Starmer's political problem is he's losing his base while failing to win over those that might support Reform. He either needs to shoot Farage's fox (unlikely) or set out a compelling alternative.
This doesn't feel like a dilemma that would interest Cummings.
I'm not sure there is much that Starmer can do to make himself or the government popular. It would therefore be nice if he could do things that were effective and unpopular rather than just dilly dally his way to unpopularity.
Focusing relentlessly on cost of living and better public services would I think be reasonably popular because those are the things people really care about (and which this government and the one before ignored).
If Starmer's going to chase opinion polls he should read them properly.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Same as Boris's was. Two big aspects-
One is that they both have/had the skill of knowing what to say to advance their interests at any given moment. As in the old joke, A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar. ‘Hello, Andy,’ says the barman.
The other is that Metro Mayors are mostly playing politics on easy mode. They have a perch to opine at will, but they can choose their topics and generally have feeble scrutiny. They mostly don't have to do the painful tradeoff thing, and the social care disaster isn't their problem at all. (And when he had to choose between doing the right thing and the popular thing on traffic pollution, Brave King Andy ran away, unlike his counterpart in London.)
Right now, the government is playing a terrible hand, and not playing it well. It's not surprising that people are looking for a hero to solve all the problems painlessly. But there isn't one, which is why people like Burnham are being touted on the grounds that he hasn't failed yet. There's a chunk of that with Farage. It also explains the Badenoch-Jenrick dynamic.
If there is hidden talent out there, it's hiding very well. It's probably the case that Sunak and Starmer, neither of them that good, were/are better PMs than we have any right to deserve.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
Not with their family farm tax and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
I don't know how to break this to you, but the Tories did a whole stack of things - including big tax rises - that they now decry Labour copying. Watching Coutinho slag off the policies she herself was doing as SofS is particularly amusing.
This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...
The Tories cut inheritance tax and took the lowest earners out of income tax.
Yes, but they did this without having the political courage to cut the size of the state to the remaining cloth. Which is why we have what looks like a structural deficit of £150bn a year. I criticise Reeves and Starmer for failing to do anything about that but I can't criticise them for causing it. The fault for that lies elsewhere.
By which he presumably defines English babies as being purely white and with parents who were English born. Which is as much a result of our declining birthrate as immigration anyway
Immigration pushes house prices up which reduces the birth rate. Still if you want our future to be Birmingham.
100 years ago most people had 3 children or more and rented their entire lives, low birthrates is the impact of more women in the workplace and more going to university and social media and fewer religious as much as house prices
The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
By which he presumably defines English babies as being purely white and with parents who were English born. Which is as much a result of our declining birthrate as immigration anyway
Immigration pushes house prices up which reduces the birth rate. Still if you want our future to be Birmingham.
100 years ago most people had 3 children or more and rented their entire lives, low birthrates is the impact of more women in the workplace and more going to university and social media and fewer religious as much as house prices
It’s also the result of lower infant mortality.
To an extent but that should also mean parents could also have 2 or 3 children still, even if not 4 or 5 or 6
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
Not with their family farm tax and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
I don't know how to break this to you, but the Tories did a whole stack of things - including big tax rises - that they now decry Labour copying. Watching Coutinho slag off the policies she herself was doing as SofS is particularly amusing.
This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...
The Tories cut inheritance tax and took the lowest earners out of income tax.
Yes, but they did this without having the political courage to cut the size of the state to the remaining cloth. Which is why we have what looks like a structural deficit of £150bn a year. I criticise Reeves and Starmer for failing to do anything about that but I can't criticise them for causing it. The fault for that lies elsewhere.
If we'd had better productivity growth that structural deficit wouldn't look so bad. Thinking only in terms of a hairshirt mentality doesn't help a lot.
It's obvious where our problems lie. Incredibly high land, housing and energy costs by international comparison.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
Correct about BoaF. One of the killing lines was 'Oh no, you weren't happy just living in Chigwell, you had to be in the same Close as Bobby Moore.' Classic.
You have to be from those parts to know just how Essex that is.
Bobby Moore had also lived in Gants Hill, just a stone's throw from Wes Streeting's constituency office, and also where Grandma's House was set (the short-lived Simon Amstell sitcom).
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
Not with their family farm tax and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
I don't know how to break this to you, but the Tories did a whole stack of things - including big tax rises - that they now decry Labour copying. Watching Coutinho slag off the policies she herself was doing as SofS is particularly amusing.
This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...
The Tories cut inheritance tax and took the lowest earners out of income tax.
Yes, but they did this without having the political courage to cut the size of the state to the remaining cloth. Which is why we have what looks like a structural deficit of £150bn a year. I criticise Reeves and Starmer for failing to do anything about that but I can't criticise them for causing it. The fault for that lies elsewhere.
If we'd had better productivity growth that structural deficit wouldn't look so bad. Thinking only in terms of a hairshirt mentality doesn't help a lot.
It's obvious where our problems lie. Incredibly high land, housing and energy costs by international comparison.
"If".
We don't.
What policies does this or any alternative government have to fix this? Until we do we need to address where we are, not where we would like to be.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick.
That one sentence sums up why I could never vote for a Jenrick led Tory party. I fear a parting of the ways is coming.
A Jenrick led Tory Party may as well merge with Reform anyway at the moment, Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir the other day and spot the difference on policy between them? If anything Jenrick is now positioning himself as right of Farage.
If Kemi went the best option for Conservatives to take on Farage and Starmer and to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats Reform are targeting is Cleverly.
Jenrick is an option to reunite the right if Farage and Kemi or Cleverly both lose the next general election, he isn't the man to take on Farage
Agreed, and I am not saying such a grouping led in that way might not do well in these febrile times. I am simply saying I will not vote for it.
I assume I'll still be living in Luton South, when the next GE takes place.
The starting point is:
Labour 35%, Right (Conservative 17% and Reform 12%) 29%, Radical Left 28%, (Gaza 14%, Workers Party 8%, Green 6%).
I'm assuming that Labour will be polling well below 30%, Gaza and the Workers Party will be represented by Your Party), the Conservative vote will collapse to Reform, and that the Greens will hang on to their deposit, based upon the university. Labour will likely lose votes to both Reform and Your Party.
That probably gives a choice between Reform and Your Party, each one polling c.30%. In those circumstances, I would vote Reform.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
in the last episode, Tom tries to persuade a bank manager played by George Cole to buy his house in instalments. The bank manager is not thrilled with this idea but Tom point out that it might well go up in value and the bank end up the winner.
The bank manager turns him down on the basis that wouldn't happen.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
Genuine LOL. And so true.
And he's married to Felicity Kendall! The guy really won the lottery of life.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick.
That one sentence sums up why I could never vote for a Jenrick led Tory party. I fear a parting of the ways is coming.
A Jenrick led Tory Party may as well merge with Reform anyway at the moment, Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir the other day and spot the difference on policy between them? If anything Jenrick is now positioning himself as right of Farage.
If Kemi went the best option for Conservatives to take on Farage and Starmer and to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats Reform are targeting is Cleverly.
Jenrick is an option to reunite the right if Farage and Kemi or Cleverly both lose the next general election, he isn't the man to take on Farage
Agreed, and I am not saying such a grouping led in that way might not do well in these febrile times. I am simply saying I will not vote for it.
I assume I'll still be living in Luton South, when the next GE takes place.
The starting point is:
Labour 35%, Right (Conservative 17% and Reform 12%) 29%, Radical Left 28%, (Gaza 14%, Workers Party 8%, Green 6%).
I'm assuming that Labour will be polling well below 30%, Gaza and the Workers Party will be represented by Your Party), the Conservative vote will collapse to Reform, and that the Greens will hang on to their deposit, based upon the university. Labour will likely lose votes to both Reform and Your Party.
That probably gives a choice between Reform and Your Party, each one polling c.30%. In those circumstances, I would vote Reform.
I would vote Reform over Your Party too or the Greens or even Labour.
At the moment I would probably vote LD over Reform though but where the Conservatives remain in the top 2 I would vote for them still
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
The concern is not just the incompetence of PMs. It’s the incompetence of the wider front bench, and even those aspiring for promotion.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
I think my son would make a better PM than any of the options at the moment and he got a first in PPE. I don't think that is the root of the problem.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick.
That one sentence sums up why I could never vote for a Jenrick led Tory party. I fear a parting of the ways is coming.
A Jenrick led Tory Party may as well merge with Reform anyway at the moment, Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir the other day and spot the difference on policy between them? If anything Jenrick is now positioning himself as right of Farage.
If Kemi went the best option for Conservatives to take on Farage and Starmer and to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats Reform are targeting is Cleverly.
Jenrick is an option to reunite the right if Farage and Kemi or Cleverly both lose the next general election, he isn't the man to take on Farage
Agreed, and I am not saying such a grouping led in that way might not do well in these febrile times. I am simply saying I will not vote for it.
I assume I'll still be living in Luton South, when the next GE takes place.
The starting point is:
Labour 35%, Right (Conservative 17% and Reform 12%) 29%, Radical Left 28%, (Gaza 14%, Workers Party 8%, Green 6%).
I'm assuming that Labour will be polling well below 30%, Gaza and the Workers Party will be represented by Your Party), the Conservative vote will collapse to Reform, and that the Greens will hang on to their deposit, based upon the university. Labour will likely lose votes to both Reform and Your Party.
That probably gives a choice between Reform and Your Party, each one polling c.30%. In those circumstances, I would vote Reform.
Well that's a cheery thought.
Still, who knows. Perhaps something might change in the next four years?
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
The concern is not just the incompetence of PMs. It’s the incompetence of the wider front bench, and even those aspiring for promotion.
Problem is it's not fixable - with 24 hour news and social media few people want to enter politics.
And there are far easier ways to make money or do something good for the community than entering politics so a lot of people don't see the point nowadays...
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
A contract draffy would still manage it. Not a staffy.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
I think my son would make a better PM than any of the options at the moment and he got a first in PPE. I don't think that is the root of the problem.
All the best people have a First in PPE.
Despite all and sundry wasting their time on PPE degrees the one time in the century we needed them to step up we still couldn't make any and what we could buy didn't work.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Same as Boris's was. Two big aspects-
One is that they both have/had the skill of knowing what to say to advance their interests at any given moment. As in the old joke, A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar. ‘Hello, Andy,’ says the barman.
The other is that Metro Mayors are mostly playing politics on easy mode. They have a perch to opine at will, but they can choose their topics and generally have feeble scrutiny. They mostly don't have to do the painful tradeoff thing, and the social care disaster isn't their problem at all. (And when he had to choose between doing the right thing and the popular thing on traffic pollution, Brave King Andy ran away, unlike his counterpart in London.)
Right now, the government is playing a terrible hand, and not playing it well. It's not surprising that people are looking for a hero to solve all the problems painlessly. But there isn't one, which is why people like Burnham are being touted on the grounds that he hasn't failed yet. There's a chunk of that with Farage. It also explains the Badenoch-Jenrick dynamic.
If there is hidden talent out there, it's hiding very well. It's probably the case that Sunak and Starmer, neither of them that good, were/are better PMs than we have any right to deserve.
"Nothing can be done, let's accept managed decline"
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Question - was it also on the left when the Tories put up taxes to record peacetime levels to (amongst other things) fund record spending in the NHS?
Starmer is continuity Sunak.
The Tories never put enough money into the NHS to keep up with the growth in demand - you can see that in the way waiting lists went up.
This has now changed and waiting lists are - slowly - starting to come down.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
In all communities it seems to be the extremists that have the microphone. Such is the clickbait nature of Social Media, and there can be amplification of anti-semitism and homophobia as a result.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick. It is the recognition that the problems driving that politics is much the same in the Muslim communities of Bradford, Rotherham and East London as it is for the white population inclined to Reform. Rundown public spaces and services, limited educational and employment opportunities and a feeling of being neglected by the major parties. Ironically the Reform and Gaza Independent voters have more in common than either does with Liberal Democrats like me.
I agree that there are extremists shouting loudly in every community. But you seem to think that there is equivalence across all communities and that is where I strongly disagree with you.
Deprived areas certainly breed discontent (it was ever thus) but if you believe that this is what is the key driver of militant Islam in the UK then, again, I strongly disagree.
You really don't need to be a Yayley-Lennon/ Farage fan to be concerned about there Islam is going in Europe.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Same as Boris's was. Two big aspects-
One is that they both have/had the skill of knowing what to say to advance their interests at any given moment. As in the old joke, A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar. ‘Hello, Andy,’ says the barman.
The other is that Metro Mayors are mostly playing politics on easy mode. They have a perch to opine at will, but they can choose their topics and generally have feeble scrutiny. They mostly don't have to do the painful tradeoff thing, and the social care disaster isn't their problem at all. (And when he had to choose between doing the right thing and the popular thing on traffic pollution, Brave King Andy ran away, unlike his counterpart in London.)
Right now, the government is playing a terrible hand, and not playing it well. It's not surprising that people are looking for a hero to solve all the problems painlessly. But there isn't one, which is why people like Burnham are being touted on the grounds that he hasn't failed yet. There's a chunk of that with Farage. It also explains the Badenoch-Jenrick dynamic.
If there is hidden talent out there, it's hiding very well. It's probably the case that Sunak and Starmer, neither of them that good, were/are better PMs than we have any right to deserve.
"Nothing can be done, let's accept managed decline"
That vs "All the things that can be done take time and investment so lets lie to the electorate and create scapegoats instead".
Clive Lewis is who I would like to see leading the Labour party. He’s considered, has ideas which could coalesce into a vision, is a good communicator and understands the need to unite as much of the left as is possible.
With all due respect,Corbyn united the left and look how that ended up. Throughout my lifetime whenever the left has controlled the Labour Party it has led to the electoral abyss
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
As ever, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Russia is hostile to the oppressive West, therefore, they support Russia.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
And so is the problem the other way which is not acknowledging that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have their own, richly deserved, thuggish reputation. And the different other problem which both sides are guilty of is conflating Jews and Israelis. Most British Jews could not find Maccabi Tel Aviv on the map. Well, actually they could but only because it has Tel Aviv in its name.
Anyway, now that the Prime Minister with his usual deft political touch has turned this into a major issue, perhaps they can simply play at a neutral stadium that is more easily policed.
And going back to Jenrick's 1980s nostalgia, West Ham had to play a European Cup-winners Cup match behind closed doors. Bloody UEFA.
If it was simply a question of thuggery Millwall fans would never be allowed to any away games. It's pretty clear where the pressure to ban Jewish fans is coming from and it's not from the Holt End.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
Not quite as bizarre as the current one failing to understand when he had sufficient evidence to prosecute.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
Not quite as bizarre as the current one failing to understand when he had sufficient evidence to prosecute.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
Not quite as bizarre as the current one failing to understand when he had sufficient evidence to prosecute.
Hey - it would be useful if he checked what law was valid at the time of the offence....
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
Not quite as bizarre as the current one failing to understand when he had sufficient evidence to prosecute.
There was probably a chink in his logic.
Not sure you are allowed to say that sort of thing anymore.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
Not quite as bizarre as the current one failing to understand when he had sufficient evidence to prosecute.
There was probably a chink in his logic.
Not sure you are allowed to say that sort of thing anymore.
My grandmother was Chinese. I get a pass.
I also get the ability to play rugby for China, apparently.
Although the way Wales are going I think I might be in their first 15 soon enough...
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
A contract draffy would still manage it. Not a staffy.
Up to the 1980s, schools would routinely teach technical drawing to boys and touch typing to girls, equipping both for common jobs that had existed for a hundred years but that were about to be swept away by PCs.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
A contract draffy would still manage it. Not a staffy.
Up to the 1980s, schools would routinely teach technical drawing to boys and touch typing to girls, equipping both for common jobs that had existed for a hundred years but that were about to be swept away by PCs.
I learned to type properly on an old fashioned typewriter at school in the 1980s. It was done as part of 'General Studies' I think.
We did have computers too, but learning on a tripewriter requires a bit more discipline.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
I was talking undergraduate degree, no PM other than Brown this century has a PhD and they are politicians not academics
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
Boris debated with Prof Mary Beard, the Cambridge rugby-hater, whether Rome or Greece was best. Does that count? It shows some engagement with the subject. Perhaps Boris might be described as a popular classicist along the lines of a popular historian. Older PBers will recall I once mooted that on leaving power, Boris would become a moose head classics professor at a well-endowed American university.
Clive Lewis is who I would like to see leading the Labour party. He’s considered, has ideas which could coalesce into a vision, is a good communicator and understands the need to unite as much of the left as is possible.
With all due respect,Corbyn united the left and look how that ended up. Throughout my lifetime whenever the left has controlled the Labour Party it has led to the electoral abyss
Indeed, the last time the leftwing candidate in the final round of a Labour leadership election won and then went on to win a UK general election too was Harold Wilson and even Wilson was closer to Starmer ideologically than Corbyn
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
I’m on the right but agree with the below except that the concern is a future LEFT wing government taking over things that work well in a community setting and screwing them up by squeezing them into a state led approach
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
Boris debated with Prof Mary Beard, the Cambridge rugby-hater, whether Rome or Greece was best. Does that count? It shows some engagement with the subject. Perhaps Boris might be described as a popular classicist along the lines of a popular historian. Older PBers will recall I once mooted that on leaving power, Boris would become a moose head classics professor at a well-endowed American university.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
And so is the problem the other way which is not acknowledging that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have their own, richly deserved, thuggish reputation. And the different other problem which both sides are guilty of is conflating Jews and Israelis. Most British Jews could not find Maccabi Tel Aviv on the map. Well, actually they could but only because it has Tel Aviv in its name.
Anyway, now that the Prime Minister with his usual deft political touch has turned this into a major issue, perhaps they can simply play at a neutral stadium that is more easily policed.
And going back to Jenrick's 1980s nostalgia, West Ham had to play a European Cup-winners Cup match behind closed doors. Bloody UEFA.
If it was simply a question of thuggery Millwall fans would never be allowed to any away games. It's pretty clear where the pressure to ban Jewish fans is coming from and it's not from the Holt End.
Millwall fans have been banned from plenty of away games Although not because they were Christian
More on Cummings' interview, he is not surprisingly a fan of Jenrick and also has time for Farage but little for Kemi.
'“It’s not really Truss’s fault that she was a disaster,” he says. “Why the hell did people put someone like that in? Similarly with Kemi, she obviously can’t do the job. She should never have been put there.”
Badenoch, he says, is “obviously completely unsuitable for any kind of serious job”. “She blames her juniors for everything, she’s massively f***ing lazy, she just can’t do it. She’s going to go, for sure — I think very quickly after the May elections.”
Who comes next, he says, will be critical for the Conservative Party’s hopes of staying alive. “It’s possible the Tory party is just dead,” he says. “It’s already past the event horizon. It’s on the precipice and it hasn’t got another false start left. If it is going to revive, then when Kemi goes it is the last chance.”
The current favourite to succeed Badenoch is Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary. “That’s fundamentally because he’s the only person in shadow cabinet with a pulse,” Cummings says.
“Someone said to me recently, what do you think of how the shadow chancellor’s doing? And my answer was, who the f*** is the shadow chancellor? No one knows who any of these people are because it’s just a black hole...Farage, he says, is on course to be prime minister but needs to change his approach by bringing in a “bad-ass” team around him. Cummings had dinner with him a year ago at Boisdale, a raucous restaurant in central London loved by the Reform leader.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
It's bizarre that a former DPP does not understand the importance of convictions.
Not quite as bizarre as the current one failing to understand when he had sufficient evidence to prosecute.
There was probably a chink in his logic.
Not sure you are allowed to say that sort of thing anymore.
More on Cummings' interview, he is not surprisingly a fan of Jenrick and also has time for Farage but little for Kemi.
'“It’s not really Truss’s fault that she was a disaster,” he says. “Why the hell did people put someone like that in? Similarly with Kemi, she obviously can’t do the job. She should never have been put there.”
Badenoch, he says, is “obviously completely unsuitable for any kind of serious job”. “She blames her juniors for everything, she’s massively f***ing lazy, she just can’t do it. She’s going to go, for sure — I think very quickly after the May elections.”
Siri, show me what an epic self awareness fail looks like.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Islam is also the most pro-cat religion.
There are problems with all religions if you look hard enough. The ongoing Jesus Army story, for example, with hundreds of children abused. Or the boys at Hasidic schools who can barely read or write English: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/hasidic-boys-school-abuse-uk-jewish-education-investigation-london-2023-qx385fx52 Or there’s the historical sexual exploitation in the Triratna Buddhist Community, the Buddhist sect Suella Braverman is in. It is just Islamophobia that picks out Islam as being especially problematic. But I guess we should thank OllyT for spelling out what Jenrick’s dog-whistle was.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
As ever, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Russia is hostile to the oppressive West, therefore, they support Russia.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
It’s also cultural history. The Western communist and socialists signed up in 1919 to the Soviet line that anything that was part of the Russian Empire was rightfully part of Soviet Russia.
Hence the opposition to Polish independence. During the 80s, I can recall certain Labour MPs saying that, to improve relations with the Soviet Union, the members of various exile groups, living in London should be expelled. One actually advocated handing them over to the SU.
The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
A contract draffy would still manage it. Not a staffy.
Up to the 1980s, schools would routinely teach technical drawing to boys and touch typing to girls, equipping both for common jobs that had existed for a hundred years but that were about to be swept away by PCs.
I learned to type properly on an old fashioned typewriter at school in the 1980s. It was done as part of 'General Studies' I think.
We did have computers too, but learning on a tripewriter requires a bit more discipline.
Turned out to be quite useful.
I fear I have been stuck on a tripewriter most of my adult life.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
And Reggie Perrin was set in Surbiton.
As was The Good Life.
The Good Life. Tom gives up his job as a draughtsman on his 40th birthday, having paid off the mortgage on what would now be a £2 million detached house on a single income.
A contract draffy would still manage it. Not a staffy.
Up to the 1980s, schools would routinely teach technical drawing to boys and touch typing to girls, equipping both for common jobs that had existed for a hundred years but that were about to be swept away by PCs.
I learned to type properly on an old fashioned typewriter at school in the 1980s. It was done as part of 'General Studies' I think.
We did have computers too, but learning on a tripewriter requires a bit more discipline.
Turned out to be quite useful.
I fear I have been stuck on a tripewriter most of my adult life.
I learned to touch-type in 1985. I have found it extremely useful.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
As ever, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Russia is hostile to the oppressive West, therefore, they support Russia.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
It’s also cultural history. The Western communist and socialists signed up in 1919 to the Soviet line that anything that was part of the Russian Empire was rightfully part of Soviet Russia.
Hence the opposition to Polish independence. During the 80s, I can recall certain Labour MPs saying that, to improve relations with the Soviet Union, the members of various exile groups, living in London should be expelled. One actually advocated handing them over to the SU.
Hence the bizarre view, even now, that Eastern Europe somehow “belongs” to Russia.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
Boris debated with Prof Mary Beard, the Cambridge rugby-hater, whether Rome or Greece was best. Does that count? It shows some engagement with the subject. Perhaps Boris might be described as a popular classicist along the lines of a popular historian. Older PBers will recall I once mooted that on leaving power, Boris would become a moose head classics professor at a well-endowed American university.
A few of those around. Catherine Nixey would be another one.
Mind you, to be fair to him, Johnson is almost certainly more knowledgeable about the classical world than Nixey.
I’ll never get over Nixey’s judgement that the Third Century Roman Empire was “essentially liberal and tolerant”. That would come as a great surprise to anybody who lived there.
Why do the trolls always turn up at the weekend, lol.
With most office workers not at work there's less work to do on the phishing front to attempt to gain illicit access to corporate/government computer systems.
...But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for...
I think that's not quite Starmerism/Blairism, at least in its latest version, which is closer to "authoritarianism" than "left-wing". Witness the avocation of ID cards, which Blair loves because it enables the governing class to govern people more effectively. It's shaping society against the will of the people, not with it.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
Partly, it’s a question of specialisation. I could tell you a lot about Greek or Roman warfare, or the politics of the last century of the Roman Republic.
I could tell you next to nothing about the Hellenistic monarchies, or Carthage, or the economy of classical Greece.
...But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for...
I think that's not quite Starmerism/Blairism, at least in its latest version, which is closer to "authoritarianism" than "left-wing". Witness the avocation of ID cards, which Blair loves because it enables the governing class to govern people more effectively. It's shaping society against the will of the people, not with it.
I think it's consistent with the Labour Party tradition that they use the state to do things to people, as opposed to people being active participants.
Aiui, there is a few quirks of the Labour leadership rules that could cause unexpected outcomes and potential popcorn moments that are absent from the Tories if it did come to the crunch.
Firstly, that you do not have to stand to be nominated, MPs if they are in ruction could just coalesce around you, even if you are still professing loyalty. More likely to happen around an obvious figure like a deputy, this could have been a method to promote a clean nosed version of Rayner, for instance, and she'd maintain plausible deniability. Of course, such a nominee, despite being dragged by the nomination, could ultimately refuse to stand.
Secondly, the fact we go straight to an election of challenger vs leader - there is no VoNC step, just an election if a challenger emerges, so a PM could be defending his position via a full, member balloted, leadership election which, like a Tory VoNC, could be won with a less than convincing mandate.
Thirdly, that the rules seem somewhat unclear around timing, challenges used to be concluded at conference, but they seem to have been relaxed, and there are ambiguities and holes in the rulesets that could cause rows: honestly, you'd think party rulesets would be pretty unambiguous and watertight, but they never quite are.
Btw, this is memories of articles and reading up a few months ago, so feel free to correct if I have misremembered any of this.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
As ever, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Russia is hostile to the oppressive West, therefore, they support Russia.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
It’s also cultural history. The Western communist and socialists signed up in 1919 to the Soviet line that anything that was part of the Russian Empire was rightfully part of Soviet Russia.
Hence the opposition to Polish independence. During the 80s, I can recall certain Labour MPs saying that, to improve relations with the Soviet Union, the members of various exile groups, living in London should be expelled. One actually advocated handing them over to the SU.
The Belarusian government in exile still exists. Having been set up as long ago as 1919.
...But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for...
I think that's not quite Starmerism/Blairism, at least in its latest version, which is closer to "authoritarianism" than "left-wing". Witness the avocation of ID cards, which Blair loves because it enables the governing class to govern people more effectively. It's shaping society against the will of the people, not with it.
I think it's consistent with the Labour Party tradition that they use the state to do things to people, as opposed to people being active participants.
Hmm. A good Labour government does things for people, a bad one does things to people. Nobody being perfect there's usually a mix: for poor people and to rich people. But you do have a point.
...But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for...
I think that's not quite Starmerism/Blairism, at least in its latest version, which is closer to "authoritarianism" than "left-wing". Witness the avocation of ID cards, which Blair loves because it enables the governing class to govern people more effectively. It's shaping society against the will of the people, not with it.
Left wing authoritarianism is an old, old thing.
If you believe you are Right, then anything that stands in the way of your Righteousness, such as individual rights, is obviously Bad.
And if you believe the State should be in charge of everything, why limit the power of the state?
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
As ever, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Russia is hostile to the oppressive West, therefore, they support Russia.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
It’s also cultural history. The Western communist and socialists signed up in 1919 to the Soviet line that anything that was part of the Russian Empire was rightfully part of Soviet Russia.
Hence the opposition to Polish independence. During the 80s, I can recall certain Labour MPs saying that, to improve relations with the Soviet Union, the members of various exile groups, living in London should be expelled. One actually advocated handing them over to the SU.
The Belarusian government in exile still exists. Having been set up as long ago as 1919.
Such exiled governments are beautifully portrayed in LeCarre's Smiley's People. One has the impression he had encountered a few in his time.
The interview with JL Partners polling bod was interesting in that he still believed that a Labour government was the most likely outcome at the next GE.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
Starmer is heavily influenced by Blair, and his acolytes, but in a very clumsy manner. As you say, it's by calculation from the conviction that it's the route to electoral success.
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
As ever, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Russia is hostile to the oppressive West, therefore, they support Russia.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
It’s also cultural history. The Western communist and socialists signed up in 1919 to the Soviet line that anything that was part of the Russian Empire was rightfully part of Soviet Russia.
Hence the opposition to Polish independence. During the 80s, I can recall certain Labour MPs saying that, to improve relations with the Soviet Union, the members of various exile groups, living in London should be expelled. One actually advocated handing them over to the SU.
The Belarusian government in exile still exists. Having been set up as long ago as 1919.
Such exiled governments are beautifully portrayed in LeCarre's Smiley's People. One has the impression he had encountered a few in his time.
There’s an old story of a minor Soviet official, who in the late 70s tried hanging around the bar of a club run by some of the exiles. In the edge of Soho, IIRC. Presumably he was trying to spy on them - pretended to be a friend, bought drinks etc.
One day the SU Embassy complained that he had vanished. Seems he went in the club and didn’t leave…
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Of PMs this century 3 have had PPE degrees, Cameron, Truss and Sunak. 2 have had law degrees, Blair and Starmer.
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
Is Johnson a classicist or does he simply have an undergraduate classics degree? As far as I know he has never worked in the field, e.g. has never published any original research on classical civilization. I know sometimes these titles are used as shorthand for someone who has studied the subject or (even worse) is in the process of studying it, but I've always found that practice somewhat belittling of people who have actually done the work in the field!
Boris debated with Prof Mary Beard, the Cambridge rugby-hater, whether Rome or Greece was best. Does that count? It shows some engagement with the subject. Perhaps Boris might be described as a popular classicist along the lines of a popular historian. Older PBers will recall I once mooted that on leaving power, Boris would become a moose head classics professor at a well-endowed American university.
A few of those around. Catherine Nixey would be another one.
Mind you, to be fair to him, Johnson is almost certainly more knowledgeable about the classical world than Nixey.
I’ll never get over Nixey’s judgement that the Third Century Roman Empire was “essentially liberal and tolerant”. That would come as a great surprise to anybody who lived there.
Well, it makes sense when you remember that Nixey's view of tolerance includes this remarkable line:
'“The prefect Maximus, who had alternately attempted to bribe and then reason the veteran Julius into [avoiding execution] was told the money he was offering was ‘the money of Satan’ and that ‘neither it nor your crafty talk can deprive me of the eternal light’. It is not without some sympathy that one reads the prefect’s terse response. ‘If you do not respect the imperial decrees and offer sacrifice, I am going to cut your head off’. Julius replies boldly but somewhat ungraciously that ‘to live with you would be death for me’. He is beheaded.” ' (pages 76-77)
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
...But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for...
I think that's not quite Starmerism/Blairism, at least in its latest version, which is closer to "authoritarianism" than "left-wing". Witness the avocation of ID cards, which Blair loves because it enables the governing class to govern people more effectively. It's shaping society against the will of the people, not with it.
Left wing authoritarianism is an old, old thing.
If you believe you are Right, then anything that stands in the way of your Righteousness, such as individual rights, is obviously Bad.
And if you believe the State should be in charge of everything, why limit the power of the state?
After the second world war a lot of work went into understanding the authoritarian personality who was deemed most susceptible to fascism. I'm not aware of much effort being put into understanding the personality characteristics of the radical left. It may have seemed redundant after 1989 but now feels more relevant than ever.
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
A somewhat remarkable inversion of the situation in occupied Europe in the 1940s.
“It is not without sympathy, that one reads the police officer’s terse response, to the obstinate Jew, who insists upon wearing such a provocative symbol. The man is arrested.”
The mentality,of pig-headed officialdom, endures across the centuries.
...But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for...
I think that's not quite Starmerism/Blairism, at least in its latest version, which is closer to "authoritarianism" than "left-wing". Witness the avocation of ID cards, which Blair loves because it enables the governing class to govern people more effectively. It's shaping society against the will of the people, not with it.
Left wing authoritarianism is an old, old thing.
If you believe you are Right, then anything that stands in the way of your Righteousness, such as individual rights, is obviously Bad.
And if you believe the State should be in charge of everything, why limit the power of the state?
After the second world war a lot of work went into understanding the authoritarian personality who was deemed most susceptible to fascism. I'm not aware of much effort being put into understanding the personality characteristics of the radical left. It may have seemed redundant after 1989 but now feels more relevant than ever.
As George Orwell observed, the ideology isn’t important. The totalitarian and authoritarian mindsets make it end up the same.
Hell, Buddhism has been turned into genocidal totalitarianism, repeatedly.
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
Those employed by the public sector were far more sympathetic to the likes of Hamas than the rest of the population. We see it in the disgraceful decision of the West Midlands Chief Constable. We see it in this story. We saw it in the attitudes to transmen demanding access to female spaces. It is endemic. I am really not sure how we bring the public sector back into line with what the majority actually think but it needs to be made clear that this is intolerable.
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
A somewhat remarkable inversion of the situation in occupied Europe in the 1940s.
“It is not without sympathy, that one reads the police officer’s terse response, to the obstinate Jew, who insists upon wearing such a provocative symbol. The man is arrested.”
Nice to see that after two years of me bleating on about this stuff people are beginning to pay attention.
On a way I hope TSE is right and Labour do pick Miliband for next leader. He will be the Liz Truss of the Labour Party and will trash what little reputation for competence they have left.
A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
Those employed by the public sector were far more sympathetic to the likes of Hamas than the rest of the population. We see it in the disgraceful decision of the West Midlands Chief Constable. We see it in this story. We saw it in the attitudes to transmen demanding access to female spaces. It is endemic. I am really not sure how we bring the public sector back into line with what the majority actually think but it needs to be made clear that this is intolerable.
The canary in the coalmine was FA refusing to light up Wembley, despite previously happy to light up the arch for basically every cause under the sun and other terrorist attacks. At that point, Israel hadn't even responded, so you couldn't claim they had overstepped the mark etc.
The excuse being something something Australia (the away team) were going to play an Arab team in the future.
Comments
If Starmer's going to chase opinion polls he should read them properly.
One is that they both have/had the skill of knowing what to say to advance their interests at any given moment. As in the old joke, A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar. ‘Hello, Andy,’ says the barman.
The other is that Metro Mayors are mostly playing politics on easy mode. They have a perch to opine at will, but they can choose their topics and generally have feeble scrutiny. They mostly don't have to do the painful tradeoff thing, and the social care disaster isn't their problem at all. (And when he had to choose between doing the right thing and the popular thing on traffic pollution, Brave King Andy ran away, unlike his counterpart in London.)
Right now, the government is playing a terrible hand, and not playing it well. It's not surprising that people are looking for a hero to solve all the problems painlessly. But there isn't one, which is why people like Burnham are being touted on the grounds that he hasn't failed yet. There's a chunk of that with Farage. It also explains the Badenoch-Jenrick dynamic.
If there is hidden talent out there, it's hiding very well. It's probably the case that Sunak and Starmer, neither of them that good, were/are better PMs than we have any right to deserve.
It's obvious where our problems lie. Incredibly high land, housing and energy costs by international comparison.
Am I the only one thinking they may have missed a trick by not promoting Travis Head instead?
There has also been a historian, Brown and a geographer, Theresa May and a classicist, Boris
We don't.
What policies does this or any alternative government have to fix this? Until we do we need to address where we are, not where we would like to be.
The starting point is:
Labour 35%,
Right (Conservative 17% and Reform 12%) 29%,
Radical Left 28%, (Gaza 14%, Workers Party 8%, Green 6%).
I'm assuming that Labour will be polling well below 30%, Gaza and the Workers Party will be represented by Your Party), the Conservative vote will collapse to Reform, and that the Greens will hang on to their deposit, based upon the university. Labour will likely lose votes to both Reform and Your Party.
That probably gives a choice between Reform and Your Party, each one polling c.30%. In those circumstances, I would vote Reform.
The bank manager turns him down on the basis that wouldn't happen.
We all make mistakes.
At the moment I would probably vote LD over Reform though but where the Conservatives remain in the top 2 I would vote for them still
But at the root of everything there is a consistent belief in the state and using the power of the state to shape society, which is the core of what the British Labour party has always stood for. That stands in direct contrast to the centre-right and the Cameroons, where there was a desire, albeit only a limited one, for the state to take a step back and withdraw in certain areas.
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Maybe Zack will have some new ideas. Though I think he's chosen a bad time to talk about leaving NATO. I really don't see why the Left should have a problem with a mutual defence treaty that allows small countries - that would be weak individually - to work together to defend themselves against an aggressive large country like Russia. That's quite a left-wing sort of thing, really, mutual aid in geopolitics.
I can't get my head round how abandoning the Baltic States to Russia should be seen as left-wing.
Still, who knows. Perhaps something might change in the next four years?
And there are far easier ways to make money or do something good for the community than entering politics so a lot of people don't see the point nowadays...
This has now changed and waiting lists are - slowly - starting to come down.
There's a real difference there.
Deprived areas certainly breed discontent (it was ever thus) but if you believe that this is what is the key driver of militant Islam in the UK then, again, I strongly disagree.
You really don't need to be a Yayley-Lennon/ Farage fan to be concerned about there Islam is going in Europe.
It’s the same thought process that leads the far left to support Islamists.
The War for Jenkins' Ear.
I also get the ability to play rugby for China, apparently.
Although the way Wales are going I think I might be in their first 15 soon enough...
We did have computers too, but learning on a tripewriter requires a bit more discipline.
Turned out to be quite useful.
Greece vs Rome, with Boris Johnson and Mary Beard (hour and a half video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k448JqQyj8
Personally I'm far enough on the left that I am suspicious of relying too much on state intervention. I think the Left should seek to strengthen community cooperation outwith the state, and so free of the potential for a future right-wing government to damage state institutions created by a left-wing government - so I find a lot of the politics of the current British Left a bit of a turn off. Everything seems to run through the State.
Mind you, to be fair to him, Johnson is almost certainly more knowledgeable about the classical world than Nixey.
I can"t think of anything grocer.
Although not because they were Christian
'“It’s not really Truss’s fault that she was a disaster,” he says. “Why the hell did people put someone like that in? Similarly with Kemi, she obviously can’t do the job. She should never have been put there.”
Badenoch, he says, is “obviously completely unsuitable for any kind of serious job”. “She blames her juniors for everything, she’s massively f***ing lazy, she just can’t do it. She’s going to go, for sure — I think very quickly after the May elections.”
Who comes next, he says, will be critical for the Conservative Party’s hopes of staying alive. “It’s possible the Tory party is just dead,” he says. “It’s already past the event horizon. It’s on the precipice and it hasn’t got another false start left. If it is going to revive, then when Kemi goes it is the last chance.”
The current favourite to succeed Badenoch is Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary. “That’s fundamentally because he’s the only person in shadow cabinet with a pulse,” Cummings says.
“Someone said to me recently, what do you think of how the shadow chancellor’s doing? And my answer was, who the f*** is the shadow chancellor? No one knows who any of these people are because it’s just a black hole...Farage, he says, is on course to be prime minister but needs to change his approach by bringing in a “bad-ass” team around him. Cummings had dinner with him a year ago at Boisdale, a raucous restaurant in central London loved by the Reform leader.
“We had a friendly chat,” Cummings says. “He said to me very clearly, I know I’ve got to hire a bunch of great people and I’ve got to show the country there’s a team that can actually take over this nightmare and turn it around." https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/dominic-cummings-interview-keir-starmer-vw9grdbhr
There are problems with all religions if you look hard enough. The ongoing Jesus Army story, for example, with hundreds of children abused. Or the boys at Hasidic schools who can barely read or write English: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/hasidic-boys-school-abuse-uk-jewish-education-investigation-london-2023-qx385fx52 Or there’s the historical sexual exploitation in the Triratna Buddhist Community, the Buddhist sect Suella Braverman is in. It is just Islamophobia that picks out Islam as being especially problematic. But I guess we should thank OllyT for spelling out what Jenrick’s dog-whistle was.
Hence the opposition to Polish independence. During the 80s, I can recall certain Labour MPs saying that, to improve relations with the Soviet Union, the members of various exile groups, living in London should be expelled. One actually advocated handing them over to the SU.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/oct/17/pentagon-netflix-boots-military-show
I could tell you next to nothing about the Hellenistic monarchies, or Carthage, or the economy of classical Greece.
Firstly, that you do not have to stand to be nominated, MPs if they are in ruction could just coalesce around you, even if you are still professing loyalty. More likely to happen around an obvious figure like a deputy, this could have been a method to promote a clean nosed version of Rayner, for instance, and she'd maintain plausible deniability. Of course, such a nominee, despite being dragged by the nomination, could ultimately refuse to stand.
Secondly, the fact we go straight to an election of challenger vs leader - there is no VoNC step, just an election if a challenger emerges, so a PM could be defending his position via a full, member balloted, leadership election which, like a Tory VoNC, could be won with a less than convincing mandate.
Thirdly, that the rules seem somewhat unclear around timing, challenges used to be concluded at conference, but they seem to have been relaxed, and there are ambiguities and holes in the rulesets that could cause rows: honestly, you'd think party rulesets would be pretty unambiguous and watertight, but they never quite are.
Btw, this is memories of articles and reading up a few months ago, so feel free to correct if I have misremembered any of this.
If you believe you are Right, then anything that stands in the way of your Righteousness, such as individual rights, is obviously Bad.
And if you believe the State should be in charge of everything, why limit the power of the state?
One day the SU Embassy complained that he had vanished. Seems he went in the club and didn’t leave…
Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.
The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost ten hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/18/jewish-man-arrested-star-of-david-antagonised-protesters/
'“The prefect Maximus, who had alternately attempted to bribe and then reason the veteran Julius into [avoiding execution] was told the money he was offering was ‘the money of Satan’ and that ‘neither it nor your crafty talk can deprive me of the eternal light’. It is not without some sympathy that one reads the prefect’s terse response. ‘If you do not respect the imperial decrees and offer sacrifice, I am going to cut your head off’. Julius replies boldly but somewhat ungraciously that ‘to live with you would be death for me’. He is beheaded.” ' (pages 76-77)
The mentality,of pig-headed officialdom, endures across the centuries.
Hell, Buddhism has been turned into genocidal totalitarianism, repeatedly.
Those employed by the public sector were far more sympathetic to the likes of Hamas than the rest of the population. We see it in the disgraceful decision of the West Midlands Chief Constable. We see it in this story. We saw it in the attitudes to transmen demanding access to female spaces. It is endemic. I am really not sure how we bring the public sector back into line with what the majority actually think but it needs to be made clear that this is intolerable.
If only because it's football.
The excuse being something something Australia (the away team) were going to play an Arab team in the future.