Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
But of course we have FPTP so we'll get Farage, possibly on a stonking majority.
Not necessarily, especially with anti Farage tactical voting, tactical voting can stop a party even with over 40% of the vote winning. See Canada last year which also has FPTP still
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
I see the Conservative Friends of Ed Davey are up and about early this morning....
Of course, Ed comes over as a "decent bloke" but that's a long way from being Prime Minister and indeed you could argue someone with a tough, mean streak is probably better equipped but given the ragtag and bobtail of Conservatives we had for a decade and a half, that's probably a slightly unfair call.
As to which way the Liberal Democrats (and the Conservatives) will "jump" after the next election, who knows and to be honest at this stage who cares? Kemi Badenoch will find, I suspect, equidistance will serve her well in the short to medium term but does she really want her party to be seen as the enabler for a Reform Government any more than the LDs wanting to be seen as an enabler for a second term Labour administration?
Three years off an election (in all probability), such questions don't need to and indeed can't easily be answered.
The LD's position is relatively easily answered, even if those at the heart of it might rather not, in advance of an election. A coalition with either the Tories or Reform is a complete no, the latter obviously, and the former after last time. If there is any coalition, it would be with Labour - the party then able to use the prior coalition with the Tories to counter any suggestions that it would always side with the left - or, in a very hypothetical scenario, I reckon they'd be up for one with the Greens. But the party would probably look for some supply and confidence deal, in preference to a coalition - the caveat here is that Davey has been a minister before, and anyone that's made it to a job with some genuine power will clearly be very tempted if a second chance arises.
The interesting scenario that arises is if Reform falls slightly short, and proposes to introduce STV in its first year or two and then go to the country again. If the Tories wouldn't touch that, the LibDems might be willing to at least not bring a minority government down while the electoral reform was pushed through. That scenario is, however, unlikely, as it first requires Reform to poll very well, then to stick to its purported support for PR (and to make this its top priority), and then for the Tories to pass up the chance to prop them up, and then for the LibDems to have enough MPs to make a majority.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
I'd argue the overnight storm is big domestic news and quite clearly there are problems in several areas.
I'm not quite sure what it is you want - absent on-the-ground coverage, yes, all you have today is social media but we also know a lot of social media is about misinformation or disinformation. I've read this morning that apparently all the crowds want the Shah back - really? I find that hard to believe - I appreciate there's no love for the theocracy but the Pavlavi regime wasn't exactly a byword for freedom for those politically opposed though I appreciate women did a lot better in terms of freedom.
Is it for the BBC (unlike some news organisations who seem to have no problem if such views reflect their politics) to report misinformation simply for something to report or should it wait until such information can be properly verified before its dissemination?
I disagree, I have been following events in Iran for months, in fact years now and it is why I joined twitter back in 2009! Even those Iranian supporters in exile totally understand that the uprising and the fall of the brutal Iranian Regime has to be organic and come from within in Iran and most importantly without outside Foreign interferance. But the one thing that cannot be allowed to happen is a power vacuum if the Regime falls as it did in Iraq leaving sadly Iran to then move in there and take control with the negative outcomes that delivered!
Its clear that the events in 1979 and what then unfolded in Iran have weighed heavily on Reza Pahlavi through out his adult life and he has spent years trying to over throw this brutal religious regime, but as the father of three grown up Western daughters he has no long term goals to build a new dynasty in Iran, he just wants to form an interim coalition government to fill any vacuum and one that will oversee the democratic election of a new secular government that respects and includes everyone in Iran who has been suppressed for nearly fifty years.
I am going to be honest, I would rather have been a young woman under his father's rule than a young woman under this brutal religious regime over the last nearly fifty years. I don't want to even think about what has happened to any young woman that tried to stand up to this regime and was then brutally murdered by them, there are now too many to name here.
It breaks my heart that not one, but two successive US presidents horrific Foreign policy mistakes have now seen the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the horrific current and future outcome for women there does not bear thinking about as the West looks away and ignores it!
But the imminent fall of this brutal Iranian regime should be leading the news because of the ramifications for the Middle East, not least their state sponsered funded terrorism in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. And also the geopolitical implications for Russia and China are also incredible important, the list goes on. As someone pointed out on 'social media' last night, if this regime falls it will be bigger than the Berlin wall being ripped down and they would be right.
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
I don't think it's a good look for the Republicans, given the President's associations with Epstein, to be trying to force child sex abuse material down our throats.
Is it just me who is uncomfortable with the argument that because *we* discovered how to get Grok to send us dick pics of 5-year-olds, TwiX should be banned? Maybe the guardians of moral virtue should stop making dodgy requests ‘purely for research purposes’.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
LD -> Reform typo there?
Seriously though, I think that was very true in 2010 and before. Less so now, partly because there's no way LDs would prop up a Bandenoch Con government. They'd be a socially more liberal and maybe slightly more fiscally dry partner to Labour.
If the LDs held the balance of power between a Farage or Badenoch government in a hung parliament and if say Labour had been near wiped out and the Greens still only had a handful of MPs, they would deal with Badenoch
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
But no-one knows what's happening, and so there is nothing to report
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
I don't think it's a good look for the Republicans, given the President's associations with Epstein, to be trying to force child sex abuse material down our throats.
Is it just me who is uncomfortable with the argument that because *we* discovered how to get Grok to send us dick pics of 5-year-olds, TwiX should be banned? Maybe the guardians of moral virtue should stop making dodgy requests ‘purely for research purposes’.
Twitter shows you other people's Grok-generated images. You don't have to make the request yourself to be shown them.
Grok could easily be tweaked to stop it making such images in most situations. X has some responsibility putting out a tool that can be abused so.
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
The Anti-Liberal Democrats do tie themselves up in knots, so blinded by hatred are they.
The fact is that, while nobody is prefect, Ed Davey is very obviously a decent and sincere man. You may not agree with him, but his views on Trump are the majority view in this country, and it was Ed who talked about the Farage Russian connection first, so he has also demonstrated some political attack skills. The polls are surprisingly solid for the Lib Dems at this point in the electoral cycle- and the local by elections have been exceptional.
There is certainly a road map for the Lib Dems to extend their numbers and certainly their national influence, and there are some very talented people- Daisy Cooper, Callum Miller, Al Pinkerton and several others.- on their benches now who are two decades younger than the average Tory MP and with fire in their bellies.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
I'd argue the overnight storm is big domestic news and quite clearly there are problems in several areas.
I'm not quite sure what it is you want - absent on-the-ground coverage, yes, all you have today is social media but we also know a lot of social media is about misinformation or disinformation. I've read this morning that apparently all the crowds want the Shah back - really? I find that hard to believe - I appreciate there's no love for the theocracy but the Pavlavi regime wasn't exactly a byword for freedom for those politically opposed though I appreciate women did a lot better in terms of freedom.
Is it for the BBC (unlike some news organisations who seem to have no problem if such views reflect their politics) to report misinformation simply for something to report or should it wait until such information can be properly verified before its dissemination?
I'm also unclear what it is that fitalass expects of them. Their reports last night and this morning said pretty well what she just said. Plus interviews with those with knowledge of the country.
Since no one has reporters in the country, it's hard to see what detail they can add until events develop further.
The problem is the contrast with Gaza, where there were also no Western journalists, but the BBC and other news sites carried what was clearly Hamas propoganda daily for two years.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
That's a great site. I had a look at a pub that I frequent in Cumbria. It has repeatedly gone out of business because the brewery smashes the rent up whenever someone makes a decent go of it. It's in a great location and should be a viable business.
Rateable value is going up by +250%, I guess because it's picked up the rent that the brewery charges when they are squeezing the pips. System is broken.
The pub industry seems to be a mess. Locally we've one pub run by one of the big brewers which seems to change managers every 6-9 months, so every so often we have an enthusiastic newcomer in the place who, a few months later is moving, or moved on. Another is owned by a local company which has another couple of catering establishments and seems to be doing well. Either that, or it's expanding on borrowed money! Not sure about the ownership of the third. The present 'chap in charge' inherited the business but I gather there's some shadowy corporation in the background. Quite a lot money is currently being spent on it, though, although as it's a listed building ..... actually all three are ...... there aren't many significant improvements which can be made.
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
I don't think it's a good look for the Republicans, given the President's associations with Epstein, to be trying to force child sex abuse material down our throats.
Is it just me who is uncomfortable with the argument that because *we* discovered how to get Grok to send us dick pics of 5-year-olds, TwiX should be banned? Maybe the guardians of moral virtue should stop making dodgy requests ‘purely for research purposes’.
Twitter shows you other people's Grok-generated images. You don't have to make the request yourself to be shown them.
Grok could easily be tweaked to stop it making such images in most situations. X has some responsibility putting out a tool that can be abused so.
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
LD -> Reform typo there?
Seriously though, I think that was very true in 2010 and before. Less so now, partly because there's no way LDs would prop up a Bandenoch Con government. They'd be a socially more liberal and maybe slightly more fiscally dry partner to Labour.
If the LDs held the balance of power between a Farage or Badenoch government in a hung parliament and if say Labour had been near wiped out and the Greens still only had a handful of MPs, they would deal with Badenoch
If Scarlett Johansson came round tonight, I'd change the bed sheets.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
LD -> Reform typo there?
Seriously though, I think that was very true in 2010 and before. Less so now, partly because there's no way LDs would prop up a Bandenoch Con government. They'd be a socially more liberal and maybe slightly more fiscally dry partner to Labour.
If the LDs held the balance of power between a Farage or Badenoch government in a hung parliament and if say Labour had been near wiped out and the Greens still only had a handful of MPs, they would deal with Badenoch
In such an extremely hypothetical situation, the seats would be have to be split almost equally between Con, Reform and LD, with LD only just in third place. In such a scenario, the LDs would be able to have a strong influence on policy and would perhaps be able to shift Con policy sufficiently to the left to be able to form a coalition.
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
I see the Conservative Friends of Ed Davey are up and about early this morning....
Of course, Ed comes over as a "decent bloke" but that's a long way from being Prime Minister and indeed you could argue someone with a tough, mean streak is probably better equipped but given the ragtag and bobtail of Conservatives we had for a decade and a half, that's probably a slightly unfair call.
As to which way the Liberal Democrats (and the Conservatives) will "jump" after the next election, who knows and to be honest at this stage who cares? Kemi Badenoch will find, I suspect, equidistance will serve her well in the short to medium term but does she really want her party to be seen as the enabler for a Reform Government any more than the LDs wanting to be seen as an enabler for a second term Labour administration?
Three years off an election (in all probability), such questions don't need to and indeed can't easily be answered.
The LD's position is relatively easily answered, even if those at the heart of it might rather not, in advance of an election. A coalition with either the Tories or Reform is a complete no, the latter obviously, and the former after last time. If there is any coalition, it would be with Labour - the party then able to use the prior coalition with the Tories to counter any suggestions that it would always side with the left - or, in a very hypothetical scenario, I reckon they'd be up for one with the Greens. But the party would probably look for some supply and confidence deal, in preference to a coalition - the caveat here is that Davey has been a minister before, and anyone that's made it to a job with some genuine power will clearly be very tempted if a second chance arises.
The interesting scenario that arises is if Reform falls slightly short, and proposes to introduce STV in its first year or two and then go to the country again. If the Tories wouldn't touch that, the LibDems might be willing to at least not bring a minority government down while the electoral reform was pushed through. That scenario is, however, unlikely, as it first requires Reform to poll very well, then to stick to its purported support for PR (and to make this its top priority), and then for the Tories to pass up the chance to prop them up, and then for the LibDems to have enough MPs to make a majority.
The LDs would prefer to deal with Labour or the Greens most but also even the Tories over Reform.
The LDs also now get about the same number of MPs they would with PR anyway, it is the Tories, ironically and Greens who would benefit most from PR now on current polls
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
I see the Conservative Friends of Ed Davey are up and about early this morning....
Of course, Ed comes over as a "decent bloke" but that's a long way from being Prime Minister and indeed you could argue someone with a tough, mean streak is probably better equipped but given the ragtag and bobtail of Conservatives we had for a decade and a half, that's probably a slightly unfair call.
As to which way the Liberal Democrats (and the Conservatives) will "jump" after the next election, who knows and to be honest at this stage who cares? Kemi Badenoch will find, I suspect, equidistance will serve her well in the short to medium term but does she really want her party to be seen as the enabler for a Reform Government any more than the LDs wanting to be seen as an enabler for a second term Labour administration?
Three years off an election (in all probability), such questions don't need to and indeed can't easily be answered.
The LD's position is relatively easily answered, even if those at the heart of it might rather not, in advance of an election. A coalition with either the Tories or Reform is a complete no, the latter obviously, and the former after last time. If there is any coalition, it would be with Labour - the party then able to use the prior coalition with the Tories to counter any suggestions that it would always side with the left - or, in a very hypothetical scenario, I reckon they'd be up for one with the Greens. But the party would probably look for some supply and confidence deal, in preference to a coalition - the caveat here is that Davey has been a minister before, and anyone that's made it to a job with some genuine power will clearly be very tempted if a second chance arises.
The interesting scenario that arises is if Reform falls slightly short, and proposes to introduce STV in its first year or two and then go to the country again. If the Tories wouldn't touch that, the LibDems might be willing to at least not bring a minority government down while the electoral reform was pushed through. That scenario is, however, unlikely, as it first requires Reform to poll very well, then to stick to its purported support for PR (and to make this its top priority), and then for the Tories to pass up the chance to prop them up, and then for the LibDems to have enough MPs to make a majority.
The LDs would prefer to deal with Labour or the Greens most but also even the Tories over Reform.
The LDs also now get about the same number of MPs they would with PR anyway, it is the Tories, ironically and Greens who would benefit most from PR now on current polls
Implying that the Tory position on PR might change, but I doubt it. They still dream of Reform imploding and normal service resuming.
Your scenario assumes the Tories would rather deal with the LDs than with Reform, which - given its positioning, membership and MPs, I seriously doubt.
The LDs remain committed to PR regardless of whether the system continues to disadvantage them or not.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American policy ATM.
The suggestions that she was some sort of protestor (or "domestic terrorist", as they positioned it) emerged almost immediately from senior government figures
FWIW my Persian friends are worried, the phone lines and internet were cut last night.
In the past when this happens the regime starts to get violent.
The amount of pain in a callous moment is so disproportionate it doesn’t bear thinking about.
My barber is Iranian. I saw him yesterday for a cut. He’s organising an anti regime demo in the toon on Saturday.
His family are in the North. They’ve not been protesting but are planning too. The feeling is ‘fuck it, if not now when’. He’s also very pro Trump and Israel which surprised me,
If the Mullahs fall I’ve been promised a free cut as only a few of his customers bother to ask. I wouldn’t take it as it’s his livelihood and pays his bills but I would have a large JD.
Yes, Iran is the one country in the Middle-East where the 'all your problems are the fault of the Jews' narrative doesn't seem to work for the regime. It's one of the reasons I really like them.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
Iran is 3.5 hurs behind us so midday prays is 8:30. Which means we should see things from about 10 (UK time) onwards.
How long do you think Islamic prayers are? Zuhr is four rakats plus an actual prayer, so about 15 mins, plus the imam giving a sermon.
#IslamicScholar
If you’ve ever sat through a 2h high Catholic Mass…
Grim childhood memories. I always hated Good Friday for that reason.
Incense isn't that bad!
Yes, I actually really like the smell of incense. That's why benediction was always my favourite service. Not only loads of incense, but over in 20 mins too.
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
Re. Brazil. All that helped the revival of President Lula's fortunes, and has helped sink Trump's mate, Bolsonaro.
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Well clearly your heart now leans Green, you just see them as 'unrealistic'
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
I see the Conservative Friends of Ed Davey are up and about early this morning....
Of course, Ed comes over as a "decent bloke" but that's a long way from being Prime Minister and indeed you could argue someone with a tough, mean streak is probably better equipped but given the ragtag and bobtail of Conservatives we had for a decade and a half, that's probably a slightly unfair call.
As to which way the Liberal Democrats (and the Conservatives) will "jump" after the next election, who knows and to be honest at this stage who cares? Kemi Badenoch will find, I suspect, equidistance will serve her well in the short to medium term but does she really want her party to be seen as the enabler for a Reform Government any more than the LDs wanting to be seen as an enabler for a second term Labour administration?
Three years off an election (in all probability), such questions don't need to and indeed can't easily be answered.
The LD's position is relatively easily answered, even if those at the heart of it might rather not, in advance of an election. A coalition with either the Tories or Reform is a complete no, the latter obviously, and the former after last time. If there is any coalition, it would be with Labour - the party then able to use the prior coalition with the Tories to counter any suggestions that it would always side with the left - or, in a very hypothetical scenario, I reckon they'd be up for one with the Greens. But the party would probably look for some supply and confidence deal, in preference to a coalition - the caveat here is that Davey has been a minister before, and anyone that's made it to a job with some genuine power will clearly be very tempted if a second chance arises.
The interesting scenario that arises is if Reform falls slightly short, and proposes to introduce STV in its first year or two and then go to the country again. If the Tories wouldn't touch that, the LibDems might be willing to at least not bring a minority government down while the electoral reform was pushed through. That scenario is, however, unlikely, as it first requires Reform to poll very well, then to stick to its purported support for PR (and to make this its top priority), and then for the Tories to pass up the chance to prop them up, and then for the LibDems to have enough MPs to make a majority.
The LDs would prefer to deal with Labour or the Greens most but also even the Tories over Reform.
The LDs also now get about the same number of MPs they would with PR anyway, it is the Tories, ironically and Greens who would benefit most from PR now on current polls
Implying that the Tory position on PR might change, but I doubt it. They still dream of Reform imploding and normal service resuming.
Your scenario assumes the Tories would rather deal with the LDs than with Reform, which - given its positioning, membership and MPs, I seriously doubt.
The LDs remain committed to PR regardless of whether the system continues to disadvantage them or not.
As the figures above show, 69% of those still voting Tory would prefer to form a government with the LDs if they could to keep out Labour but only 63% would prefer to deal with Reform to beat Labour.
Even only 50% would prefer to be a junior partner to a Reform led government if the alternative was a Labour government, 13% of Tories would even deal with Labour to keep out Reform and 24% would prefer to stay in opposition in such a hung parliament scenario than deal with either
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
The Anti-Liberal Democrats do tie themselves up in knots, so blinded by hatred are they.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
No words for this ignorant post, oh to be a woman right now living under the current regime in Iran or Afghanistan, maybe I should just shut up and just retire from PB these days...
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Well clearly your heart now leans Green, you just see them as 'unrealistic'
Surely not an insurmountable blocker for a former Corbynista and youthful Communist?
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
That's a great site. I had a look at a pub that I frequent in Cumbria. It has repeatedly gone out of business because the brewery smashes the rent up whenever someone makes a decent go of it. It's in a great location and should be a viable business.
Rateable value is going up by +250%, I guess because it's picked up the rent that the brewery charges when they are squeezing the pips. System is broken.
The pub industry seems to be a mess. Locally we've one pub run by one of the big brewers which seems to change managers every 6-9 months, so every so often we have an enthusiastic newcomer in the place who, a few months later is moving, or moved on. Another is owned by a local company which has another couple of catering establishments and seems to be doing well. Either that, or it's expanding on borrowed money! Not sure about the ownership of the third. The present 'chap in charge' inherited the business but I gather there's some shadowy corporation in the background. Quite a lot money is currently being spent on it, though, although as it's a listed building ..... actually all three are ...... there aren't many significant improvements which can be made.
At our local (which is tied) what apparently happens (village gossip) is that as soon as a tenant gets the business going the brewery whacks up its charges. So they leave. Shame, really.
And then you have the utterly bizarre behaviour of the owner of Sam Smiths which has led to numerous pubs being closed.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
I have been surprised at Labour playing things so defensively, Nick. From the word go they have been on the back foot and forever justifying everything by either blaming everyone else or because they “have” to do it because of situation X or Y.
There’s no vision or ideal or positivity or sense of direction. The closest they’ve got is their 2 child benefit cap policy (one I don’t agree with, but fair enough if they want to sell it), but all the comms on that have been mishandled too - firstly it couldn’t be done because it was unaffordable (defensive, back foot again), then when they announced it they talk about it like they know it’s unpopular and won’t be welcomed (all this “I won’t apologise” stuff).
The “it’s someone else’s fault” can work for politicians if used cleverly. But the use of it has become completely endemic in Labour now (starting at the very top) and it’s crowding out any chances of claiming genuine successes.
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
The video of Heather Cox Richardson I linked for Trump pushback is an argument that this is a hinge-point, because they have now killed a white soccer-mom for no reason whatsoever, and so women who have been silently tolerating Trump's abuses will identify with her.
She makes an analogy with Uncle Tom's Cabin the early popular novel, where white women losing their children to diseases (including Harriet Beecher-Stowe) could identify with black women losing their children in slavery.
And that period is where Trump's backers personal values are sourced.
I'm not well enough up with emotional links of the 19C to judge well, but it was a powerful presentation.
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Yes and at the moment that's the Lib Dems. Rejoin the EU and disrtance the UK as far away as possible from Trump's America. The rest is mere detail
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around the both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
What was their bill in 2019?
(I'm fishing for how much of this is NOT COVID-reduction bounceback.)
FWIW my Persian friends are worried, the phone lines and internet were cut last night.
In the past when this happens the regime starts to get violent.
The amount of pain in a callous moment is so disproportionate it doesn’t bear thinking about.
My barber is Iranian. I saw him yesterday for a cut. He’s organising an anti regime demo in the toon on Saturday.
His family are in the North. They’ve not been protesting but are planning too. The feeling is ‘fuck it, if not now when’. He’s also very pro Trump and Israel which surprised me,
If the Mullahs fall I’ve been promised a free cut as only a few of his customers bother to ask. I wouldn’t take it as it’s his livelihood and pays his bills but I would have a large JD.
Yes, Iran is the one country in the Middle-East where the 'all your problems are the fault of the Jews' narrative doesn't seem to work for the regime. It's one of the reasons I really like them.
Death To America and Death To Israel are the official, settled policy of the government.
In a country with lots of young people, who really don't like the government, the result is far from surprising.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
I'd argue the overnight storm is big domestic news and quite clearly there are problems in several areas.
I'm not quite sure what it is you want - absent on-the-ground coverage, yes, all you have today is social media but we also know a lot of social media is about misinformation or disinformation. I've read this morning that apparently all the crowds want the Shah back - really? I find that hard to believe - I appreciate there's no love for the theocracy but the Pavlavi regime wasn't exactly a byword for freedom for those politically opposed though I appreciate women did a lot better in terms of freedom.
Is it for the BBC (unlike some news organisations who seem to have no problem if such views reflect their politics) to report misinformation simply for something to report or should it wait until such information can be properly verified before its dissemination?
I disagree, I have been following events in Iran for months, in fact years now and it is why I joined twitter back in 2009! Even those Iranian supporters in exile totally understand that the uprising and the fall of the brutal Iranian Regime has to be organic and come from within in Iran and most importantly without outside Foreign interferance. But the one thing that cannot be allowed to happen is a power vacuum if the Regime falls as it did in Iraq leaving sadly Iran to then move in there and take control with the negative outcomes that delivered!
Its clear that the events in 1979 and what then unfolded in Iran have weighed heavily on Reza Pahlavi through out his adult life and he has spent years trying to over throw this brutal religious regime, but as the father of three grown up Western daughters he has no long term goals to build a new dynasty in Iran, he just wants to form an interim coalition government to fill any vacuum and one that will oversee the democratic election of a new secular government that respects and includes everyone in Iran who has been suppressed for nearly fifty years.
I am going to be honest, I would rather have been a young woman under his father's rule than a young woman under this brutal religious regime over the last nearly fifty years. I don't want to even think about what has happened to any young woman that tried to stand up to this regime and was then brutally murdered by them, there are now too many to name here.
It breaks my heart that not one, but two successive US presidents horrific Foreign policy mistakes have now seen the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the horrific current and future outcome for women there does not bear thinking about as the West looks away and ignores it!
But the imminent fall of this brutal Iranian regime should be leading the news because of the ramifications for the Middle East, not least their state sponsered funded terrorism in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. And also the geopolitical implications for Russia and China are also incredible important, the list goes on. As someone pointed out on 'social media' last night, if this regime falls it will be bigger than the Berlin wall being ripped down and they would be right.
Can't help thinking - as you look around the globe - that a constitutional monarchy would be the best possible outcome for Iran. Whether on the Anglo-Scandi model, or one more like Jordan, who knows, but anything to get away from the blowhards and populists which are ruling the roost most places now. I've no idea if that is even remotely possible in Iran with Reza Pahlavi but would be rather wonderful if it it was.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Bona fide law enforcement agencies and governments wouldn't be trying to smear the dead person in this situation. Their response would be keep it factual and ask for calm. Along the lines of "A woman died while ICE was carrying out duties in Minneapolis last night. We will be supporting investigations into the circumstances of her death and request that investigstors are given the time and support they need"
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
I'd take that fight if I was Starmer.
Rep. Luna is a loon, to the extent that she's barely seriously even by the Trump administration (and incidentally a shill for the Russian regime). There is no official threat of a ban for X, but rather a DM story which extrapolated Ofcom's warning to sort out its generation of illegal images via Grok as a ban threat. Ofcom has a range of enforcement penalties, of which a ban is the most severe (and a last resort).
Starmer isn't going anywhere near it for now. other than requesting Ofcom take action to sort out X's lawbreaking with its complicity in illegally generating naked pictures of individuals without their consent.
William is, as per usual, repeating the MAGA line.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
The brewery will have noticed they were doing well and put the rents up to siphon their profits. For pubs, that's a big part of how the rate is calulated. I bet the rent was very low to begin with to entice people in.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around the both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
What was their bill in 2019?
(I'm fishing for how much of this is NOT COVID-reduction bounceback.)
If Starmer is successful in banning @X in Britain, I will move forward with legislation that is currently being drafted to sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole. This would mirror actions previously taken by the United States in response to foreign governments restricting the platform, including the dispute with Brazil in 2024–2025, which resulted in tariffs, visa revocations, and sanctions and consequences tied to free speech concerns against Brazilian officials over concerns related to censorship and free-speech violations.
Starmer should reconsider this course of action, or there will be consequences
I don't think it's a good look for the Republicans, given the President's associations with Epstein, to be trying to force child sex abuse material down our throats.
Is it just me who is uncomfortable with the argument that because *we* discovered how to get Grok to send us dick pics of 5-year-olds, TwiX should be banned? Maybe the guardians of moral virtue should stop making dodgy requests ‘purely for research purposes’.
Twitter shows you other people's Grok-generated images. You don't have to make the request yourself to be shown them.
Grok could easily be tweaked to stop it making such images in most situations. X has some responsibility putting out a tool that can be abused so.
Without change in the service, he's still offering to "undress that child".
I think this is good ground to tackle him on, and force concession of the "your jurisdiction, your law, we will obey" principle. I hope the EU are in step with us.
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Yes there would be a market in respect of party politics, media, political comment etc for solution based realistic positive alternatives, worked out, timed, costed, well communicated and not suffering from the curse of 'single issue' solutions.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
FWIW my Persian friends are worried, the phone lines and internet were cut last night.
In the past when this happens the regime starts to get violent.
The amount of pain in a callous moment is so disproportionate it doesn’t bear thinking about.
My barber is Iranian. I saw him yesterday for a cut. He’s organising an anti regime demo in the toon on Saturday.
His family are in the North. They’ve not been protesting but are planning too. The feeling is ‘fuck it, if not now when’. He’s also very pro Trump and Israel which surprised me,
If the Mullahs fall I’ve been promised a free cut as only a few of his customers bother to ask. I wouldn’t take it as it’s his livelihood and pays his bills but I would have a large JD.
Yes, Iran is the one country in the Middle-East where the 'all your problems are the fault of the Jews' narrative doesn't seem to work for the regime. It's one of the reasons I really like them.
The Ancient Persians saved the Jews from slavery in Babylon.
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
The Anti-Liberal Democrats do tie themselves up in knots, so blinded by hatred are they.
I've clearly touched a nerve.
Have you really ? Or are you simply trying to characterise any critique of your commentary as emotional ?
The latter effort certainly irritates me, so I guess you could call that "touching a nerve".
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
The video of Heather Cox Richardson I linked for Trump pushback is an argument that this is a hinge-point, because they have now killed a white soccer-mom for no reason whatsoever, and so women who have been silently tolerating Trump's abuses will identify with her.
She makes an analogy with Uncle Tom's Cabin the early popular novel, where white women losing their children to diseases (including Harriet Beecher-Stowe) could identify with black women losing their children in slavery.
And that period is where Trump's backers personal values are sourced.
I'm not well enough up with emotional links of the 19C to judge well, but it was a powerful presentation.
It seems a stretch for the US public, they haven't revolted against gun ownership because of school shootings. I worked with several well-educated Americans a few years back and they were far less upset about the issue than non-Americans. For some reason they seem to be missing empathy.
An interesting rabbit hole - a case reclaiming a lost Public Footpath based on historical evidence from the Victorian period.
There used to be a railway line, now lost. When the railway line was created, the documentation (from 18xx) referred to part of the route as a "Parish Road", which was a public highway then, and now is again.
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
The Anti-Liberal Democrats do tie themselves up in knots, so blinded by hatred are they.
I've clearly touched a nerve.
I think you are confusing 'touching a nerve' with finding it funny.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Bona fide law enforcement agencies and governments wouldn't be trying to smear the dead person in this situation. Their response would be keep it factual and ask for calm. Along the lines of "A woman died while ICE was carrying out duties in Minneapolis last night. We will be supporting investigations into the circumstances of her death and request that investigstors are given the time and support they need"
Rather than "but she had pronouns!"
The Met (in the UK) has form for - 'e was a wrong 'un, so it must have been OK.
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
When authoritarians are in government, it perhaps is.
Rep. Wesley Hunt: "The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep you life" https://x.com/atrupar/status/2009049301096296956
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
No words for this ignorant post, oh to be a woman right now living under the current regime in Iran or Afghanistan, maybe I should just shut up and just retire from PB these days...
The problem that the BBC, and much other Western media have, as pointed out earlier, IIRC, that getting accurate information from Iran is quite difficult. Let alone Afghanistan Obviously we'd all love to see them giving fair and equal treatment to all sections of society.
Incidentally, there's an incredible (to me anyway) case in the Gambian Supreme Court, trying to reverse ..... yes reverse ..... the current ban on Female Genital Mutilation. And Gambia is a Commonwealth member. See today's Guardian.
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
When authoritarians are in government, it perhaps is.
Rep. Wesley Hunt: "The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep you life" https://x.com/atrupar/status/2009049301096296956
LD - Lab coalition would be great imo but I think Lib Dems are wary following Cameron experience. I think they're drawing the wrong lesson from that.
Then the problem was that they positioned as left wing and then did a deal with Tories to triple tuition fees and introduce austerity.
Now, they are positioning as pro-EU, anti-Trump but not otherwise that radically different from Labour as far as I can see. I think a deal could be done since Lab voters want similar.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
When authoritarians are in government, it perhaps is.
Rep. Wesley Hunt: "The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep you life" https://x.com/atrupar/status/2009049301096296956
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Perhaps i misunderstood but very surprised you think Lib Dems are as bad as Tories. Clear water between them imo.
By the way, what do you make of the animal welfare reforms Labour are proposing? Ive heard quite positive things from friends interested in that topic.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
The brewery will have noticed they were doing well and put the rents up to siphon their profits. For pubs, that's a big part of how the rate is calulated. I bet the rent was very low to begin with to entice people in.
A regular reminder that rateable value (RV) is but half of the calculation for final rates bill. RV is simply a notional rent value of the property. The second more crucial bit is the multiplier - in effect RV x Multiplier = Rates bill. The multiplier can be lower for those claiming small business rates relief. In cases where rateable value has shot up there will transitional relief that will reduce the multiplier - I seem to recall that as rates policy tends to be self financing the transitional relief is funded by those whose RV has dropped not getting the full benefit of the reduction (although that may well have changed).
So pubs and others talking only about RV are only giving half the story.
Pub RV used to be modified to reflect the amount of booze being sold (as I recall it was the only class of business where “turnover” was taken into account in the final rates bill). Not sure if that is still the case. But if so, a pub classed as doing well is likely to have a greater increase in RV than one doing poorly.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
The brewery will have noticed they were doing well and put the rents up to siphon their profits. For pubs, that's a big part of how the rate is calulated. I bet the rent was very low to begin with to entice people in.
The successful one is not brewery owned. I assumed the 4 individuals (3 of which I now know quite well) had raised the money themselves as it is the appearance given to the punters is they are the owners, but I then did a companies house search and found that 2 local individuals have financed it. Having said that I also believe the property is leasehold so what you say might well still apply. It has been open like this for about 18 months. I can be pretty sure about that as I had to miss the 1st year anniversary party as I was on holiday. I was gutted. Is that enough time to impact rents/rates.
I found out that the poor pub is owned by one of the mega breweries. Why they let it rot I have no idea.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
Rates for pubs are based on “fair maintainable turnover” - so a successful pub over a few years starts to pay more. That increase is insane but it’s a combination of the change in discount and their success.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
There is much truth in what you say. To the point that people have wondered whether the pub failures were part of the business plan. That is, run the pub into the ground, taking the savings of the Landlord. Then get another sucker.
A FOAF quit a high end city job because of health. Moved to Devon, bought outright (no mortgage, sole owner) a pub/hotel.
Met him when he came back to the City to visit. He told me that he’d had to put the prices in the bar up. Several times. Because he was getting massively overcrowded due to the price differential to other local pubs. Who were struggling even with much higher prices.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
Renee Good's ex-husband told reporters this morning that:
1) Renee was not an activist 2) She was in the vicinity because she had just dropped off her 6 year-old off at school 3) She was a devoted Christian and stay-at-home mom https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/2009297500453171440
Note this makes no difference to the absolute lack of justification for the shooting.
But it makes clear that the administration engaged in lies and character assassination yesterday, along with their lies about the event itself.
Is being an activist is a risky lifestyle choice ?
When authoritarians are in government, it perhaps is.
Rep. Wesley Hunt: "The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep you life" https://x.com/atrupar/status/2009049301096296956
ICE Agent Involved In Fatal Shooting Previously Faced Criminal Charges As Detroit Cop
What an idiotic comparison. Kellom was a fugitive subject to a criminal warrant; the administration did not immediately say that he deserved to be shot, and the case was criminally investigated (no charges were brought). The administration did not immediately claim "total immunity" for the actions of ICE agents, or even qualified immunity, and Kellom subsequently faced a civil suit from the family of his victim (the jury finding in his favour).
You whataboutery over the last days or so has reached new levels.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
It might be but few of those who would benefit from its removal would vote Reform.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the pi ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
Rates for pubs are based on “fair maintainable turnover” - so a successful pub over a few years starts to pay more. That increase is insane but it’s a combination of the change in discount and their success.
I think the issue is that owning a pub is a barely profitable exercise for most people anyway. The rates increase is (an admittedly huge) straw that's breaking the camel's back.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
No he was not if he wants Reform to win the next GE....
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
"City leaders" presumably being opponents of federal policy. So it's starting to look like they jumped the gun in claiming that she was acting as a legal observer, to which the GOP responded by designating her a domestic terrorist, when it's quite likely that she was, in fact, simply a bystander. We'll see.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
It might be but few of those who would benefit from its removal would vote Reform.
Which is why Farage has changed his mind again.
You sure about that? Reform's best demographic by housing tenure is people who live in council houses, and we know that their health outcomes are much worse than average. It would not surprise me at all if they have a substantial lead with people on benefits, and particularly people affected by the limit.
From memory, places like Kent, Lancashire, Essex etc had the highest rates in the country.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
Rates for pubs are based on “fair maintainable turnover” - so a successful pub over a few years starts to pay more. That increase is insane but it’s a combination of the change in discount and their success.
"turnover"
I come back to my idea about tax regimes.
1) The existing system 2) If you can demonstrate a "simple" business - one Ltd, not buying stock from yourself etc - you get taxed on profits
Give 2) an advantage.
For a laugh, I suggested it to one of the bank analysts. Who commented it would utterly upend the economy - you'd be invalidating all the complex games the big chains pull, and giving the independents an advantage....
As soon as he took a position support would plummet.
In an ideal world the LDs would say which party they would be prepared to support in government before the election then they would be completely done away with as 2015.
There's a conflicting mix of dissatisfied people who are projecting onto the LDs that they share their beliefs and are on their side.
This is what leads to the higher polling; it survives only as long as they're not in the spotlight.
LD -> Reform typo there?
Seriously though, I think that was very true in 2010 and before. Less so now, partly because there's no way LDs would prop up a Bandenoch Con government. They'd be a socially more liberal and maybe slightly more fiscally dry partner to Labour.
If the LDs held the balance of power between a Farage or Badenoch government in a hung parliament and if say Labour had been near wiped out and the Greens still only had a handful of MPs, they would deal with Badenoch
If Scarlett Johansson came round tonight, I'd change the bed sheets.
Don’t forget it’s Joe-Hanson not Yo-Hanson.
Get it wrong and the evenings fallen at the first hurdle.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
It might be but few of those who would benefit from its removal would vote Reform.
Which is why Farage has changed his mind again.
Yeah, I agree. It’s a cynical stance but electorally the right one for Reform,
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
For the working class, buying a pub was like buying an annuity, long ago. The memory remains....
See all the stories of RN sailors buying a pub with prize money.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
Rates for pubs are based on “fair maintainable turnover” - so a successful pub over a few years starts to pay more. That increase is insane but it’s a combination of the change in discount and their success.
Punishing success.
The flatroof pub on the next estate, it’s not that scary TBH, is facing a really small increase. Less than £100 a week.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
For the working class, buying a pub was like buying an annuity, long ago. The memory remains....
See all the stories of RN sailors buying a pub with prize money.
First pub I worked in at 15ish (washing pots / peeling spuds / general kitchen skivvy) was run by an ex-football player. The next pub I worked was run by an ex-merchant Navy chap.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
Does anyone still think that the regime capable of all this intends to run the risk of losing an election in November?
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
IanB2's point was that after 10 there was a discussion on Iran on Woman's Hour on Radio 4. It sounded like it was going into some depth but I just heard snatches of it while in the kitchen getting coffee.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
It might be but few of those who would benefit from its removal would vote Reform.
Which is why Farage has changed his mind again.
You sure about that? Reform's best demographic by housing tenure is people who live in council houses, and we know that their health outcomes are much worse than average. It would not surprise me at all if they have a substantial lead with people on benefits, and particularly people affected by the limit.
From memory, places like Kent, Lancashire, Essex etc had the highest rates in the country.
Farage isn't going to win an election on the council house vote.
And meanwhile those not benefitting from the removal of the two child cap - which would include most people in council houses - will see it as a transfer of their tax payments to 'layabouts and immigrants'.
Which is why Farage is now saying that lifting the cap should only apply to 'working British people'.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
Comments
The interesting scenario that arises is if Reform falls slightly short, and proposes to introduce STV in its first year or two and then go to the country again. If the Tories wouldn't touch that, the LibDems might be willing to at least not bring a minority government down while the electoral reform was pushed through. That scenario is, however, unlikely, as it first requires Reform to poll very well, then to stick to its purported support for PR (and to make this its top priority), and then for the Tories to pass up the chance to prop them up, and then for the LibDems to have enough MPs to make a majority.
Its clear that the events in 1979 and what then unfolded in Iran have weighed heavily on Reza Pahlavi through out his adult life and he has spent years trying to over throw this brutal religious regime, but as the father of three grown up Western daughters he has no long term goals to build a new dynasty in Iran, he just wants to form an interim coalition government to fill any vacuum and one that will oversee the democratic election of a new secular government that respects and includes everyone in Iran who has been suppressed for nearly fifty years.
I am going to be honest, I would rather have been a young woman under his father's rule than a young woman under this brutal religious regime over the last nearly fifty years. I don't want to even think about what has happened to any young woman that tried to stand up to this regime and was then brutally murdered by them, there are now too many to name here.
It breaks my heart that not one, but two successive US presidents horrific Foreign policy mistakes have now seen the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the horrific current and future outcome for women there does not bear thinking about as the West looks away and ignores it!
But the imminent fall of this brutal Iranian regime should be leading the news because of the ramifications for the Middle East, not least their state sponsered funded terrorism in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. And also the geopolitical implications for Russia and China are also incredible important, the list goes on. As someone pointed out on 'social media' last night, if this regime falls it will be bigger than the Berlin wall being ripped down and they would be right.
https://www.traffic.gov.scot/gritter-tracker
Grok could easily be tweaked to stop it making such images in most situations. X has some responsibility putting out a tool that can be abused so.
On a US style EC system Blair would still probably have beaten Kennedy and Howard
The fact is that, while nobody is prefect, Ed Davey is very obviously a decent and sincere man. You may not agree with him, but his views on Trump are the majority view in this country, and it was Ed who talked about the Farage Russian connection first, so he has also demonstrated some political attack skills. The polls are surprisingly solid for the Lib Dems at this point in the electoral cycle- and the local by elections have been exceptional.
There is certainly a road map for the Lib Dems to extend their numbers and certainly their national influence, and there are some very talented people- Daisy Cooper, Callum Miller, Al Pinkerton and several others.- on their benches now who are two decades younger than the average Tory MP and with fire in their bellies.
The future's bright...
Not sure about the ownership of the third. The present 'chap in charge' inherited the business but I gather there's some shadowy corporation in the background. Quite a lot money is currently being spent on it, though, although as it's a listed building ..... actually all three are ...... there aren't many significant improvements which can be made.
Elon Musk's Grok AI image editing limited to paid X users after deepfakes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99kn52nx9do
The LDs also now get about the same number of MPs they would with PR anyway, it is the Tories, ironically and Greens who would benefit most from PR now on current polls
Your scenario assumes the Tories would rather deal with the LDs than with Reform, which - given its positioning, membership and MPs, I seriously doubt.
The LDs remain committed to PR regardless of whether the system continues to disadvantage them or not.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
https://youtu.be/CQPOHCoTbgE?t=1692
https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2026/01/blind-item-9_0343710873.html
Even only 50% would prefer to be a junior partner to a Reform led government if the alternative was a Labour government, 13% of Tories would even deal with Labour to keep out Reform and 24% would prefer to stay in opposition in such a hung parliament scenario than deal with either
And then you have the utterly bizarre behaviour of the owner of Sam Smiths which has led to numerous pubs being closed.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/dec/19/humphreys-world-how-the-samuel-smith-beer-baron-built-britains-strangest-pub-chain
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
There’s no vision or ideal or positivity or sense of direction. The closest they’ve got is their 2 child benefit cap policy (one I don’t agree with, but fair enough if they want to sell it), but all the comms on that have been mishandled too - firstly it couldn’t be done because it was unaffordable (defensive, back foot again), then when they announced it they talk about it like they know it’s unpopular and won’t be welcomed (all this “I won’t apologise” stuff).
The “it’s someone else’s fault” can work for politicians if used cleverly. But the use of it has become completely endemic in Labour now (starting at the very top) and it’s crowding out any chances of claiming genuine successes.
She makes an analogy with Uncle Tom's Cabin the early popular novel, where white women losing their children to diseases (including Harriet Beecher-Stowe) could identify with black women losing their children in slavery.
And that period is where Trump's backers personal values are sourced.
I'm not well enough up with emotional links of the 19C to judge well, but it was a powerful presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQPOHCoTbgE
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity.
In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
(I'm fishing for how much of this is NOT COVID-reduction bounceback.)
In a country with lots of young people, who really don't like the government, the result is far from surprising.
Rather than "but she had pronouns!"
There is no official threat of a ban for X, but rather a DM story which extrapolated Ofcom's warning to sort out its generation of illegal images via Grok as a ban threat. Ofcom has a range of enforcement penalties, of which a ban is the most severe (and a last resort).
Starmer isn't going anywhere near it for now. other than requesting Ofcom take action to sort out X's lawbreaking with its complicity in illegally generating naked pictures of individuals without their consent.
William is, as per usual, repeating the MAGA line.
Without change in the service, he's still offering to "undress that child".
I think this is good ground to tackle him on, and force concession of the "your jurisdiction, your law, we will obey" principle. I hope the EU are in step with us.
Its absence is quite telling.
Or are you simply trying to characterise any critique of your commentary as emotional ?
The latter effort certainly irritates me, so I guess you could call that "touching a nerve".
I worked with several well-educated Americans a few years back and they were far less upset about the issue than non-Americans. For some reason they seem to be missing empathy.
There used to be a railway line, now lost. When the railway line was created, the documentation (from 18xx) referred to part of the route as a "Parish Road", which was a public highway then, and now is again.
Reclaiming our history !
https://www.oss.org.uk/we-win-recorded-route-in-east-sussex/
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes
Rep. Wesley Hunt: "The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep you life"
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2009049301096296956
Here's an example of a "federal officer" giving "instructions".
https://x.com/BigBlueWaveUSA/status/2009283466806915574
Make of it what you will.
There are many, many such examples.
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
Obviously we'd all love to see them giving fair and equal treatment to all sections of society.
Incidentally, there's an incredible (to me anyway) case in the Gambian Supreme Court, trying to reverse ..... yes reverse ..... the current ban on Female Genital Mutilation. And Gambia is a Commonwealth member. See today's Guardian.
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/ice-agent-involved-in-fatal-shooting-previously-faced-criminal-charges-as-detroit-cop/
ICE Agent Involved In Fatal Shooting Previously Faced Criminal Charges As Detroit Cop
LD - Lab coalition would be great imo but I think Lib Dems are wary following Cameron experience. I think they're drawing the wrong lesson from that.
Then the problem was that they positioned as left wing and then did a deal with Tories to triple tuition fees and introduce austerity.
Now, they are positioning as pro-EU, anti-Trump but not otherwise that radically different from Labour as far as I can see. I think a deal could be done since Lab voters want similar.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/live-updates/minneapolis-ice-agent-shooting-protesters-clash-fbi-investigation/
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
Trump: "Hero of the American Gilead (Gold Bar for face mutilation of pronoun user)"
By the way, what do you make of the animal welfare reforms Labour are proposing? Ive heard quite positive things from friends interested in that topic.
So pubs and others talking only about RV are only giving half the story.
Pub RV used to be modified to reflect the amount of booze being sold (as I recall it was the only class of business where “turnover” was taken into account in the final rates bill). Not sure if that is still the case. But if so, a pub classed as doing well is likely to have a greater increase in RV than one doing poorly.
I found out that the poor pub is owned by one of the mega breweries. Why they let it rot I have no idea.
A FOAF quit a high end city job because of health. Moved to Devon, bought outright (no mortgage, sole owner) a pub/hotel.
Met him when he came back to the City to visit. He told me that he’d had to put the prices in the bar up. Several times. Because he was getting massively overcrowded due to the price differential to other local pubs. Who were struggling even with much higher prices.
Kellom was a fugitive subject to a criminal warrant; the administration did not immediately say that he deserved to be shot, and the case was criminally investigated (no charges were brought). The administration did not immediately claim "total immunity" for the actions of ICE agents, or even qualified immunity, and Kellom subsequently faced a civil suit from the family of his victim (the jury finding in his favour).
You whataboutery over the last days or so has reached new levels.
Which is why Farage has changed his mind again.
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
From memory, places like Kent, Lancashire, Essex etc had the highest rates in the country.
I come back to my idea about tax regimes.
1) The existing system
2) If you can demonstrate a "simple" business - one Ltd, not buying stock from yourself etc - you get taxed on profits
Give 2) an advantage.
For a laugh, I suggested it to one of the bank analysts. Who commented it would utterly upend the economy - you'd be invalidating all the complex games the big chains pull, and giving the independents an advantage....
Get it wrong and the evenings fallen at the first hurdle.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
1. She was a "deranged lesbo";
2. She was a "domestic terrorist";
3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago;
4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution;
5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage);
6. She had it coming.
See all the stories of RN sailors buying a pub with prize money.
The flatroof pub on the next estate, it’s not that scary TBH, is facing a really small increase. Less than £100 a week.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
And meanwhile those not benefitting from the removal of the two child cap - which would include most people in council houses - will see it as a transfer of their tax payments to 'layabouts and immigrants'.
Which is why Farage is now saying that lifting the cap should only apply to 'working British people'.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2026/01/07/farage-suddenly-loves/
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.