The worm that turned? – politicalbetting.com
The worm that turned? – politicalbetting.com
I don’t expect Robert Jenrick to defect any time soon, my logic is based on the assumption despite Kemi Badenoch’s ratings the Tories are still going to be shellacked senseless in next May’s elections.
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Or not?
Have we done Christopher Harborne's £9 million donation to Reform?
https://www.ft.com/content/db73535f-7d9d-4586-b53a-a690d3b0e36d
"In November 2022, Harborne donated £1 million to The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd, one of the biggest donations ever made to an individual British politician.[13] Boris Johnson awarded Qinetiq, a company in which Harborne was the largest single shareholder, with a £80m MoD contract in January 2023."
Ref UK 29.6%, Labour 19.8%, Con 19.4%, Green 12.9%, 12.5%.
That gives Reform 366, Labour 94, Lib Dem 59, SNP 45, Con 34, Green 15.
The places I've chosen on the way are mostly (other than Nantes and la Rochelle) to guide the route where I wanted it to go, rather than places I particularly want to see
I decided to go on the West bank before Bordeaux because I don't want to walk through Bordeaux, and I recognise more place names there
Is there anything really good that I'm missing on that route?
On Google Maps
https://x.com/FindoutnowUK/status/1996572051478282392?s=19
Ref 31%
Con 20%
Grn 18%
Lab 14%
LD 11%
SNP 3%
https://x.com/PolliticoUK/status/1996572559756640274
Had previously given £10m to the Brexit Party.
And do you like pine forests?
https://x.com/MilitaryBanter/status/1996330350889357562
"I am an anonymous General Dynamics Employee (ex army) I've seen your recent post about the AJAX. The project being 8 years overdue is not even half of it:
- Vehicles regularly come off the production line with circa 150 faults on them.
- We can't even build the vehicles to meet the test standard which we came up with ourselves. If the Army finds too many failures they will either change the test so that the vehicle passes every time or the management will scurry off to the civil servants from DE&S that work on site to ask them to sign a "concession" for the vehicle to leave the factory and arrive at it's new unit with said faults on the vehicle (even though it's brand new).
- We have working for us a number of ex army guys, one a them an ex REME ****** who's sole job seems to be to argue with the soldiers when they find faults with the vehicles and try to find a way of telling them they're wrong and essentially get us (General Dynamics) out of fixing the vehicle
- General Dynamics upper management set impossible targets which we fail to meet ourselves, even after reducing the target a few times before the deadline. What the impact of this on the soldiers on site is that in December for example (our most recent missed target) was they forced the soldiers to wait around on site for approx 16 hours a day just so that they could sign off any faults as and when we repair them, failing this our managers would get the spineless morons from the civil service would just sign a concession (meaning the tank can leave our factory and go to the army with faults still on it)
- I hear that a large portion of the relatively small team of soldiers have signed off, the unit is about the size of a platoon and it seems that most of the guys I speak to have had enough.
- General Dynamics management will force the whole team of soldiers to come in all weekend at a moments notice just because we have 1 guy working overtime.
- As an ex soldier myself seeing how General Dynamics management abuse the fact that soldiers essentially don't have any employment rights is painful to watch, if the Soldiers refuse to work ridiculous hours of overtime or multiple weekends straight our senior managers who have the email addresses of high up officers in Army HQ will directly contact them and force the soldiers into work.
- Sometimes when a vehicle has passed inspection and the Army now owns it, our low level managers at General Dynamics will encourage us to rob parts off it to repair one that has failed an inspection.
- I felt the need to write this to you as an ex army guy myself I think that the actions of the company I work for (General Dynamics) towards the soldiers are completely wrong and they are also robbing the tax payer."
Selling off DERA did seem a bit weird at the time.
What’s driving the Green surge is likelihood to vote, Labour voters are about 60% certain to vote Labour in an election tomorrow but about 90% certain to vote Labour in a 2029 general election, the opposite is true for Green voters.
Forests aren't great for views, but they're rather welcome on very hot or wet days
For voters it's the 'not like normal politicians' shtick - aka confusing showmanship and a loose tongue with authenticity.
For large donors the near certainty that with operators like Johnson and Farage the £££ will be reciprocated unabashedly with favours and influence.
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-five-council-by-elections-a79
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC9syMrdFI
The West’s Last Chance
How to Build a New Global Order Before It’s Too Late
Alexander Stubb
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/wests-last-chance
Crisis club Middlesex begin plan to move away from Lord’s
Exclusive: County take step towards private ownership amid a Cricket Regulator investigation into their chief executive
Middlesex have taken the first step towards private ownership to fund a new home away from Lord’s.
The crisis-plagued county have told members they are actively exploring demutualisation after being plunged into fresh turmoil amid a Cricket Regulator investigation into their chief executive.
Andrew Cornish was absent from a meeting with members on Tuesday at which the club began a formal consultation over becoming just the fourth first-class county to go private.
Chairman Richard Sykes told Telegraph Sport that Cornish was “on a leave of absence”, adding: “The Cricket Regulator is involved and I can’t say more than that.”
The investigation into Cornish, who has denied any wrongdoing, is unrelated to demutualisation. But the timing could hardly be worse for the 161-year-old club as they look to join Durham, Northamptonshire and Hampshire in becoming privately owned.
As tenants of Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord’s, Middlesex are unique among the 18 counties as they do not own their home ground. This means they are unable to make money through non-cricket activities such as conferencing and events.
They play at a series of outgrounds such as Merchant Taylors’ School, Richmond and Radlett, but have long sought a “home away from home” to provide stability and generate income. Sykes believes the only way to raise the funds for this is via demutualisation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/12/02/middlesex-county-cricket-club-plan-move-away-lords-private/
(If a gravy train is on the fast track, there may be a risk of the gravy spilling when it goes over a set of points.)
Except that I understand the local branch of Reform has loads of people who have fallen out with him over the years, which makes me wonder if he'd be reselected if he defected.
Ed Miliband attacks ‘ignorant’ SNP for blocking nuclear power
Energy Secretary urges Scots to summon their ‘inner Yimby’ in search for new reactor sites
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/12/04/ed-miliband-attacks-ignorant-snp-for-blocking-nuclear/
Start in the Southern edges of Champagne in Aube, then it’s practically a straight line of almost unbroken vineyardery through the cote de nuits, cote de beaune, cote châlonnaise, Maçonnais, the Beaujolais crus, beaujolais pierres dorées (prettiest part of the route), condrieu, cote rôtie, st Joseph, hermitage, with an extension of you’re feeling fit into the Southern Rhone.
Cotes de Grandlieu looks a great diversion on the way out of Nantes
You could walk to the west of Arcachon bay and get the ferry across and then walk past the Dunes of Pilat which are really worth seeing. The pine forest there is magnificent and you are entirely alone when going through it.
There is a very large rocket testing area that you need to avoid. Can't remember exactly where, but I nearly tried to cycle through it. You are likely to get shot if you try.
I’ll try to see Arachon and Pilat
Mr Miliband really does not like local pricing, though.
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/12/04/crypto-investor-donates-9-million-to-reform-uk-after-nigel-farage-plugs-his-company-and-tells-industry-i-am-your-champion/
For all those hoping for the demise of the conservative party be careful.for what you wish for
If it was big enough, the Principality of Sealand could host
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-joins-norways-mine-warfare-mothership-project/
He’s nearly 50 and still at least a couple of decades away from his MCC membership.
https://x.com/OprosUK/status/1996540068677456178?s=19
Tory spox: "Nigel Farage just called a press conference and used it to rant at journalists over historic allegations of racism and antisemitism - allegations he has just admitted are true."
The Anglesey nuclear plans seem to be hitting a problem with bird habitats ... similar issues have affected offshore wind but as nuclear isn't 'clean' it gets a rougher ride
I think that press conference is going to go down as one of Nigel Farage's biggest errors.
Actually since I would include Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the SNP as well, it is more accurately described as 'a plague on all your houses'.
Rep. Jim Himes, top House Intel Dem
who just got briefed on the double-tap strike by Admiral Bradley and chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff
Himes told a group of us just now:
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service.”
https://x.com/mkraju/status/1996601533803204846?s=20
Scottosh firms paying about 5.4bn out of the 28bn approved by Ofgem for grid improvements in the UK just now. Some for improving services in Scotland sure but quite a bit to export the stuff. With no local pricing. So we pay in our bills for some of the investment and pay even more to be level with the distant consumers, it seems. But against that savings are promised ... all very complex.
The smoking gun question is: "How much were you paid to present your Russia Today show, and what is morally different between what you did for the Russians then and what Nathan Gill has just been sentenced to 10.5 years for doing for the Russians, more recently?"
But Miliband setting his face against local pricing is stupid economics and politics. It's just wrong.
Wow. What an innings. 32 not out, a new Test Record for him.
Back when you had to be born in Yorkshire to play for Yorkshire, being born in Middlesbrough conferred eligibility, Chris Old was not kicked out of the Yorkshire team just because the Tories faffed about with local government in 1974.
Bury the cables?
Nevertheless, @MaxPB's point is spot on.
Qinetiq used to be part of the Ministry of Defence. It used to be the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. The vast majority of its revenue comes from... you guessed it... the UK government. I suspect you can look at any point in time and fine a big contract signed.
The IG report into Hegseth’s use of Signal is out. https://dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/4348367/evaluation-of-the-secretary-of-defenses-reported-use-of-a-commercially-availabl/
Some key lines:
“The Secretary sent nonpublic DoD information identifying the quantity and strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately 2 to 4 hours before the
execution of those strikes. Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send nonpublic DoD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information, which could cause harm to DoD personnel and mission objectives.
We concluded that the Secretary sent sensitive, nonpublic, operational information that he determined
did not require classification over the Signal chat on his personal cell phone. The Secretary is the head original
classification authority in the DoD based on Executive Order 13526 and DoD Manual 5200.45 and holds the authority to determine the required classification level of all DoD information he communicates.
However, because the Secretary indicated that he used the Signal application on his personal cell phone to send nonpublic DoD information, we concluded that the Secretary’s actions did not comply with DoD Instruction 8170.01, which prohibits using a personal device for official business and using a nonapproved commercially available messaging application to send nonpublic DoD information.”
https://x.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1996614171396391272?s=20
You don't have to be a deep thinker or very politically engaged to see Putin as an evil and very dangerous shit. The Russian population may be forgiven in time but by showing virtually zero inclination to challenge Putin they are culpable. Anyone in UK politics seen as being soft on Putin is rightly going to be under pressure.
Johnson was unaffected by Partygate, until he was.
1,717 in hospital beds last week
With all the flu vaccinations available today, especially for the elderly, why the increase ?
https://news.sky.com/story/why-is-flu-season-set-to-be-worse-this-year-13472188
That's not to say Ukraine / Farage's Russian links is not costing Reform votes, I just think without Plaid being an option Reform would have won.