I remember as much as anything else about the DT-emulation was the shock at seeing this whole page of the Scotsman - whole page - devoted to colour photos of cheesily smiling "Mrs Angus McGillicuddy of Glenmutchkin, Mr Robert M'Corkindale and the Laird of Glentumblers share a glass at the reception at XXX Gallery" like something from the Tatler. Very quickly dropped, IIRC: so I can't have been the only one.
And the newspaper which photoshopped a swastika onto a photo of a Saltire- waving independista didn't cover itself in glory either.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
RochdalePioneers, seconded. But we have the added the problem of such poor and hollowed out journalistic reporting from BBC Scotland and STV News which I jokingly call SNP News. Thank god for the again now hollowed out printed media in Scotland for doing all the heavy lifting mostly on their own and mostly ignored by BBC Scotland and STV. I am trying to remember which SNP scandal it was that broke a couple of years ago, but the STV teatime news didn't mention it for two days!
I read an article a couple of days ago about how BBC Scotland was struggling to invest and make enough content and as a result it was struggling to compete with streaming channels. But thanks to the pressure from the SNP Government in Scotland they launched that white elephant of a second channel and all to produce a fecking 'Scottish' evening news programme that no one watches and they were left to fill the rest of their small evening programme with mostly repeats from the BBC Scotland archives from years ago!
How many news journalists or new Scottish programming fell by the way side funding this ridiculous demand by the SNP Government. Its just yet another example of their wasteful incompetent demands in an attempt to appear a nation in waiting for Indy. And do not get me started on the wasteful 'Scottish' extortionately expensive' embassies that do sod all to promote or help Scots abroad and simple give Angus Robertson a reason to visit them on his many travels abroad!
I think you must not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers.
Scotsman - went from middle of the road to hard Unionist DT emulator, and abandoned its central Edinburgh office building for a new one opposite Holyrood which it then abandoned for some industrial estate somewhere I can't remember
Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income
Edit: A decade and more later, I'm still bitterly angry about the Scotsman. I grew up on it and miss it enormously.
OMG! I am loving the desperation of the SNP supporters on here this morning spinning against the hard truth of what has been actually happening in Scotland and in other devolved areas of the UK and calling out the failure of the London centric UK news media to report it. But seriously you embarrass yourself by trying to claim that 'Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income'!!!
And suggesting that I might not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers, I am going to be sixty this year and I have been a political anorak since my mid teens, I have also been posting here for twenty years too! Really, you are claiming that the SNP mouth piece that is the National which is the SNP equivalent of Pravda is a not very SNP-friendly newspaper?! Thankfully I was not holding my coffee when I read this, this comic with sales in the very very low four figures totally directed at the SNP Indy movement is meant to be a money maker for the Herald?! Would that be in the same way that its become a second news print white elephant like that second BBC Scotland channel was meant to push Indy too?
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
Latest poll has: Connolly (Independent Left) 38% Humphreys (Fine Gale) 20% Gavin (Fianna Fail; withdrawn, but still on the ballot paper) 5% Don't Know 18% Won't Vote 12% Spoiling Vote 8%
Excluding don't knows, etc, that works out as: Connolly 60% Humphreys 32% Gavin 8%
Looks like a Connolly landslide on the face of it, but there's always the potential for a campaign to change late on. In 2011 the last three polls of the campaign had Gallagher leading on 39-40% and Higgins well behind on 25-27%. The result of the first preference vote was Higgins 39.6% to Gallagher 28.5%. In between was a debate in which Gallagher admitted accepting a cheque from a "convicted criminal and fuel smuggler" for a Fianna Fail fundraising event. This somewhat derailed his campaign.
Heather Humphreys is a Presbyterian whose father was a member of the Orange Order and grandfather opposed Home Rule in 1912. Not exactly your typical Irish presidential election candidate.
The crosstabs in that YouGov poll are fascinating. The story is being followed more closely by Conservative/Reform voters and older people. Those two align as you'd expect. But, London is the region where it's being followed most closely.
The story in itself is that big. As ever, it's the possibility of a cover up and lies to the House that are the real story. If anything breaks in that area, then people will care.
“He said while there was sufficient evidence when charges were originally brought against the two men, a precedent set by another spying case earlier this year meant China would need to have been labelled a "threat to national security" at the time of the alleged offences.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ex172rxwzo
What I don’t understand is why that is the case? It seems an oddly specific requirement. And the failure appears to be on the CPS not saying, “We need these exact words.”
Every minister, shadow minister, and government department concerned with such matters, should be shouting from the rooftops that China is a threat to national security.
Everyone needs to understand that China is a massive threat to national security, the biggest threat we’ve faced since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It’s Russia who has actually invaded its neighbours and is behind numerous cyberattacks, but whichever you want to put as #1 in your list, that’s nothing to do with my point.
My point is why does the criminal case require such a precise wording and why did the CPS not clearly communicate this need to government?
A rare flaw with lawyers (perhaps the only flaw) is that they get bogged down in epistemological issues that do not need to exist.
At least that's better than getting bogged down in ontological issues that do not need to exist.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Sadly it’s a bit late now, that ship sailed some years ago and the Chinese about-turn on trade policy was entirely predictable.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but IMHO Trump was mostly right on his tariffs, there’s a desparate need to reshore a lot of manufacturing in key sectors. Yes a lot of the president’s approach was to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the same sentiment should be echoing around the Western world.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
RochdalePioneers, seconded. But we have the added the problem of such poor and hollowed out journalistic reporting from BBC Scotland and STV News which I jokingly call SNP News. Thank god for the again now hollowed out printed media in Scotland for doing all the heavy lifting mostly on their own and mostly ignored by BBC Scotland and STV. I am trying to remember which SNP scandal it was that broke a couple of years ago, but the STV teatime news didn't mention it for two days!
I read an article a couple of days ago about how BBC Scotland was struggling to invest and make enough content and as a result it was struggling to compete with streaming channels. But thanks to the pressure from the SNP Government in Scotland they launched that white elephant of a second channel and all to produce a fecking 'Scottish' evening news programme that no one watches and they were left to fill the rest of their small evening programme with mostly repeats from the BBC Scotland archives from years ago!
How many news journalists or new Scottish programming fell by the way side funding this ridiculous demand by the SNP Government. Its just yet another example of their wasteful incompetent demands in an attempt to appear a nation in waiting for Indy. And do not get me started on the wasteful 'Scottish' extortionately expensive' embassies that do sod all to promote or help Scots abroad and simple give Angus Robertson a reason to visit them on his many travels abroad!
I think you must not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers.
Scotsman - went from middle of the road to hard Unionist DT emulator, and abandoned its central Edinburgh office building for a new one opposite Holyrood which it then abandoned for some industrial estate somewhere I can't remember
Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income
Edit: A decade and more later, I'm still bitterly angry about the Scotsman. I grew up on it and miss it enormously.
OMG! I am loving the desperation of the SNP supporters on here this morning spinning against the hard truth of what has been actually happening in Scotland and in other devolved areas of the UK and calling out the failure of the London centric UK news media to report it. But seriously you embarrass yourself by trying to claim that 'Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income'!!!
And suggesting that I might not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers, I am going to be sixty this year and I have been a political anorak since my mid teens, I have also been posting here for twenty years too! Really, you are claiming that the SNP mouth piece that is the National which is the SNP equivalent of Pravda is a not very SNP-friendly newspaper?! Thankfully I was not holding my coffee when I read this, this comic with sales in the very very low four figures totally directed at the SNP Indy movement is meant to be a money maker for the Herald?! Would that be in the same that the second white elephant of a BBC Scotland channel was meant to push Indy too?
Have you not realised that the National was primarily a Green/SSP paper when it was founded?* It's changed a bit sicne then, but that was very noticeable att he time. Circulation in print form is low partly (but only partly) because it tends to be a younger persons' paper given its politics.
The BBC Scotland channel has to be seen in the wider context of Government subsidy for local newspapers through the BBC etc - and almost all of them are owned by anti-indy owners (not many of them).
*Edit: just because something supports independence doesn't mean it is pro-SNP.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
The crosstabs in that YouGov poll are fascinating. The story is being followed more closely by Conservative/Reform voters and older people. Those two align as you'd expect. But, London is the region where it's being followed most closely.
The story in itself is that big. As ever, it's the possibility of a cover up and lies to the House that are the real story. If anything breaks in that area, then people will care.
Cover up and lies in espionage? Never, surely it is all settled by martinis and witticisms?
Latest poll has: Connolly (Independent Left) 38% Humphreys (Fine Gale) 20% Gavin (Fianna Fail; withdrawn, but still on the ballot paper) 5% Don't Know 18% Won't Vote 12% Spoiling Vote 8%
Excluding don't knows, etc, that works out as: Connolly 60% Humphreys 32% Gavin 8%
Looks like a Connolly landslide on the face of it, but there's always the potential for a campaign to change late on. In 2011 the last three polls of the campaign had Gallagher leading on 39-40% and Higgins well behind on 25-27%. The result of the first preference vote was Higgins 39.6% to Gallagher 28.5%. In between was a debate in which Gallagher admitted accepting a cheque from a "convicted criminal and fuel smuggler" for a Fianna Fail fundraising event. This somewhat derailed his campaign.
It seems like one clown will replace another, as President of Ireland.
How difficult would 12% for Labour in Caerphilly be for Starmer?
It might be even less than that if there’s tactical voting to keep out Reform !
In Wales the tactical voting is to keep labour out
I don't believe that is true. Reform voters believe Reform have the answers and Labour and Conservatives don't. If PC are the best option to keep these Faragista Charlatans out that is who I vote for.
Latest poll has: Connolly (Independent Left) 38% Humphreys (Fine Gale) 20% Gavin (Fianna Fail; withdrawn, but still on the ballot paper) 5% Don't Know 18% Won't Vote 12% Spoiling Vote 8%
Excluding don't knows, etc, that works out as: Connolly 60% Humphreys 32% Gavin 8%
Looks like a Connolly landslide on the face of it, but there's always the potential for a campaign to change late on. In 2011 the last three polls of the campaign had Gallagher leading on 39-40% and Higgins well behind on 25-27%. The result of the first preference vote was Higgins 39.6% to Gallagher 28.5%. In between was a debate in which Gallagher admitted accepting a cheque from a "convicted criminal and fuel smuggler" for a Fianna Fail fundraising event. This somewhat derailed his campaign.
On the bits I've seen on twitter the campaign seems unrelentingly negative (aren't they all nowadays), lots of gotchas and they said this and voted for that.
It's hard for it not to be. The Irish President cannot implement anything in relation to policy. They're not even supposed to say anything too political, because they exist in a similar constitutional position to a constitutional monarch - openly criticising or contradicting the government would not be on.
So the only thing that is left is whether the candidate is a good person. And no-one is a paragon of virtue.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I did actually show the sum I was doing in my post
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Sadly it’s a bit late now, that ship sailed some years ago and the Chinese about-turn on trade policy was entirely predictable.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but IMHO Trump was mostly right on his tariffs, there’s a desparate need to reshore a lot of manufacturing in key sectors. Yes a lot of the president’s approach was to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the same sentiment should be echoing around the Western world.
If he were serious about that as a driver of policy, he'd have targeted China and its offshore hubs, rather than going to war with America's allies as well. And beyond that, the tariff detail has been extremely poorly geared towards re-shoring manufacturing efficiently.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide than any of the rest of the UK electorate who support other parties. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
It's an inherent problem with devolution, not just in this country. For a little while I lived and worked in Little Rock, AR and was amazed by the unreported incestuousness and corruption of the political circles there. But it never got much if any airplay, because US local TV mostly parrots national political coverage or shows the latest freeway pileup or sensational murder, and the dead tree press, which was still a thing back then, syndicates most of its coverage from agencies or large national papers.
So local political incompetence and corruption gets relatively little airtime in many places.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I did actually show the sum I was doing in my post
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
The 2021 Census says 34.8% of Leicester South is Muslim, so that is about 40,000
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
RochdalePioneers, seconded. But we have the added the problem of such poor and hollowed out journalistic reporting from BBC Scotland and STV News which I jokingly call SNP News. Thank god for the again now hollowed out printed media in Scotland for doing all the heavy lifting mostly on their own and mostly ignored by BBC Scotland and STV. I am trying to remember which SNP scandal it was that broke a couple of years ago, but the STV teatime news didn't mention it for two days!
I read an article a couple of days ago about how BBC Scotland was struggling to invest and make enough content and as a result it was struggling to compete with streaming channels. But thanks to the pressure from the SNP Government in Scotland they launched that white elephant of a second channel and all to produce a fecking 'Scottish' evening news programme that no one watches and they were left to fill the rest of their small evening programme with mostly repeats from the BBC Scotland archives from years ago!
How many news journalists or new Scottish programming fell by the way side funding this ridiculous demand by the SNP Government. Its just yet another example of their wasteful incompetent demands in an attempt to appear a nation in waiting for Indy. And do not get me started on the wasteful 'Scottish' extortionately expensive' embassies that do sod all to promote or help Scots abroad and simple give Angus Robertson a reason to visit them on his many travels abroad!
I think you must not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers.
Scotsman - went from middle of the road to hard Unionist DT emulator, and abandoned its central Edinburgh office building for a new one opposite Holyrood which it then abandoned for some industrial estate somewhere I can't remember
Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income
Edit: A decade and more later, I'm still bitterly angry about the Scotsman. I grew up on it and miss it enormously.
OMG! I am loving the desperation of the SNP supporters on here this morning spinning against the hard truth of what has been actually happening in Scotland and in other devolved areas of the UK and calling out the failure of the London centric UK news media to report it. But seriously you embarrass yourself by trying to claim that 'Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income'!!!
And suggesting that I might not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers, I am going to be sixty this year and I have been a political anorak since my mid teens, I have also been posting here for twenty years too! Really, you are claiming that the SNP mouth piece that is the National which is the SNP equivalent of Pravda is a not very SNP-friendly newspaper?! Thankfully I was not holding my coffee when I read this, this comic with sales in the very very low four figures totally directed at the SNP Indy movement is meant to be a money maker for the Herald?! Would that be in the same that the second white elephant of a BBC Scotland channel was meant to push Indy too?
Have you not realised that the National was primarily a Green/SSP paper when it was founded?* It's changed a bit sicne then, but that was very noticeable att he time. Circulation in print form is low partly (but only partly) because it tends to be a younger persons' paper given its politics.
The BBC Scotland channel has to be seen in the wider context of Government subsidy for local newspapers through the BBC etc - and almost all of them are owned by anti-indy owners (not many of them).
*Edit: just because something supports independence doesn't mean it is pro-SNP.
Look, you can spin it any way you want, but please don't manspeak to a female political anorak who grew up in Scotland and has followed politics here closely for more than 45 years. You are just being insulting. The National is another SNP 'pravda' white elephant for the Herald that like the second BBC Scotland channel no one reads or watches outside the SNP faithful. The second BBC Scotland channel funnelled vital funding away from their main news and programming channel which has resulted in less news journalists and investment in new more lucrative programming trying to compete with other streaming channels. A bloody shame to be honest, but no surprise as its the story of this incompetent one issue party that is the SNP.
I wonder how the Westminster Government would have faired if they had set up pretendy embassies with few employees but on big salaries just for show with no benefit to either UK business or ordinary UK tourists? If I lose my passport or have any other issues abroad tomorrow, I know who I will be contacting and it won't be these wastes of expensive space paid for by the poor unsuspecting Scottish taxpayers!
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.
I wonder why.
Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!
So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide the rest of the UK electorate. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.
To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!
Its a problem. I was genuinely impressed by one of yours railing against Swinney openly lying to parliament - and of course the cybernats swing in with misinformation and abuse.
Misinformation by the nats is in part why we have this comprehension mess in Scotland. They have been in office since General Wade and push so much guff in government that the bit of reporting we get is of the guff, and when you question it they say you're against Scotland.
RochdalePioneers, seconded. But we have the added the problem of such poor and hollowed out journalistic reporting from BBC Scotland and STV News which I jokingly call SNP News. Thank god for the again now hollowed out printed media in Scotland for doing all the heavy lifting mostly on their own and mostly ignored by BBC Scotland and STV. I am trying to remember which SNP scandal it was that broke a couple of years ago, but the STV teatime news didn't mention it for two days!
I read an article a couple of days ago about how BBC Scotland was struggling to invest and make enough content and as a result it was struggling to compete with streaming channels. But thanks to the pressure from the SNP Government in Scotland they launched that white elephant of a second channel and all to produce a fecking 'Scottish' evening news programme that no one watches and they were left to fill the rest of their small evening programme with mostly repeats from the BBC Scotland archives from years ago!
How many news journalists or new Scottish programming fell by the way side funding this ridiculous demand by the SNP Government. Its just yet another example of their wasteful incompetent demands in an attempt to appear a nation in waiting for Indy. And do not get me started on the wasteful 'Scottish' extortionately expensive' embassies that do sod all to promote or help Scots abroad and simple give Angus Robertson a reason to visit them on his many travels abroad!
I think you must not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers.
Scotsman - went from middle of the road to hard Unionist DT emulator, and abandoned its central Edinburgh office building for a new one opposite Holyrood which it then abandoned for some industrial estate somewhere I can't remember
Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income
Edit: A decade and more later, I'm still bitterly angry about the Scotsman. I grew up on it and miss it enormously.
OMG! I am loving the desperation of the SNP supporters on here this morning spinning against the hard truth of what has been actually happening in Scotland and in other devolved areas of the UK and calling out the failure of the London centric UK news media to report it. But seriously you embarrass yourself by trying to claim that 'Herald - ditto change from middle of the road, lost so much circulation it had to set up the National as a not very SNP-friendly way of trying to recover some of the lost income'!!!
And suggesting that I might not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers, I am going to be sixty this year and I have been a political anorak since my mid teens, I have also been posting here for twenty years too! Really, you are claiming that the SNP mouth piece that is the National which is the SNP equivalent of Pravda is a not very SNP-friendly newspaper?! Thankfully I was not holding my coffee when I read this, this comic with sales in the very very low four figures totally directed at the SNP Indy movement is meant to be a money maker for the Herald?! Would that be in the same that the second white elephant of a BBC Scotland channel was meant to push Indy too?
Have you not realised that the National was primarily a Green/SSP paper when it was founded?* It's changed a bit sicne then, but that was very noticeable att he time. Circulation in print form is low partly (but only partly) because it tends to be a younger persons' paper given its politics.
The BBC Scotland channel has to be seen in the wider context of Government subsidy for local newspapers through the BBC etc - and almost all of them are owned by anti-indy owners (not many of them).
*Edit: just because something supports independence doesn't mean it is pro-SNP.
Look, you can spin it any way you want, but please don't manspeak to a female political anorak who grew up in Scotland and has followed politics here closely for more than 45 years. You are just being insulting. The National is another SNP 'pravda' white elephant for the Herald that like the second BBC Scotland channel no one reads or watches outside the SNP faithful. The second BBC Scotland channel funnelled vital funding away from their main news and programming channel which has resulted in less news journalists and investment in new more lucrative programming trying to compete with other streaming channels. A bloody shame to be honest, but no surprise as its the story of this incompetent one issue party that is the SNP.
I wonder how the Westminster Government would have faired if they had set up pretendy embassies with few employees but on big salaries just for show with no benefit to either UK business or ordinary UK tourists? If I lose my passport or have any other issues abroad tomorrow, I know who I will be contacting and it won't be these wastes of expensive space paid for by the poor unsuspecting Scottish taxpayers!
I'm actually *older* than you ... and no manspeaking intended or, so far as I can tell, done. Regretted if perceived.
My comments regards the newspapers are as objective facts as you'll get on here.
Edit: my 'Have you not realised' was because I didn't think you could have read the National regularly, certainly in its older days. This was reflected in its stance on gender self-determination, for one thing.
Latest update from the world of University woke. An email tells me we are no longer to use BAME as "... the term has faced criticism over recent years for its tendency both to overgeneralise by grouping diverse communities under one label and simultaneously to exclude other ethnic identities."
Wouldn't the world be better if we were all just people?
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I thought most of the Hindus in Leicester lived in the Leicester East constituency.
Latest update from the world of University woke. An email tells me we are no longer to use BAME as "... the term has faced criticism over recent years for its tendency both to overgeneralise by grouping diverse communities under one label and simultaneously to exclude other ethnic identities."
Wouldn't the world be better if we were all just people?
90%, maybe more, would agree the world would be better if we were all just treated as people. But we aren't and the disagreements are about how to make it happen not the ultimate objective.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Sadly it’s a bit late now, that ship sailed some years ago and the Chinese about-turn on trade policy was entirely predictable.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but IMHO Trump was mostly right on his tariffs, there’s a desparate need to reshore a lot of manufacturing in key sectors. Yes a lot of the president’s approach was to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the same sentiment should be echoing around the Western world.
If he were serious about that as a driver of policy, he'd have targeted China and its offshore hubs, rather than going to war with America's allies as well. And beyond that, the tariff detail has been extremely poorly geared towards re-shoring manufacturing efficiently.
The truth is he's emotionally attached to them.
On the general point, I agree entirely.
Oh he’s been talking about tariffs for literally decades, as a way of reducing federal income taxes and encouraging domestic manufacturing.
When Congress finally decides to meet, I suspect that next year’s finance bill will reduce income tax rates and exemptions substantially. There’s been talk of a $100k or even $200k personal allowance.
I agreee that it was a bad idea to target allies, but he was also right that those allies regularly apply tariffs to American goods, for example there’s a 10% tariff in the UK on American-made cars but no UK tariff on European-made cars.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I did actually show the sum I was doing in my post
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
My figures are from the ONS census figures. There were a lot of "other" and undeclared in the religion category, but the combined number of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs does match the Asian population of 43% quite well, so it looks as if the vast majority of the "other" and undeclared are white (39% of the constituency) Black (9%) and mixed. Leicestershire Black Muslim population is mostly Somali in Leicester East, so I think a figure of circa 10 000 Muslims in Leicester South is about right. I lived in the constituency for a decade, still work and go to church there, Fox jr lives there so know it fairly well.
40 000 Muslims in the entirety of Leicester is credible, but mostly in Leicester East I think, that may be where the discrepancy comes from. Leicester South does include the large former council estate of Saffron Lane, but also the University and posh leafy part of Leicester, as well as the more Muslim Evington Rd area. All areas are pretty mixed ethnically, the sort of place that Mr Jenrick likes.
Latest update from the world of University woke. An email tells me we are no longer to use BAME as "... the term has faced criticism over recent years for its tendency both to overgeneralise by grouping diverse communities under one label and simultaneously to exclude other ethnic identities."
Wouldn't the world be better if we were all just people?
The propaganda team from Representation Matters that visited my sons infant school told us we should be calling non whites ‘The Global Majority’
Strikes me as a bit ‘They’re all the same’. Heaven forbid these people infecting the education system had an anti white British slant
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Nathan Gill? Never heard of him. I live in Wales and he has barely made a headline here.
I doubt many in Wales have heard of him and as you say hardly any headlines
Although BigG. you are calling for the heads of Jonathan Powell and Starmer in a case which would seem to ( if indeed Government have interfered, which is not remotely clear) be for the national interest in terms of trade and geo-politics and has saved the blushes of Conservatives whilst in office ( have you seen transcripts of the incompetent and incorrect information these clowns were feeding about the intention of Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugenhadt?) I believe the two guys deserve their day in court.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Sadly it’s a bit late now, that ship sailed some years ago and the Chinese about-turn on trade policy was entirely predictable.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but IMHO Trump was mostly right on his tariffs, there’s a desparate need to reshore a lot of manufacturing in key sectors. Yes a lot of the president’s approach was to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the same sentiment should be echoing around the Western world.
If he were serious about that as a driver of policy, he'd have targeted China and its offshore hubs, rather than going to war with America's allies as well. And beyond that, the tariff detail has been extremely poorly geared towards re-shoring manufacturing efficiently.
The truth is he's emotionally attached to them.
On the general point, I agree entirely.
Oh he’s been talking about tariffs for literally decades, as a way of reducing federal income taxes.
When Congress finally decides to meet, I suspect that next year’s finance bill will reduce income tax rates and exemptions substantially. There’s been talk of a $100k or even $200k personal allowance.
There was talk about DOGE cutting $2tn from spending. Instead the BBB added $3tn to spending. Why you listen to such nonsense with a sense of belief I fail to understand.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I did actually show the sum I was doing in my post
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
My figures are from the ONS census figures. There were a lot of "other" and undeclared in the religion category, but the combined number of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs does match the Asian population of 43% quite well, so it looks as if the vast majority of the "other" and undeclared are white (39% of the constituency) Black (9%) and mixed. Leicestershire Black Muslim population is mostly Somali in Leicester East, so I think a figure of circa 10 000 Muslims in Leicester South is about right. I lived in the constituency for a decade, still work and go to church there, Fox jr lives there so know it fairly well.
40 000 Muslims in the entirety of Leicester is credible, but mostly in Leicester East I think, that may be where the discrepancy comes from. Leicester South does include the large former council estate of Saffron Lane, but also the University and posh leafy part of Leicester, as well as the more Muslim Evington Rd area. All areas are pretty mixed ethnically, the sort of place that Mr Jenrick likes.
I’ve linked to the census, and it says there are around 40,000 Muslims in Leicester South, assuming the overall population is 120,000 ish
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
I'm not that fussed about solar panels, EVs and batteries. If imports of those stop it does not have an immediate devastating impact on our economy.
By far the biggest risk is to gas pipelines from Norway and from disruption to LNG from Qatar. Drilling for more of our own helps to a small extent but is also vulnerable to Russian interference and does nothing to protect us from global price shocks.
On balance, it's far preferable to import as many solar panels/batteries as quickly as possible - once they are here they are "safe", and each one reduces our vulnerability to gas/oil.
Latest update from the world of University woke. An email tells me we are no longer to use BAME as "... the term has faced criticism over recent years for its tendency both to overgeneralise by grouping diverse communities under one label and simultaneously to exclude other ethnic identities."
Wouldn't the world be better if we were all just people?
I had two issues with BAME. 1) The B. Redundancy. Surely everyone in the B category is also in the ME category? It's like Cheshire West and Chester. 2) The ME. Syntax. It was never adequately explained why Minority Ethnic was more correct than Ethnic Minority. Again, like Cheshire West and Chester.
I have no objection to the 'A'. We don't normally include ands in acronyms and abbreviations, but it's not a hard and fast rule. (Cheshire West and Chester, of course, abbreviates to CWAC.)
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
There are different grades of fudge we can and should apply but it is all fudge, we can't commit to any of them.
And it is nothing to do with foreign or not, but reliable. Canada is reliable. Switzerland is reliable. The UK has been reliable but may not be in the future.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I thought most of the Hindus in Leicester lived in the Leicester East constituency.
The one Conservative gain of the last election. Shivana Raja's win facilitated by Labour's vote being crushed by the interventions of former Labour MPs Keith Vaz and Claudia Webbe. A right pair they are too.
Latest update from the world of University woke. An email tells me we are no longer to use BAME as "... the term has faced criticism over recent years for its tendency both to overgeneralise by grouping diverse communities under one label and simultaneously to exclude other ethnic identities."
Wouldn't the world be better if we were all just people?
I had two issues with BAME. 1) The B. Redundancy. Surely everyone in the B category is also in the ME category? It's like Cheshire West and Chester. 2) The ME. Syntax. It was never adequately explained why Minority Ethnic was more correct than Ethnic Minority. Again, like Cheshire West and Chester.
I have no objection to the 'A'. We don't normally include ands in acronyms and abbreviations, but it's not a hard and fast rule. (Cheshire West and Chester, of course, abbreviates to CWAC.)
None of these terms seems to last more than about five years now. They used to last a couple of decades.
Trump at a press conference with the U.S. Attorney General and the Director of the FBI: "Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal. His interviewer was Weissmann. I hope they're going to look into Weissmann too. Weissmann's a bad guy. And he had somebody, Lisa, who was his puppet, worked in the office really as the top person — and I think she should be looked at very strongly. There was tremendous criminal activity...They have committed massive political crime. I hope they're looking at Shifty Schiff. I hope they're looking at all these people. And I'm allowed to find out — I'm, in theory, the chief law enforcement officer." https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1978558742217036249
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I did actually show the sum I was doing in my post
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
My figures are from the ONS census figures. There were a lot of "other" and undeclared in the religion category, but the combined number of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs does match the Asian population of 43% quite well, so it looks as if the vast majority of the "other" and undeclared are white (39% of the constituency) Black (9%) and mixed. Leicestershire Black Muslim population is mostly Somali in Leicester East, so I think a figure of circa 10 000 Muslims in Leicester South is about right. I lived in the constituency for a decade, still work and go to church there, Fox jr lives there so know it fairly well.
40 000 Muslims in the entirety of Leicester is credible, but mostly in Leicester East I think, that may be where the discrepancy comes from. Leicester South does include the large former council estate of Saffron Lane, but also the University and posh leafy part of Leicester, as well as the more Muslim Evington Rd area. All areas are pretty mixed ethnically, the sort of place that Mr Jenrick likes.
I’ve linked to the census, and it says there are around 40,000 Muslims in Leicester South, assuming the overall population is 120,000 ish
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
There are different grades of fudge we can and should apply but it is all fudge, we can't commit to any of them.
And it is nothing to do with foreign or not, but reliable. Canada is reliable. Switzerland is reliable. The UK has been reliable but may not be in the future.
I think primarily it is about mitigating risk. We found in 2022 that when we sanctioned Russia in response to their attempt to conquer the entirety of Ukraine, that we damaged ourselves with increased prices for fossil fuels and food, because we had a degree of reliance on Russian exports of fossil fuels, fertilisers and food.
If China were to invade Taiwan, our ability to react to that invasion by imposing sanctions on China is greatly constrained by our reliance on Chinese imports. For all of Trump's rhetoric on incorporating Canada and Greenland, I think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a much greater risk, and I think it makes sense to reduce our reliance on China so that we could act to help defend a democracy.
If we are so reliant on an authoritarian dictatorship that we are unable to act against it were it to invade a democracy then I think we have a very big problem and the prospects for democracy in the rest of this century are very bleak.
Nathan Gill? Never heard of him. I live in Wales and he has barely made a headline here.
I doubt many in Wales have heard of him and as you say hardly any headlines
Although BigG. you are calling for the heads of Jonathan Powell and Starmer in a case which would seem to ( if indeed Government have interfered, which is not remotely clear) be for the national interest in terms of trade and geo-politics and has saved the blushes of Conservatives whilst in office ( have you seen transcripts of the incompetent and incorrect information these clowns were feeding about the intention of Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugenhadt?) I believe the two guys deserve their day in court.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
I am not calling for the heads of Starmer and Powell but relating the controversy over the China trial which is currently being discussed in the house under an urgent question
Lots of questions from across the house to the Cabinet Minister who is struggling and indeed having as much problems from his own side select committee chairs
It is accepted that Starmer and Powell have serious questions to answer and the joint select committees are to hold an urgent enquiry themselves
And as for Gill and Farage, nobody has rejected their far right policies more than me
I'm still reading stuff about the mass walkout of the press from the Pentagon yesterday(?) for not signing the Hegseth pledge of fealty. Whilst it is good that the media have walked, there is an obvious next phase:
Create an official news service. Blame the MSM. Start arresting MSM hacks for lying when they contradict the official news service.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
@kateferguson4 Chris Ward says the deputy national security adviser decided to add the clause about wanting close trade links with china WITHOUT any direction from ministers or Spads
Given he was supposedly giving evidence as per the last government, is it not a bit concerning that he gave Labour's policy on China?
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
There are different grades of fudge we can and should apply but it is all fudge, we can't commit to any of them.
And it is nothing to do with foreign or not, but reliable. Canada is reliable. Switzerland is reliable. The UK has been reliable but may not be in the future.
I think primarily it is about mitigating risk. We found in 2022 that when we sanctioned Russia in response to their attempt to conquer the entirety of Ukraine, that we damaged ourselves with increased prices for fossil fuels and food, because we had a degree of reliance on Russian exports of fossil fuels, fertilisers and food.
If China were to invade Taiwan, our ability to react to that invasion by imposing sanctions on China is greatly constrained by our reliance on Chinese imports. For all of Trump's rhetoric on incorporating Canada and Greenland, I think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a much greater risk, and I think it makes sense to reduce our reliance on China so that we could act to help defend a democracy.
If we are so reliant on an authoritarian dictatorship that we are unable to act against it were it to invade a democracy then I think we have a very big problem and the prospects for democracy in the rest of this century are very bleak.
Clearly the prospects for democracy are bleak. I am not sure it is even compatible with social media, at least as currently structured. We are rapidly moving to autocracy.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
Just to add that it's employing a few of my friends so a big thumbs up from me. One is ex- O&G and doing conversions into electricity transmission.
I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
We need to be able to close ourselves off to China, in a worst-case scenario. We need to do some work now so that we have that option in the future at a lower cost to ourselves in the future than if we don't do that preparatory work.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
We need to be able to close ourselves off to China, in a worst-case scenario. We need to do some work now so that we have that option in the future at a lower cost to ourselves in the future than if we don't do that preparatory work.
The situation with China has been like boiling a frog since they were first admitted into the WTO.
It’s only ever going to get worse without active intervention on the part of Western nations.
Rank 6 Blackburn 8 Dewsbury & Batley 1 Bradford W 14 Leicester S 9 Birmingham PB 2 Birmingham HG & Mosely 20 Ilford N 10 Birmingham Yardley 22 Rochdale 12 Birmingham HH & SN 4 Bethnal Green 3 Birmingham Ladywood 19 Slough 18 Oldham W 33 Walsall and Bloxwich 21 Luton S 11 Ilford South 7 Bradford E 16 Luton N 38 Bradford S 26 West Ham & Beckton 35 Oldham E & Saddleworth 28 Leicester E 29 Bolton S 15 Manchester Rusholme 37 Holborn & St P 13 Poplar & Limehouse 25 Barking 5 East Ham 17 Stratford & Bow 40 Smethwick 23 Gorton & Denton 34 Hudddersfield 24 Brent E 36 Ealing N 31 Edmonton & Winchmore Hill 27 Queens Park & Maida Vale 39 Hayes & Harlington 32 Leyton & Wanstead 30 Walthamstow
and the MRP had
Bradford West Blackburn Islington North Bethnal Green and Stepney Birmingham Ladywood Leicester South Birmingham Perry Barr Dewsbury and Batley Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Slough Ilford South Ilford North East Ham
I am not sure quite what sums you are doing, but according to the 2021 census, Leicester South has less than 10 000 Muslims, out of a total population of nearly 120 000. There were over 40 000 Hindu.
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
I did actually show the sum I was doing in my post
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
My figures are from the ONS census figures. There were a lot of "other" and undeclared in the religion category, but the combined number of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs does match the Asian population of 43% quite well, so it looks as if the vast majority of the "other" and undeclared are white (39% of the constituency) Black (9%) and mixed. Leicestershire Black Muslim population is mostly Somali in Leicester East, so I think a figure of circa 10 000 Muslims in Leicester South is about right. I lived in the constituency for a decade, still work and go to church there, Fox jr lives there so know it fairly well.
40 000 Muslims in the entirety of Leicester is credible, but mostly in Leicester East I think, that may be where the discrepancy comes from. Leicester South does include the large former council estate of Saffron Lane, but also the University and posh leafy part of Leicester, as well as the more Muslim Evington Rd area. All areas are pretty mixed ethnically, the sort of place that Mr Jenrick likes.
I’ve linked to the census, and it says there are around 40,000 Muslims in Leicester South, assuming the overall population is 120,000 ish
Nathan Gill? Never heard of him. I live in Wales and he has barely made a headline here.
I doubt many in Wales have heard of him and as you say hardly any headlines
Although BigG. you are calling for the heads of Jonathan Powell and Starmer in a case which would seem to ( if indeed Government have interfered, which is not remotely clear) be for the national interest in terms of trade and geo-politics and has saved the blushes of Conservatives whilst in office ( have you seen transcripts of the incompetent and incorrect information these clowns were feeding about the intention of Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugenhadt?) I believe the two guys deserve their day in court.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
I am not calling for the heads of Starmer and Powell but relating the controversy over the China trial which is currently being discussed in the house under an urgent question
Lots of questions from across the house to the Cabinet Minister who is struggling and indeed having as much problems from his own side select committee chairs
It is accepted that Starmer and Powell have serious questions to answer and the joint select committees are to hold an urgent enquiry themselves
And as for Gill and Farage, nobody has rejected their far right policies more than me
My point is no "serious questions to answer" are ever asked of Nigel.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
Just to add that it's employing a few of my friends so a big thumbs up from me. One is ex- O&G and doing conversions into electricity transmission.
I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.
Regional pricing is inevitable. And the purpose of these pylons is to connect to the export terminal in Peterhead for the subsea connector to England. For me I would build a lot more leccy-consuming industry up here - ScotBat, AI data centres etc - because citing industry close to power generation is what we've always done.
But what do I know. I look forward to arguing with clowns who think the best future for the North East is to shut down fishing by sending the workforce home and to shut down energy by literally shutting the windfarms off.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
We need to be able to close ourselves off to China, in a worst-case scenario. We need to do some work now so that we have that option in the future at a lower cost to ourselves in the future than if we don't do that preparatory work.
The situation with China has been like boiling a frog since they were first admitted into the WTO.
It’s only ever going to get worse without active intervention on the part of Western nations.
I think there was a decent chance that doing more trade with China would have a positive effect on the country, and move it away from the worst excesses of an authoritarian dictatorship. The point at which I think we failed was in not recognising that Xi's assumption of personal rule was a marked change in China that we had to react to.
Nathan Gill? Never heard of him. I live in Wales and he has barely made a headline here.
I doubt many in Wales have heard of him and as you say hardly any headlines
Although BigG. you are calling for the heads of Jonathan Powell and Starmer in a case which would seem to ( if indeed Government have interfered, which is not remotely clear) be for the national interest in terms of trade and geo-politics and has saved the blushes of Conservatives whilst in office ( have you seen transcripts of the incompetent and incorrect information these clowns were feeding about the intention of Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugenhadt?) I believe the two guys deserve their day in court.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
I am not calling for the heads of Starmer and Powell but relating the controversy over the China trial which is currently being discussed in the house under an urgent question
Lots of questions from across the house to the Cabinet Minister who is struggling and indeed having as much problems from his own side select committee chairs
It is accepted that Starmer and Powell have serious questions to answer and the joint select committees are to hold an urgent enquiry themselves
And as for Gill and Farage, nobody has rejected their far right policies more than me
My point is no "serious questions to answer" are ever asked of Nigel.
I'm happy to answer both serious and unserious questions, within reason.
Trump may launch missiles from warships into California this Friday and Saturday as part of what is being described as a “vanity parade” and shut down portions of the I-5 during the No Kings protests https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1978601189718794528
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
Thanks.That's very useful to know, especially in view of the proposals of firms to move from London to the US. Current UK private shareholders of those firms could get a very nasty shock, or do I misread?
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
Nathan Gill? Never heard of him. I live in Wales and he has barely made a headline here.
I doubt many in Wales have heard of him and as you say hardly any headlines
Although BigG. you are calling for the heads of Jonathan Powell and Starmer in a case which would seem to ( if indeed Government have interfered, which is not remotely clear) be for the national interest in terms of trade and geo-politics and has saved the blushes of Conservatives whilst in office ( have you seen transcripts of the incompetent and incorrect information these clowns were feeding about the intention of Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugenhadt?) I believe the two guys deserve their day in court.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
I am not calling for the heads of Starmer and Powell but relating the controversy over the China trial which is currently being discussed in the house under an urgent question
Lots of questions from across the house to the Cabinet Minister who is struggling and indeed having as much problems from his own side select committee chairs
It is accepted that Starmer and Powell have serious questions to answer and the joint select committees are to hold an urgent enquiry themselves
And as for Gill and Farage, nobody has rejected their far right policies more than me
My point is no "serious questions to answer" are ever asked of Nigel.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
Just to add that it's employing a few of my friends so a big thumbs up from me. One is ex- O&G and doing conversions into electricity transmission.
I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.
Regional pricing is inevitable. And the purpose of these pylons is to connect to the export terminal in Peterhead for the subsea connector to England. For me I would build a lot more leccy-consuming industry up here - ScotBat, AI data centres etc - because citing industry close to power generation is what we've always done.
But what do I know. I look forward to arguing with clowns who think the best future for the North East is to shut down fishing by sending the workforce home and to shut down energy by literally shutting the windfarms off.
Nothing new, indeed. Aluminium smelting at Kinlochleven and other places took place next to hydro electricity. Though Invergordon relied on nuke energy from the other end-ish of Scotland (which was a mistake in the end because of problems with the latter ['edit] supply and the contract).
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
Thanks.That's very useful to know, especially in view of the proposals of firms to move from London to the US. Current UK private shareholders of those firms could get a very nasty shock, or do I misread?
Could yes, its a real risk under Trump but quite how likely it is to be implemented who knows. Personally new investments are currently going into excluding US funds but not moving what I already have out. IANAE, this is not financial advice.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
*Checks pension* What does that mean for global equity and tech funds ?
Nothing good.
Those global trade rules that we're steadily losing were actually a pretty good thing.
Would be effective than current government efforts at getting pensions funds to invest more in the UK. Not that that would be good for us as individuals necessarily.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
Nathan Gill? Never heard of him. I live in Wales and he has barely made a headline here.
I doubt many in Wales have heard of him and as you say hardly any headlines
Although BigG. you are calling for the heads of Jonathan Powell and Starmer in a case which would seem to ( if indeed Government have interfered, which is not remotely clear) be for the national interest in terms of trade and geo-politics and has saved the blushes of Conservatives whilst in office ( have you seen transcripts of the incompetent and incorrect information these clowns were feeding about the intention of Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugenhadt?) I believe the two guys deserve their day in court.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
I am not calling for the heads of Starmer and Powell but relating the controversy over the China trial which is currently being discussed in the house under an urgent question
Lots of questions from across the house to the Cabinet Minister who is struggling and indeed having as much problems from his own side select committee chairs
It is accepted that Starmer and Powell have serious questions to answer and the joint select committees are to hold an urgent enquiry themselves
And as for Gill and Farage, nobody has rejected their far right policies more than me
My point is no "serious questions to answer" are ever asked of Nigel.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
We mustn't be dependent on them for anything important.
Since we already do, what do you suggest in the interim ?
Two thirds of the world was already unreliable pre Trump, now it is closer to 90%. Sure we should mitigate our reliance on China, but it is more absurd to pretend we can live fully independently of countries we don't like or trust.
It's one thing to do business with one of a number of countries that we don't like or trust where, if the relationship deteriorates we can switch that trade to a different country with questionable morals, but it's quite another where that country is as big and powerful as China where there is no alternative for many market sectors.
The US is unreliable on tariffs, we can't plan trade there either.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
It is, of course, another reason to think about reconsidering our relationship with Europe.
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
Even with Europe everyone is in the potentially unreliable category now including us. Chances are at least one of Le Pen, Farage or the AfD will rule within a decade.
I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that China is less reliable, and more of a threat, than a US run by Trump, or a France run by Le Pen.
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
Absolutely this. I saw someone yesterday suggest we need to be cosying up to China in the light of Trump running America. This seems, at present, insane.
Cosying up is wrong. But so is closing ourselves off.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
Thanks.That's very useful to know, especially in view of the proposals of firms to move from London to the US. Current UK private shareholders of those firms could get a very nasty shock, or do I misread?
Could yes, its a real risk under Trump but quite how likely it is to be implemented who knows. Personally new investments are currently going into ex US funds but not moving what I already have out. IANAE, this is not financial advice.
Sounds reasonable enough to me, not that I am a financial advisor either ... and of course whether it were simply deducted at source, and whether HMRC were in turn to allow for this when taking their cut, would also remain to be seen.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
Thankyou,
I did wonder if it was directly connected to the extra wind capacity in the North sea coming onshore or whether just an upgrade. It looks to me a futile fight
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
Just to add that it's employing a few of my friends so a big thumbs up from me. One is ex- O&G and doing conversions into electricity transmission.
I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.
Ed miliband will be delighted so many new turbines are coming on in Scotland and Scottish waters, makes his job a lot easier. But energy should be built as close to source of use as possible, carting it nearly the full length of the UK is not going to bring energy bills down, the reverse instead
I had drinks last night with two quite fancy political commentators (published books on the one hand, podcaster on the other - no, not those two).
I asked, having not distinguished myself wrt Reform and the locals, whether the UK would really (really) vote in Nige as PM and have Reform as our next governing party.
After Cummings's intervention yesterday I suspect China might damage the Tories as the last Government as much as this Government. You may get your scalps, although I doubt it, but the net beneficiary will be that friend of Russia.
If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.
What am I missing here?
It’s worse than that.
Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.
This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.
There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.
MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make
Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.
ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.
And a reminder
1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries. 2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries. 3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.
And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.
We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.
But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.
Hi Rochdale,
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.
Just to add that it's employing a few of my friends so a big thumbs up from me. One is ex- O&G and doing conversions into electricity transmission.
I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.
Ed miliband will be delighted so many new turbines are coming on in Scotland and Scottish waters, makes his job a lot easier. But energy should be built as close to source of use as possible, carting it nearly the full length of the UK is not going to bring energy bills down, the reverse instead
Especially to the Scots. I'm surprised local pricing hasn't been more of an issue politically. It's not just in Aberdeenshire (important as it is) that the interconnector pylons are being built, but further southwards (and to the north!), including cross-border connexions (partly marine) to export Borders electricity to the south.
Comments
'Middelburgh'
Latest poll has:
Connolly (Independent Left) 38%
Humphreys (Fine Gale) 20%
Gavin (Fianna Fail; withdrawn, but still on the ballot paper) 5%
Don't Know 18%
Won't Vote 12%
Spoiling Vote 8%
Excluding don't knows, etc, that works out as:
Connolly 60%
Humphreys 32%
Gavin 8%
Looks like a Connolly landslide on the face of it, but there's always the potential for a campaign to change late on. In 2011 the last three polls of the campaign had Gallagher leading on 39-40% and Higgins well behind on 25-27%. The result of the first preference vote was Higgins 39.6% to Gallagher 28.5%. In between was a debate in which Gallagher admitted accepting a cheque from a "convicted criminal and fuel smuggler" for a Fianna Fail fundraising event. This somewhat derailed his campaign.
But that's because it goes well beyond politics, and affects people very personally. Missed hospital appointments. Broken businesses. And the islands make for an attractive, even fashionable, setting. And because it just keeps on going on and on. And, of course, there's the baroque farce of the launch with false funnels and painted-on windows, and the humiliation of Ferguson Marine on Clydeside. Catnip.
Since about 2007/8 governing the country has been exceptionally hard. at the moment there is no reason to think that Reform are prepared for this, or will find it any easier, or the voters any more loyal. IMHO there ae still reasons to think Reform may struggle to get a majority.
1) talk but don’t do.
2) denial of change until a decade after it has happened.
3) bankrupt legalism dominating debate and policy. So we have a debate about how many Chinese spies can stand on the head of a pin. Rather than passing an amendment to the law.
A major factor in disqualifying Yoons from any consideration that they have an attachment to objectivity is their repeated cry that the media landscape is in any way favourable to the SNP or independence. I see it as the increasing need on the right (and many Yoons are on the right) to see themselves as victims, and that the continuing & increasing irrelevance of the minor party they support is somehow caused by not enough SNPbad.
What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?
And the newspaper which photoshopped a swastika onto a photo of a Saltire- waving independista didn't cover itself in glory either.
And suggesting that I might not be old enough to remember what happened to the Scottish national newspapers, I am going to be sixty this year and I have been a political anorak since my mid teens, I have also been posting here for twenty years too! Really, you are claiming that the SNP mouth piece that is the National which is the SNP equivalent of Pravda is a not very SNP-friendly newspaper?! Thankfully I was not holding my coffee when I read this, this comic with sales in the very very low four figures totally directed at the SNP Indy movement is meant to be a money maker for the Herald?! Would that be in the same way that its become a second news print white elephant like that second BBC Scotland channel was meant to push Indy too?
The story in itself is that big. As ever, it's the possibility of a cover up and lies to the House that are the real story. If anything breaks in that area, then people will care.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but IMHO Trump was mostly right on his tariffs, there’s a desparate need to reshore a lot of manufacturing in key sectors. Yes a lot of the president’s approach was to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the same sentiment should be echoing around the Western world.
The BBC Scotland channel has to be seen in the wider context of Government subsidy for local newspapers through the BBC etc - and almost all of them are owned by anti-indy owners (not many of them).
*Edit: just because something supports independence doesn't mean it is pro-SNP.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/customprofiles/build/#E14001327
While I am sure that Shockhat Adam got strong support from the Muslim community it clearly cannot explain how he won 14 700 votes, particularly as a fair number of the Muslim population are under 18. He clearly had wider support.
I am not surprised as Leicester Labour is a fraticidal basket case dominated by the autocratic Sir Peter Soulsby, and voters were keen on a strong independent voice. Adam is proving to be an excellent and hard working MP and I think very likely to get re-elected. I can't see Labour recovering what was always a safe seat for them.
So the only thing that is left is whether the candidate is a good person. And no-one is a paragon of virtue.
Labour vote 24-(Islamic Indy 24-Green 24)
Although the figure I had for Muslims in Leicester South was 41370, so one of us is way out. That number doesn't affect the sum I used though
I will have to have a think about where I got the data from, I did it in July 2024 and only looked again today
The West shuts down production, and buys the cheap stuff from China. ("Aren't we clever!)
China then grabs the West by the bollocks and starts to squeeze.
And beyond that, the tariff detail has been extremely poorly geared towards re-shoring manufacturing efficiently.
The truth is he's emotionally attached to them.
On the general point, I agree entirely.
At the end of the day fudge with all these relationships is the only answer. Blaming our politicians for accepting reality is not something we should be doing.
So local political incompetence and corruption gets relatively little airtime in many places.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-religion/
I wonder how the Westminster Government would have faired if they had set up pretendy embassies with few employees but on big salaries just for show with no benefit to either UK business or ordinary UK tourists? If I lose my passport or have any other issues abroad tomorrow, I know who I will be contacting and it won't be these wastes of expensive space paid for by the poor unsuspecting Scottish taxpayers!
It would be a shame to watch Ukraine join the EU before us.
My comments regards the newspapers are as objective facts as you'll get on here.
Edit: my 'Have you not realised' was because I didn't think you could have read the National regularly, certainly in its older days. This was reflected in its stance on gender self-determination, for one thing.
Wouldn't the world be better if we were all just people?
When Congress finally decides to meet, I suspect that next year’s finance bill will reduce income tax rates and exemptions substantially. There’s been talk of a $100k or even $200k personal allowance.
I agreee that it was a bad idea to target allies, but he was also right that those allies regularly apply tariffs to American goods, for example there’s a 10% tariff in the UK on American-made cars but no UK tariff on European-made cars.
40 000 Muslims in the entirety of Leicester is credible, but mostly in Leicester East I think, that may be where the discrepancy comes from. Leicester South does include the large former council estate of Saffron Lane, but also the University and posh leafy part of Leicester, as well as the more Muslim Evington Rd area. All areas are pretty mixed ethnically, the sort of place that Mr Jenrick likes.
Strikes me as a bit ‘They’re all the same’. Heaven forbid these people infecting the education system had an anti white British slant
I don't think it's useful to simply say - "they're all foreign!" - and throw up your hands at the impossibility of discriminating between them at all.
On the other hand you and the others I have mentioned don't seem as outraged that Farage who's political associate and friend who has admitted being paid to promote Russian interests in an otherwise hostile environment isn't being called to account.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-religion/
By far the biggest risk is to gas pipelines from Norway and from disruption to LNG from Qatar. Drilling for more of our own helps to a small extent but is also vulnerable to Russian interference and does nothing to protect us from global price shocks.
On balance, it's far preferable to import as many solar panels/batteries as quickly as possible - once they are here they are "safe", and each one reduces our vulnerability to gas/oil.
1) The B. Redundancy. Surely everyone in the B category is also in the ME category? It's like Cheshire West and Chester.
2) The ME. Syntax. It was never adequately explained why Minority Ethnic was more correct than Ethnic Minority. Again, like Cheshire West and Chester.
I have no objection to the 'A'. We don't normally include ands in acronyms and abbreviations, but it's not a hard and fast rule. (Cheshire West and Chester, of course, abbreviates to CWAC.)
And it is nothing to do with foreign or not, but reliable. Canada is reliable. Switzerland is reliable. The UK has been reliable but may not be in the future.
When a former Orange Book Liberal Democrat and father of a sacked member of Mumford and Sons takes over the media we should be concerned.
https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-paul-marshall-the-man-who-owns-the-right/
https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1978558742217036249
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/customprofiles/build/#E14001327
Maybe they are wrong, but those are the ones given.
If China were to invade Taiwan, our ability to react to that invasion by imposing sanctions on China is greatly constrained by our reliance on Chinese imports. For all of Trump's rhetoric on incorporating Canada and Greenland, I think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a much greater risk, and I think it makes sense to reduce our reliance on China so that we could act to help defend a democracy.
If we are so reliant on an authoritarian dictatorship that we are unable to act against it were it to invade a democracy then I think we have a very big problem and the prospects for democracy in the rest of this century are very bleak.
Lots of questions from across the house to the Cabinet Minister who is struggling and indeed having as much problems from his own side select committee chairs
It is accepted that Starmer and Powell have serious questions to answer and the joint select committees are to hold an urgent enquiry themselves
And as for Gill and Farage, nobody has rejected their far right policies more than me
Create an official news service. Blame the MSM. Start arresting MSM hacks for lying when they contradict the official news service.
The US has passed legislation allowing the government to impose a 50% additional tax on overseas holders of US shares. That is us and our pensions. No-one here discusses or notices these things, as we wrongly assume the US is still the same reliable US we have grown up with, it is not.
https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com/en/global/insights/one-big-beautiful-bill-impact-on-non-us-persons-with-us-investments-or-activities
@kateferguson4
Chris Ward says the deputy national security adviser decided to add the clause about wanting close trade links with china WITHOUT any direction from ministers or Spads
Given he was supposedly giving evidence as per the last government, is it not a bit concerning that he gave Labour's policy on China?
I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.
It’s only ever going to get worse without active intervention on the part of Western nations.
There is something strange about the link you used though, unless there are 46,287 black people in Leicester South, and only 5,344 Asians
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/customprofiles/build/#E14001327
But what do I know. I look forward to arguing with clowns who think the best future for the North East is to shut down fishing by sending the workforce home and to shut down energy by literally shutting the windfarms off.
https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1978601189718794528
He and Reform will be found out
Those global trade rules that we're steadily losing were actually a pretty good thing.
Senior mps launch 'formal inquiry' into China spying case
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-starmer-india-labour-gaza-protests-tax-12593360?postid=10359166#liveblog-body
I did wonder if it was directly connected to the extra wind capacity in the North sea coming onshore or whether just an upgrade. It looks to me a futile fight
I had drinks last night with two quite fancy political commentators (published books on the one hand, podcaster on the other - no, not those two).
I asked, having not distinguished myself wrt Reform and the locals, whether the UK would really (really) vote in Nige as PM and have Reform as our next governing party.
FPC 1: No way
FPC 2: Absolutely
Your welcome.