We also had 7 PMs during the Napoleonic wars - Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Grenville, Portland, Perceval and Liverpool. Also 2 in the Crimean war - Aberdeen and Palmerston.
What's the longest war Britain didn't change PMs for the duration?
'Donald Trump's youngest son contacted UK police saying he witnessed a friend in London being "beat up" during a video call, a court has heard.
Barron Trump, 19, told police he had friends call 999 from the US so that he could report the alleged attack in January 2025.
Matvei Rumiantsev, 22, is on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court accused of assault and two counts of rape, among other charges, against the alleged victim.
He denies assault, actual bodily harm, two counts of rape, intentional strangulation and perverting the course of justice by pressuring the woman to withdraw her complaints.
Trump called the alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on 18 January last year, the court heard.
We also had 7 PMs during the Napoleonic wars - Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Grenville, Portland, Perceval and Liverpool. Also 2 in the Crimean war - Aberdeen and Palmerston.
What's the longest war Britain didn't change PMs for the duration?
I think we kept the same PM throughout the war with Zanzibar....
Speculation already mounting that Zack Polanski could stand in the upcoming by-election in Gorton and Denton.
Would make sense if Burnham is barred from running. Greens are polling on 24% there currently, behind Labour on 29% and Reform on 27%. Considering national polling, wouldn’t be surprised if some progressive voters who would have backed Burnham, back Polanski when the time comes.
Would be worth doing even if Burnham does not run? Maybe he loses, but still a good profile and there's not really an expectation Greens would win in such a situation so no harm to his reputation (which is doing pretty well right now), and if Burnham did run and he still beat the great Labour hope, think of the blow to Labour morale?
Burnham would win it easily but if Polanski stands and Burnham is not allowed to could split the left of centre vote and let Reform win instead
It will demonstrate how organised a not Reform candidate can be - especially when it's a none of the above option.
If Burnham doesn't stand it will be essential that the Green Party get a poll demonstrating that it's only them that can beat Reform... As that poll is usually the catalyst for the rest of the vote to swing in the correct direction.
A danger for Starmer is that egregiously blocking Burnham turns this into a Reform/Green contest, with Labour squeezed out and him getting the blame. Not ideal. Probably better off letting Burnham get on with it.
Why would Starmer care about the Greens gaining one more seat if he survives?
Greens winning likely more terminal than Burnham winning.
A reminder that for Starmer to be forcibly ejected there has to be a leadership contest, and for that, there needs to be a vaguely credible challenger. It is not like the Tories where you can eviscerate the leader first and then worry about the successor.
They can nominate a stalking horse if 80 of them agree on the horse.
Then the leadership battle true can begin I think?
We also had 7 PMs during the Napoleonic wars - Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Grenville, Portland, Perceval and Liverpool. Also 2 in the Crimean war - Aberdeen and Palmerston.
What's the longest war Britain didn't change PMs for the duration?
Boer war?
Yes, I would assume the Boer War as well. I wondered about the American war of independence but fighting did continue after North's resignation.
Roger, he has to go because the media and the PB massiv hate him.
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
Speculation already mounting that Zack Polanski could stand in the upcoming by-election in Gorton and Denton.
Would make sense if Burnham is barred from running. Greens are polling on 24% there currently, behind Labour on 29% and Reform on 27%. Considering national polling, wouldn’t be surprised if some progressive voters who would have backed Burnham, back Polanski when the time comes.
Would be worth doing even if Burnham does not run? Maybe he loses, but still a good profile and there's not really an expectation Greens would win in such a situation so no harm to his reputation (which is doing pretty well right now), and if Burnham did run and he still beat the great Labour hope, think of the blow to Labour morale?
Burnham would win it easily but if Polanski stands and Burnham is not allowed to could split the left of centre vote and let Reform win instead
It will demonstrate how organised a not Reform candidate can be - especially when it's a none of the above option.
If Burnham doesn't stand it will be essential that the Green Party get a poll demonstrating that it's only them that can beat Reform... As that poll is usually the catalyst for the rest of the vote to swing in the correct direction.
A danger for Starmer is that egregiously blocking Burnham turns this into a Reform/Green contest, with Labour squeezed out and him getting the blame. Not ideal. Probably better off letting Burnham get on with it.
Why would Starmer care about the Greens gaining one more seat if he survives?
Greens winning likely more terminal than Burnham winning.
A reminder that for Starmer to be forcibly ejected there has to be a leadership contest, and for that, there needs to be a vaguely credible challenger. It is not like the Tories where you can eviscerate the leader first and then worry about the successor.
They can nominate a stalking horse if 80 of them agree on the horse.
Then the leadership battle true can begin I think?
No. It would be Starmer against the stalking horse.
Unless a member of the Cabinet breaks ranks to enter *as the opposing candidate* you can't add more later.
Roger, he has to go because the media and the PB massiv hate him.
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
The problem is the government showed some leg on banning it announcing a consultation on banning and have been banging on about the evils of it, well X, on a regular basis. They then got out mauveured poltically in the HoL and now find themselves in a mess.
It doesn't take a genius to realise the media love the idea of banning it, that there are vocal campaigner who can draw on sob stories of terrible things taht have happened and now the Tories, supposedly the party of personal responsbility, have jumped on that bandwagon. You then need to think strategically how you are going to play it. First of all, are you actually for it or not. Not, well booo X, boo, yeah, but now, but yeah, but no, maybe, long winded consultation, which allows others to shape the narrative.
We also had 7 PMs during the Napoleonic wars - Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Grenville, Portland, Perceval and Liverpool. Also 2 in the Crimean war - Aberdeen and Palmerston.
What's the longest war Britain didn't change PMs for the duration?
Thats a really interesting question, depending a little on what is considered a war.
Lord North lasted 8 years of the American Revolutionary War, surviving even the surrender of Cornwallis, but not quite until the peace treaty.
As a general rule we seem to change PMs most wars that go on more than a year.
Roger, he has to go because the media and the PB massiv hate him.
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
Ah yes, the Labour Party voters and members have deserted the brilliant Starmer, in droves. Just because the Daily Heil said so. He’s completely brilliant though.
'Donald Trump's youngest son contacted UK police saying he witnessed a friend in London being "beat up" during a video call, a court has heard.
Barron Trump, 19, told police he had friends call 999 from the US so that he could report the alleged attack in January 2025.
Matvei Rumiantsev, 22, is on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court accused of assault and two counts of rape, among other charges, against the alleged victim.
He denies assault, actual bodily harm, two counts of rape, intentional strangulation and perverting the course of justice by pressuring the woman to withdraw her complaints.
Trump called the alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on 18 January last year, the court heard.
The police arrived in time to arrest the perpatrator? That doesn't sound very plausible.
This reminds me of the last time someone tried to break into my place. I had my back to the front door to stop them kicking it in - on the phone to 999 to report it.
4-5hrs later two police turned up. Asked if I'd seen the face of the people doing it - which I explained "No, I had my back to the door to stop them kicking it while I phoned the police".
Roger, he has to go because the media and the PB massiv hate him.
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
The problem is the government showed some leg on banning it announcing a consultation and have been banging on about the evils of it, well X, for a couple of weeks. They then got out mauveured poltically and now got themselves in a mess.
I believe that is partially true, but I also believe had Labour come up with this nanny state heavy policy and the Tories disagreed with it, Labour would be hanged for it.
Roger, he has to go because the media and the PB massiv hate him.
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
The problem is the government showed some leg on banning it announcing a consultation and have been banging on about the evils of it, well X, for a couple of weeks. They then got out mauveured poltically and now got themselves in a mess.
I believe that is partially true, but I also believe had Labour come up with this nanny state heavy policy and the Tories disagreed with it, Labour would be hanged for it.
A fact of life, but it is what it is.
Totally disagree, the media left and right are absolutely for this, particularly if it is X. What the Tories say or do is irrevelant on this issue.
What I don't really know is where the public stand / will stand. Yes we have polling, but people often don't think through these kind of quite extreme positional changes immediately e.g. the Corbyn Cable Company was popular with polling initially, who doesn't want free "superfast"* broadband, until it was pointed out what that actually meant e.g. the government has access to your browsing history, be naughty can be banned forever, all other competition will be gone, nobody will invest in enterpise networking....and it rapidly was oh shit, terrible idea.
Roger, he has to go because the media and the PB massiv hate him.
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
Ah yes, the Labour Party voters and members have deserted the brilliant Starmer, in droves. Just because the Daily Heil said so. He’s completely brilliant though.
Have I said that? I have been particularly critical of Starmer. I think he has been a very poor Prime Minister and his comms are even worse. I also think Burnham is an awful opportunist. And this morning I commented the Blair is a disgusting quisling for his Trump adjacency. No withering partisanship from me mate.
I also believe what I have suggested about the media interpretation has some validity.
A lot of chippy Tories on here tonight. I note Roger has taken a good old kicking.
We also had 7 PMs during the Napoleonic wars - Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Grenville, Portland, Perceval and Liverpool. Also 2 in the Crimean war - Aberdeen and Palmerston.
What's the longest war Britain didn't change PMs for the duration?
Boer war?
Yes. The Second Boer War lasted a few months longer than the War of 1812, and there doesn't appear to be another contender.
2 years, 7 months and 20 days, and the Prime Minister was the Marquess of Salisbury.
It will be great to see Kemi slaughtering Labour if they do insist on an all BAME (I thought it was Global Majority now?) shortlist
I was doing some interviews for a management post last week. One of the candidates described herself as BAME spontaneously in the interview.
It's not a great descriptor, but it is a damn sight better than 'Global majority' which is just plain dumb.
Yes: there isn't a global majority, unless the argument is that all non-whites have something in common. Genetically, arguably the global majority is everyone not negroid.
BAME irritates me for two reasons: first, why did 'minority ethnic' suddenly become more correct than 'ethnic minority'? That's not hiw we construct English. And second, redundancy: "black" is an ethnic minority - so is covered already by the ME bit. It's almost exactly like Cheshire West amd Chester. Just "West Cheshire" would do.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
Well who would want to become a journalist these days if you are super smart and have lots of options? The really interesting and exciting long term investigative stuff is very rare, so much so when somebody actually does it people are now quite surprised e.g. the BBC on the network of dodgy shops.
That sort of stuff used to be on our tv / newspaper every week in the 90s e.g. Cook Report, Panorama was an hour show often having taken months to produce, the Times had a big Insight team working for months sometimes years on a story.
Now a lot of "journalism" is FOI request and rewriting press releases. Many outlets now its volume, 100s of new and updated articles every day.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
One of the problems is they en masse have tried to normalise and sane-wash Trump's madness.
Even on here we have had explanations that Trump is playing and winning at 12D chess.
We also had 7 PMs during the Napoleonic wars - Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Grenville, Portland, Perceval and Liverpool. Also 2 in the Crimean war - Aberdeen and Palmerston.
What's the longest war Britain didn't change PMs for the duration?
Boer war?
Yes. The Second Boer War lasted a few months longer than the War of 1812, and there doesn't appear to be another contender.
2 years, 7 months and 20 days, and the Prime Minister was the Marquess of Salisbury.
Although, oddly, the First Lord of the Treasury was Arthur Balfour.
Salisbury's official job title also changed in 1900 - from Foreign Secretary to Lord Privy Seal.
It will be great to see Kemi slaughtering Labour if they do insist on an all BAME (I thought it was Global Majority now?) shortlist
I was doing some interviews for a management post last week. One of the candidates described herself as BAME spontaneously in the interview.
It's not a great descriptor, but it is a damn sight better than 'Global majority' which is just plain dumb.
Yes: there isn't a global majority, unless the argument is that all non-whites have something in common. Genetically, arguably the global majority is everyone not negroid.
BAME irritates me for two reasons: first, why did 'minority ethnic' suddenly become more correct than 'ethnic minority'? That's not hiw we construct English. And second, redundancy: "black" is an ethnic minority - so is covered already by the ME bit. It's almost exactly like Cheshire West amd Chester. Just "West Cheshire" would do.
Yes, its not a term that I would use. Neither would I use Global Majority.
But there are a number of similar curiosities. Using "Coloured People" is likely to end in disciplinary action but using "People of Colour" is fine and dandy.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
You’ve forgotten the pandemic already?
Its amazing how everybody is very keen to be litigating how piss poor the politicians were at every opportunity, but the media, nothing to see, carry on as normal.
It will be great to see Kemi slaughtering Labour if they do insist on an all BAME (I thought it was Global Majority now?) shortlist
I was doing some interviews for a management post last week. One of the candidates described herself as BAME spontaneously in the interview.
It's not a great descriptor, but it is a damn sight better than 'Global majority' which is just plain dumb.
Yes: there isn't a global majority, unless the argument is that all non-whites have something in common. Genetically, arguably the global majority is everyone not negroid.
BAME irritates me for two reasons: first, why did 'minority ethnic' suddenly become more correct than 'ethnic minority'? That's not hiw we construct English. And second, redundancy: "black" is an ethnic minority - so is covered already by the ME bit. It's almost exactly like Cheshire West amd Chester. Just "West Cheshire" would do.
Well its keeps a load of people in jobs constantly shuffling the nomenclature.....
A lot of it starts in academia (and of course a lot comes from the US so specific American racial senitivies get applied across the West), where it can take just one individual being offended (often on behalf of somebody else) and then the terminology changes and that gets disseminated downstream. It even happens in bloody STEM, byzantine general problem is a classic computer science problem, one academic refused to review a paper for a top tier conference until the authors renamed it because they found it offensive*, its now no longer allowed to be described like that in the literature for future submissions.
* how they can be offended for a people / empire that don't exist anymore, I don't know.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
You’ve forgotten the pandemic already?
Its amazing how everybody is very keen to be litigating how piss poor the politicians were at every opportunity, but the media, nothing to see, carry on as normal.
The UK media were remarkably compliant during the pandemic. It wasn't until post the pandemic they got excited about things like Partygate and Currygate.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
That constitutes an allegation that journalism exists in the UK media?
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The week before that they were *spectacular* though. All over the detail. Probing questions. Deep investigative coverage. Diving into policy details and outcomes. Not just tittle-tattle of who said what on Twitter. Then I remember walking into a room with flashy lights and some odd noises. Then... yes! I'm sure that's what the media were like the week before!
I was listening to the BBC 'NewsCast' podcast the other week with Chris Mason on. Political Editor for the BBC. Talking about having to do some work in Wales (it was cold, apparently). But then - praise be! - Jenrick (or Zahawi) defected! "So obviously we had to head back to Westminster". So I'm assuming that was a BBC film crew (Chris, camera, sound, several producers) who had travelled to Wales all fled back to cover a story that 18 thousand other journalists (including many others from the BBC) were already covering.
F**k you, provincials. We've got a minor bit of news that involves Reform! Suckers!
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
You’ve forgotten the pandemic already?
Its amazing how everybody is very keen to be litigating how piss poor the politicians were at every opportunity, but the media, nothing to see, carry on as normal.
The UK media were remarkably compliant during the pandemic. It wasn't until post the pandemic they got excited about things like Partygate and Currygate.
You are misremebering massively.
My main criticism was how wrong they were about everything, unable to understand basic stats. You can check the threads how those of us with STEM backgrounds were going WTF, they are wrong again....and also unable to see glaring errors in the models and predictive. There were absolute clangers on some of the govenment slides that they didn't notice.
The press conferences were attended 99% by the political journalists, not the science or healthcare editors, so what we got was a 27 minute question from Prof Peston talking shit. Remember, not once, but twice he made a total twat of himself and JVT went on his show to put him right. After that, Peston should have long since been out of a job. Remember he claimed he had a good handle on the subjects as he was a keen amateur scientist, before trying to explain to JVT how JVT was wrong about science.
But they also spent the whole time going well why didn't you do this sooner / different, lockdown harder / for longer, while at the same time banging on about how to bend the restrictions or highlighting ridicilious edge cases. Kay Burley was every morning, well if I travelled here under the guise of this, but then returned 5hrs later under the guise of that, technically I am not breaking the rules, so government minister what are you going to do about that, you have messed up haven't you. The guidance isn't clear is it....
It will be great to see Kemi slaughtering Labour if they do insist on an all BAME (I thought it was Global Majority now?) shortlist
I was doing some interviews for a management post last week. One of the candidates described herself as BAME spontaneously in the interview.
Meaningless acronym.
The most important thing about an acronym is that it be pronounceable.
That makes me want to start a competition for acronyms where meaning was tortured to make them catchy.
Any entries?
I have spent more hours than I care to admit in meetings with quite senior academics tortuously wrangling their research projects into acronyms. It's almost like a sport in academia.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
That constitutes an allegation that journalism exists in the UK media?
Wash your mouth out with soap, sir !
Journalism can be broadly defined.
I would classify many people who self label as such as primarily political commentators rather than journalists. Which is an acceptable profession, but quite different from what many people imagine about journalism, be it deep investigative work or specialised technical reporting.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
One of the problems is they en masse have tried to normalise and sane-wash Trump's madness.
Even on here we have had explanations that Trump is playing and winning at 12D chess.
"I don't understand this game. I only like the porn..."
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
You’ve forgotten the pandemic already?
Its amazing how everybody is very keen to be litigating how piss poor the politicians were at every opportunity, but the media, nothing to see, carry on as normal.
The UK media were remarkably compliant during the pandemic. It wasn't until post the pandemic they got excited about things like Partygate and Currygate.
You are misremebering massively.
My main criticism was how wrong they were about everything, unable to understand basic stats. You can check the threads how those of us with STEM backgrounds were going WTF, they are wrong again....and also unable to see glaring errors in the models and predictive. There were absolute clangers on some of the slides that they didn't notice.
The press conferences were attended 99% by the political journalists, not the science or healthcare editors, so what we got was a 27 minute question from Prof Peston talking shit. Remember, not one, but twice he made a total twat of himself and JVT went on his show to put him right. After that, Peston should have long since been out of a job. Remember he claimed he had a good handle on the subjects as he was a keen amateur scientist.
But they also spent the whole time going well why didn't you do this sooner / different, lockdown harder / for longer, while at the same time banging on about how to bend the restrictions or highlighting ridicilious edge cases.
Every night Brave Sir Boris was on telly with Vallance and Whitty telling us what was going on and with statistics.
I don't think it was inappropriate for media hacks to ask Johnson if he hadn't locked down too late or Starmer for demanding we locked down for longer.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
Well who would want to become a journalist these days if you are super smart and have lots of options? The really interesting and exciting long term investigative stuff is very rare, so much so when somebody actually does it people are now quite surprised e.g. the BBC on the network of dodgy shops.
That sort of stuff used to be on our tv / newspaper every week in the 90s e.g. Cook Report, Panorama was an hour show often having taken months to produce, the Times had a big Insight team working for months sometimes years on a story.
Now a lot of "journalism" is FOI request and rewriting press releases. Many outlets now its volume, 100s of new and updated articles every day.
A fair bit of that is down to us, though. Collectively, overall, we don't reward good news with enough of our attention or money.
(Some of it is changes in adjacent bits of society which newspapers and tv can't do much about. Without classified ads providing lots of money, the economics of the Yourcity Evening News just don't work and you end up in a doom loop of higher cover price for worse product leading to fewer readers so the business gets worse and worse. Looking at the figures here,
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The week before that they were *spectacular* though. All over the detail. Probing questions. Deep investigative coverage. Diving into policy details and outcomes. Not just tittle-tattle of who said what on Twitter. Then I remember walking into a room with flashy lights and some odd noises. Then... yes! I'm sure that's what the media were like the week before!
I was listening to the BBC 'NewsCast' podcast the other week with Chris Mason on. Political Editor for the BBC. Talking about having to do some work in Wales (it was cold, apparently). But then - praise be! - Jenrick (or Zahawi) defected! "So obviously we had to head back to Westminster". So I'm assuming that was a BBC film crew (Chris, camera, sound, several producers) who had travelled to Wales all fled back to cover a story that 18 thousand other journalists (including many others from the BBC) were already covering.
F**k you, provincials. We've got a minor bit of news that involves Reform! Suckers!
Which brings up possibly the only reason I might look favourably on the otherwise unappealing Burnham.
It's just about possible he might be a PM who took anywhere outside London and its hinterland at all seriously.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
One of the problems is they en masse have tried to normalise and sane-wash Trump's madness.
Even on here we have had explanations that Trump is playing and winning at 12D chess.
"I don't understand this game. I only like the porn..."
I only had a state education so I don't understand your post.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
You’ve forgotten the pandemic already?
Its amazing how everybody is very keen to be litigating how piss poor the politicians were at every opportunity, but the media, nothing to see, carry on as normal.
The UK media were remarkably compliant during the pandemic. It wasn't until post the pandemic they got excited about things like Partygate and Currygate.
You are misremebering massively.
My main criticism was how wrong they were about everything, unable to understand basic stats. You can check the threads how those of us with STEM backgrounds were going WTF, they are wrong again....and also unable to see glaring errors in the models and predictive. There were absolute clangers on some of the slides that they didn't notice.
The press conferences were attended 99% by the political journalists, not the science or healthcare editors, so what we got was a 27 minute question from Prof Peston talking shit. Remember, not one, but twice he made a total twat of himself and JVT went on his show to put him right. After that, Peston should have long since been out of a job. Remember he claimed he had a good handle on the subjects as he was a keen amateur scientist.
But they also spent the whole time going well why didn't you do this sooner / different, lockdown harder / for longer, while at the same time banging on about how to bend the restrictions or highlighting ridicilious edge cases.
Every night Brave Sir Boris was on telly with Vallance and Whitty telling us what was going on and with statistics.
I don't think it was inappropriate for media hacks to ask Johnson if he hadn't locked down too late or Starmer for demanding we locked down for longer.
No issue with that. I for one in first phase said the government needed to get arse in gear lockdown. Was massively against the foreign summer holidays etc.
But they were a fucking shit show on actually reporting the real situation as the got the data wrong time and time again (even when told by scitentists they had). Also they were totally incapable of scuritising what they were been told. It exposed how they can do the punch and judy show of Westminister, but clueless about pretty much everything else.
They gave the airwaves over to cranks from Alternative SAGE who wanted use in lockdown forever and the weirdos its all done and dusted in a week like Gupta. Lots of noise, very little light. Its was Youtube, e.g. Unherd I think had the best people on at that time (along with some of the crazies), that seemed to get to talk to people who actually knew their onions.
Like Big Dom and Patrick Valance have talked about how the public sector use of data is not for purpose (and a lot of the positive steps during COVID now have been disbanded), the media learned nothing. Sky still have Ed Conway doing the "data deep dives", when he showed he was clueless during COVID. Prof Peston is still being an enormous twat being the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect, etc.
Worth pointing out that Gorton is Lab’s 37th safest seat. So those suggesting it doesn’t matter if Lab lose as long as Burnham doesn’t get it, are I would suggest mistaken.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
You’ve forgotten the pandemic already?
Its amazing how everybody is very keen to be litigating how piss poor the politicians were at every opportunity, but the media, nothing to see, carry on as normal.
The UK media were remarkably compliant during the pandemic. It wasn't until post the pandemic they got excited about things like Partygate and Currygate.
You are misremebering massively.
My main criticism was how wrong they were about everything, unable to understand basic stats. You can check the threads how those of us with STEM backgrounds were going WTF, they are wrong again....and also unable to see glaring errors in the models and predictive. There were absolute clangers on some of the slides that they didn't notice.
The press conferences were attended 99% by the political journalists, not the science or healthcare editors, so what we got was a 27 minute question from Prof Peston talking shit. Remember, not one, but twice he made a total twat of himself and JVT went on his show to put him right. After that, Peston should have long since been out of a job. Remember he claimed he had a good handle on the subjects as he was a keen amateur scientist.
But they also spent the whole time going well why didn't you do this sooner / different, lockdown harder / for longer, while at the same time banging on about how to bend the restrictions or highlighting ridicilious edge cases.
Every night Brave Sir Boris was on telly with Vallance and Whitty telling us what was going on and with statistics.
I don't think it was inappropriate for media hacks to ask Johnson if he hadn't locked down too late or Starmer for demanding we locked down for longer.
No issue with that. I for one in first phase said the government needed to get arse in gear lockdown. Was massively against the foreign summer holidays etc.
But they were a fucking shit show on actually reporting the real situation as the got the data wrong time and time again (even when told by scitentists they had). Also they were totally incapable of scuritising what they were been told. It exposed how they can do the punch and judy show of Westminister, but clueless about pretty much everything else.
Like Big Dom and Patrick Valance have talked about how the public sector use of data is not for purpose (and a lot of the positive steps during COVID now have been disbanded), the media learned nothing. Sky still have Ed Conway doing the "data deep dives", when he showed he was clueless during COVID.
BigG. continues to quote Conway fairly regularly.
Journalists? Weren't they all in hiding in suburban Cardiff?
We seem to be losing sight of why this is happening.
Because a Labour MP was a twat and has had to resign..
The chances of this being anything but a Patrick Gordon Walker humiliation for Burnham, should he roll the dice, are slim.
Yes, I'd bet against him, too.
He's caught between the government being sufficiently unpopular to make a change of leader a serious possibility, and so unpopular that contesting even the safest seat for Labour in a by election risks humiliation.
And he needs a far better narrative for why he might stand, other than "I fancy the top job"(after getting over "not even thought about it")
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
Well who would want to become a journalist these days if you are super smart and have lots of options? The really interesting and exciting long term investigative stuff is very rare, so much so when somebody actually does it people are now quite surprised e.g. the BBC on the network of dodgy shops.
That sort of stuff used to be on our tv / newspaper every week in the 90s e.g. Cook Report, Panorama was an hour show often having taken months to produce, the Times had a big Insight team working for months sometimes years on a story.
Now a lot of "journalism" is FOI request and rewriting press releases. Many outlets now its volume, 100s of new and updated articles every day.
A fair bit of that is down to us, though. Collectively, overall, we don't reward good news with enough of our attention or money.
(Some of it is changes in adjacent bits of society which newspapers and tv can't do much about. Without classified ads providing lots of money, the economics of the Yourcity Evening News just don't work and you end up in a doom loop of higher cover price for worse product leading to fewer readers so the business gets worse and worse. Looking at the figures here,
it's a miracle that they bother at all. Of course in London, The Standard doesn't really any more.)
Actually we have seen it can work. The Althetic for sport, there are various paid substacks that offer genuine expert insight. Specialist magazines actually still do pretty well e.g. the Economist.
Part of the problem is the likes of YouTube, Substack etc, has given a opportunity for people with expert insight to not require being gate kept, and can make decent money.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The week before that they were *spectacular* though. All over the detail. Probing questions. Deep investigative coverage. Diving into policy details and outcomes. Not just tittle-tattle of who said what on Twitter. Then I remember walking into a room with flashy lights and some odd noises. Then... yes! I'm sure that's what the media were like the week before!
I was listening to the BBC 'NewsCast' podcast the other week with Chris Mason on. Political Editor for the BBC. Talking about having to do some work in Wales (it was cold, apparently). But then - praise be! - Jenrick (or Zahawi) defected! "So obviously we had to head back to Westminster". So I'm assuming that was a BBC film crew (Chris, camera, sound, several producers) who had travelled to Wales all fled back to cover a story that 18 thousand other journalists (including many others from the BBC) were already covering.
F**k you, provincials. We've got a minor bit of news that involves Reform! Suckers!
Which brings up possibly the only reason I might look favourably on the otherwise unappealing Burnham.
It's just about possible he might be a PM who took anywhere outside London and its hinterland at all seriously.
You just know that Starmer will appoint a London metropolitan female SPAD type, i.e. the type of candidate most guaranteed to turn off potential Labour voters in Gorton and Denton. They will finish third behind Reform and the Greens, further demonstrating Starmer’s incompetence.
🚨 SUMMARY: The major policing reforms set to be outlined by the Home Secretary next week:
- The number of police forces in England and Wales will be cut from 43 to around 12 "mega forces" from 2034
Police Scotland has been quite a shambles up here and a definite step back from the regional forces we had before.
The problem is bigger organisation, the better management you need....what we kept seeing with the likes of the plod, you fail upwards so they then are in charge of an even bigger organisation they aren't capable of managing.
You see this in the private sector as well. The really top tier management don't move that often as they are highly valued. The shit ones are bounced around, continuing failing, but the top tier ones aren't available when required.
We seem to be losing sight of why this is happening.
Because a Labour MP was a twat and has had to resign..
The chances of this being anything but a Patrick Gordon Walker humiliation for Burnham, should he roll the dice, are slim.
Yes, I'd bet against him, too.
He's caught between the government being sufficiently unpopular to make a change of leader a serious possibility, and so unpopular that contesting even the safest seat for Labour in a by election risks humiliation.
And he needs a far better narrative for why he might stand, other than "I fancy the top job"(after getting over "not even thought about it")
That's the thing about today.
We've had lots of 'friends of Andy', 'sources close to the PM', 'unnamed members of the NEC'. We flatter ourselves that this tells us what Andy/Keir/the NEC really think, rather than what someone wants us to think they really think.
In life, but especially in politics, the key thing is often to ignore the magician's patter and focus on their hands. (Same goes for Trump.) And we don't know what those hands are doing, becuase anything they are doing is behind-the-scenes, for now at least.
(It links back a bit to the crapness of a lot of news coverage. Office gossip from the most powerful office in the land is fun to watch and easy to cover. Working out what's actually going on makes for worse telly and it's difficult to find out anything anyway.)
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The week before that they were *spectacular* though. All over the detail. Probing questions. Deep investigative coverage. Diving into policy details and outcomes. Not just tittle-tattle of who said what on Twitter. Then I remember walking into a room with flashy lights and some odd noises. Then... yes! I'm sure that's what the media were like the week before!
I was listening to the BBC 'NewsCast' podcast the other week with Chris Mason on. Political Editor for the BBC. Talking about having to do some work in Wales (it was cold, apparently). But then - praise be! - Jenrick (or Zahawi) defected! "So obviously we had to head back to Westminster". So I'm assuming that was a BBC film crew (Chris, camera, sound, several producers) who had travelled to Wales all fled back to cover a story that 18 thousand other journalists (including many others from the BBC) were already covering.
F**k you, provincials. We've got a minor bit of news that involves Reform! Suckers!
Which brings up possibly the only reason I might look favourably on the otherwise unappealing Burnham.
It's just about possible he might be a PM who took anywhere outside London and its hinterland at all seriously.
You just know that Starmer will appoint a London metropolitan female SPAD type, i.e. the type of candidate most guaranteed to turn off potential Labour voters in Gorton and Denton. They will finish third behind Reform and the Greens, further demonstrating Starmer’s incompetence.
You forgot to mention that she has a PPE from Oxford and her father is a senior BBC executive.
The UK Press in the last week has been utterly pathetic. the reporting of Davos might as well have been done by Blue Peter. It is embarrassing how poor British journalism has become. The ignorance, even of basic general knowledge, is simply laughable.
The week before that they were *spectacular* though. All over the detail. Probing questions. Deep investigative coverage. Diving into policy details and outcomes. Not just tittle-tattle of who said what on Twitter. Then I remember walking into a room with flashy lights and some odd noises. Then... yes! I'm sure that's what the media were like the week before!
I was listening to the BBC 'NewsCast' podcast the other week with Chris Mason on. Political Editor for the BBC. Talking about having to do some work in Wales (it was cold, apparently). But then - praise be! - Jenrick (or Zahawi) defected! "So obviously we had to head back to Westminster". So I'm assuming that was a BBC film crew (Chris, camera, sound, several producers) who had travelled to Wales all fled back to cover a story that 18 thousand other journalists (including many others from the BBC) were already covering.
F**k you, provincials. We've got a minor bit of news that involves Reform! Suckers!
Which brings up possibly the only reason I might look favourably on the otherwise unappealing Burnham.
It's just about possible he might be a PM who took anywhere outside London and its hinterland at all seriously.
You just know that Starmer will appoint a London metropolitan female SPAD type, i.e. the type of candidate most guaranteed to turn off potential Labour voters in Gorton and Denton. They will finish third behind Reform and the Greens, further demonstrating Starmer’s incompetence.
You forgot to mention that she has a PPE from Oxford and her father is a senior BBC executive.
Can we do anything in the UK without it taking 10 20 years....
500km of railway, 20+ years. China, 50000km, 10 years. They built a bloody 20 million person world class city from scratch in 30 years. Are we still talking about new garden cities (that aren't really new cities), haven't they been in the works for 15 years???
Can we do anything in the UK without it taking 10 20 years....
500km of railway, 20+ years. China, 50000km, 10 years. They built a bloody 20 million person world class city from scratch in 30 years. Are we still talking about new garden cities (that aren't really new cities), haven't they been in the works for 15 years???
Can we do anything in the UK without it taking 10 20 years....
500km of railway, 20+ years. China, 50000km, 10 years. They built a bloody 20 million person world class city from scratch in 30 years. Are we still talking about new garden cities (that aren't really new cities), haven't they been in the works for 15 years???
Bicester to Bletchley train... must... have... Bicester to Bletchley train...
I think that's the best political story of the week. Is that just me? It's like a good deed in a bad world. And in a week of utter political charmlessness (except for Carney.)
A very keen observer of politics just messaged me about this by-election.
'Two words. George Galloway.'
I salute your indefatigability, sir!
The Workers did well in the GE there I think?
10%. Which has to be one of their better performances across a frankly ridiculous 150+ seats, outside of Rochdale (which I had not realised Galloway was only 3.6% off from winning).
Sadly, the House of Commons library GE analysis unaccountably did not include WPB in their 'results by party' section.
If I was on the NEC I would just say no, as quickly as possible. I understand the argument for removing Kier but let's just play this out.
All the way to the by-election you've got stories about Labour splits, followed by a circus where everyone else is running and you've gone and made it a high-profile race. This will go on for - weeks? months? If Burnham loses you have all the Burnham-inclined people blaming it on the Starmer faction and any other faction and a whole load of enduring rancour that's probably even worse than if they just said "you've already got a job, you're not running". If he wins you then have a leadership contest which either Burnham wins and you have some rather sub-optimal non-Starmer leadership or Starmer wins but a load of his MPs have voted against him so he looks bad. This also makes it harder to replace him later if you actually need to do that.
Not to mention presumably you have a vacancy for Burnham's current job so you get the whole divisive circus again.
Given the scale of the US build up around Iran, one has to consider the old maxim that the amount and type of assets are notably in excess of that required for sabre rattling. You'd have to assume, therefore, that the intent is to use it.
🚨 SUMMARY: The major policing reforms set to be outlined by the Home Secretary next week:
- The number of police forces in England and Wales will be cut from 43 to around 12 "mega forces" from 2034
Police Scotland has been quite a shambles up here and a definite step back from the regional forces we had before.
Plus, we all know that the Met SMT will demand to run the MegaForce that covers London. So we will have an even bigger version of the Met.
What could possibly go wrong?
I guess we’ll also say goodbye to the distinctive City of London police.
It wont happen. The target date is 2034.
Millions will be pissed up walls by consultants analysing this for the government and then dropped.
LOL.
2034...you are having a giraffe.....its like the claim of being "fighting ready by 2035".
Ajax, you say ?
Details regarding the safety of the Army’s Ajax armoured vehicles were withheld from ministers, a review has found. In a ministerial statement today, Luke Pollard said: “To say that I am angry… is an understatement.” 1/2
Mr Pollard continues: “It demonstrates that people were raising issues with this programme, but they were not being elevated to an appropriate level.”
If I was on the NEC I would just say no, as quickly as possible. I understand the argument for removing Kier but let's just play this out.
All the way to the by-election you've got stories about Labour splits, followed by a circus where everyone else is running and you've gone and made it a high-profile race. This will go on for - weeks? months? If Burnham loses you have all the Burnham-inclined people blaming it on the Starmer faction and any other faction and a whole load of enduring rancour that's probably even worse than if they just said "you've already got a job, you're not running". If he wins you then have a leadership contest which either Burnham wins and you have some rather sub-optimal non-Starmer leadership or Starmer wins but a load of his MPs have voted against him so he looks bad. This also makes it harder to replace him later if you actually need to do that.
Not to mention presumably you have a vacancy for Burnham's current job so you get the whole divisive circus again.
Just say no.
I agree, there is no good outcome if Burnham stands.
🚨 SUMMARY: The major policing reforms set to be outlined by the Home Secretary next week:
- The number of police forces in England and Wales will be cut from 43 to around 12 "mega forces" from 2034
Police Scotland has been quite a shambles up here and a definite step back from the regional forces we had before.
Plus, we all know that the Met SMT will demand to run the MegaForce that covers London. So we will have an even bigger version of the Met.
What could possibly go wrong?
I guess we’ll also say goodbye to the distinctive City of London police.
It wont happen. The target date is 2034.
Millions will be pissed up walls by consultants analysing this for the government and then dropped.
LOL.
2034...you are having a giraffe.....its like the claim of being "fighting ready by 2035".
Ajax, you say ?
Details regarding the safety of the Army’s Ajax armoured vehicles were withheld from ministers, a review has found. In a ministerial statement today, Luke Pollard said: “To say that I am angry… is an understatement.” 1/2
Mr Pollard continues: “It demonstrates that people were raising issues with this programme, but they were not being elevated to an appropriate level.”
To me, if Burnham gets to stand, he wins here. He doesn't have to be great but he gets enough goodwill from MoM and being a Starmer challenger.
If not him, it's much closer.
There is no unsplitting of those trying to beat Labour, Reform win Denton especially Denton South, Greens win most of the Gorton/Manchester bits. Greens and Reform don't do too well on the other patch. Meanwhile Labour maintain a low hum across the piece and likely come through even below 30%.
The consistuency split is 2/3ish Manchester, 1/3ish Denton.
Further than that, Galloway or YP or Independents don't necessarily galvanise a following, they just hive off bits of the Green vote.
We had polling drift in the lead up to Runcorn, I don't see similar here, so Labour perhaps start as slight favourites unless the Greens get a clearer than expected run.
I lived for a bit in Denton many years ago, but I was rather too young to gauge the political mood.
Given the scale of the US build up around Iran, one has to consider the old maxim that the amount and type of assets are notably in excess of that required for sabre rattling. You'd have to assume, therefore, that the intent is to use it.
What is the realistic play? Do a Maduro / Bin Laden style kidnapping or assassination?
I don't get the sense Trump wants to (deliberately) get involved in a protracted war...
Comments
Then the leadership battle true can begin I think?
Take all the criticism of Starmer today about not yet banning under 16s from social media. The media are fully behind Badenoch's promotion of the idea.
Imagine if a Labour Government had promoted a nanny state banning of social media for children and the Conservatives were against it. The Government would be hung out to dry.
So damned if they do, damned if they don't.
FWIW I have no particular view on ban or no ban. However I'm probably more inclined to the Tory nanny state narrative rather than Labour's wait and see.
Unless a member of the Cabinet breaks ranks to enter *as the opposing candidate* you can't add more later.
It doesn't take a genius to realise the media love the idea of banning it, that there are vocal campaigner who can draw on sob stories of terrible things taht have happened and now the Tories, supposedly the party of personal responsbility, have jumped on that bandwagon. You then need to think strategically how you are going to play it. First of all, are you actually for it or not. Not, well booo X, boo, yeah, but now, but yeah, but no, maybe, long winded consultation, which allows others to shape the narrative.
Lord North lasted 8 years of the American Revolutionary War, surviving even the surrender of Cornwallis, but not quite until the peace treaty.
As a general rule we seem to change PMs most wars that go on more than a year.
4-5hrs later two police turned up. Asked if I'd seen the face of the people doing it - which I explained "No, I had my back to the door to stop them kicking it while I phoned the police".
"Well, not much we can do then."
And wandered off.
A fact of life, but it is what it is.
Politics UK
@PolitlcsUK
🚨 SUMMARY: The major policing reforms set to be outlined by the Home Secretary next week:
- The number of police forces in England and Wales will be cut from 43 to around 12 "mega forces" from 2034
What I don't really know is where the public stand / will stand. Yes we have polling, but people often don't think through these kind of quite extreme positional changes immediately e.g. the Corbyn Cable Company was popular with polling initially, who doesn't want free "superfast"* broadband, until it was pointed out what that actually meant e.g. the government has access to your browsing history, be naughty can be banned forever, all other competition will be gone, nobody will invest in enterpise networking....and it rapidly was oh shit, terrible idea.
* it wasn't even going to be superfast.
I also believe what I have suggested about the media interpretation has some validity.
A lot of chippy Tories on here tonight. I note Roger has taken a good old kicking.
2 years, 7 months and 20 days, and the Prime Minister was the Marquess of Salisbury.
Genetically, arguably the global majority is everyone not negroid.
BAME irritates me for two reasons: first, why did 'minority ethnic' suddenly become more correct than 'ethnic minority'? That's not hiw we construct English. And second, redundancy: "black" is an ethnic minority - so is covered already by the ME bit. It's almost exactly like Cheshire West amd Chester. Just "West Cheshire" would do.
That sort of stuff used to be on our tv / newspaper every week in the 90s e.g. Cook Report, Panorama was an hour show often having taken months to produce, the Times had a big Insight team working for months sometimes years on a story.
Now a lot of "journalism" is FOI request and rewriting press releases. Many outlets now its volume, 100s of new and updated articles every day.
Even on here we have had explanations that Trump is playing and winning at 12D chess.
Salisbury's official job title also changed in 1900 - from Foreign Secretary to Lord Privy Seal.
But there are a number of similar curiosities. Using "Coloured People" is likely to end in disciplinary action but using "People of Colour" is fine and dandy.
A lot of it starts in academia (and of course a lot comes from the US so specific American racial senitivies get applied across the West), where it can take just one individual being offended (often on behalf of somebody else) and then the terminology changes and that gets disseminated downstream. It even happens in bloody STEM, byzantine general problem is a classic computer science problem, one academic refused to review a paper for a top tier conference until the authors renamed it because they found it offensive*, its now no longer allowed to be described like that in the literature for future submissions.
* how they can be offended for a people / empire that don't exist anymore, I don't know.
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2014379649342550137?s=20
That makes me want to start a competition for acronyms where meaning was tortured to make them catchy.
Any entries?
Wash your mouth out with soap, sir !
I was listening to the BBC 'NewsCast' podcast the other week with Chris Mason on. Political Editor for the BBC. Talking about having to do some work in Wales (it was cold, apparently). But then - praise be! - Jenrick (or Zahawi) defected! "So obviously we had to head back to Westminster". So I'm assuming that was a BBC film crew (Chris, camera, sound, several producers) who had travelled to Wales all fled back to cover a story that 18 thousand other journalists (including many others from the BBC) were already covering.
F**k you, provincials. We've got a minor bit of news that involves Reform! Suckers!
Or, rather, people being people.
My main criticism was how wrong they were about everything, unable to understand basic stats. You can check the threads how those of us with STEM backgrounds were going WTF, they are wrong again....and also unable to see glaring errors in the models and predictive. There were absolute clangers on some of the govenment slides that they didn't notice.
The press conferences were attended 99% by the political journalists, not the science or healthcare editors, so what we got was a 27 minute question from Prof Peston talking shit. Remember, not once, but twice he made a total twat of himself and JVT went on his show to put him right. After that, Peston should have long since been out of a job. Remember he claimed he had a good handle on the subjects as he was a keen amateur scientist, before trying to explain to JVT how JVT was wrong about science.
But they also spent the whole time going well why didn't you do this sooner / different, lockdown harder / for longer, while at the same time banging on about how to bend the restrictions or highlighting ridicilious edge cases. Kay Burley was every morning, well if I travelled here under the guise of this, but then returned 5hrs later under the guise of that, technically I am not breaking the rules, so government minister what are you going to do about that, you have messed up haven't you. The guidance isn't clear is it....
Because a Labour MP was a twat and has had to resign..
I would classify many people who self label as such as primarily political commentators rather than journalists. Which is an acceptable profession, but quite different from what many people imagine about journalism, be it deep investigative work or specialised technical reporting.
I don't think it was inappropriate for media hacks to ask Johnson if he hadn't locked down too late or Starmer for demanding we locked down for longer.
(Some of it is changes in adjacent bits of society which newspapers and tv can't do much about. Without classified ads providing lots of money, the economics of the Yourcity Evening News just don't work and you end up in a doom loop of higher cover price for worse product leading to fewer readers so the business gets worse and worse. Looking at the figures here,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation#Regional_newspapers
it's a miracle that they bother at all. Of course in London, The Standard doesn't really any more.)
It's just about possible he might be a PM who took anywhere outside London and its hinterland at all seriously.
But they were a fucking shit show on actually reporting the real situation as the got the data wrong time and time again (even when told by scitentists they had). Also they were totally incapable of scuritising what they were been told. It exposed how they can do the punch and judy show of Westminister, but clueless about pretty much everything else.
They gave the airwaves over to cranks from Alternative SAGE who wanted use in lockdown forever and the weirdos its all done and dusted in a week like Gupta. Lots of noise, very little light. Its was Youtube, e.g. Unherd I think had the best people on at that time (along with some of the crazies), that seemed to get to talk to people who actually knew their onions.
Like Big Dom and Patrick Valance have talked about how the public sector use of data is not for purpose (and a lot of the positive steps during COVID now have been disbanded), the media learned nothing. Sky still have Ed Conway doing the "data deep dives", when he showed he was clueless during COVID. Prof Peston is still being an enormous twat being the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect, etc.
Journalists? Weren't they all in hiding in suburban Cardiff?
He's caught between the government being sufficiently unpopular to make a change of leader a serious possibility, and so unpopular that contesting even the safest seat for Labour in a by election risks humiliation.
And he needs a far better narrative for why he might stand, other than "I fancy the top job"(after getting over "not even thought about it")
Part of the problem is the likes of YouTube, Substack etc, has given a opportunity for people with expert insight to not require being gate kept, and can make decent money.
Popcorn at the ready.
Are we running a book on total number of nominated candidates?
I'm going for twelve.
You see this in the private sector as well. The really top tier management don't move that often as they are highly valued. The shit ones are bounced around, continuing failing, but the top tier ones aren't available when required.
We've had lots of 'friends of Andy', 'sources close to the PM', 'unnamed members of the NEC'. We flatter ourselves that this tells us what Andy/Keir/the NEC really think, rather than what someone wants us to think they really think.
In life, but especially in politics, the key thing is often to ignore the magician's patter and focus on their hands. (Same goes for Trump.) And we don't know what those hands are doing, becuase anything they are doing is behind-the-scenes, for now at least.
(It links back a bit to the crapness of a lot of news coverage. Office gossip from the most powerful office in the land is fun to watch and easy to cover. Working out what's actually going on makes for worse telly and it's difficult to find out anything anyway.)
What could possibly go wrong?
Millions will be pissed up walls by consultants analysing this for the government and then dropped.
LOL.
("Love Actually 2", written by Richard Curtis, coming to you Xmas 2026)
1020 years....500km of railway, 20+ years. China, 50000km, 10 years. They built a bloody 20 million person world class city from scratch in 30 years. Are we still talking about new garden cities (that aren't really new cities), haven't they been in the works for 15 years???
'Two words. George Galloway.'
'When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times. '
I can't see the Civil Nuclear Constabulary being absorbed into anybody, because obvious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tbnC-gLhiw
Sadly, the House of Commons library GE analysis unaccountably did not include WPB in their 'results by party' section.
Prediction: Burnham won't be a candidate.
All the way to the by-election you've got stories about Labour splits, followed by a circus where everyone else is running and you've gone and made it a high-profile race. This will go on for - weeks? months? If Burnham loses you have all the Burnham-inclined people blaming it on the Starmer faction and any other faction and a whole load of enduring rancour that's probably even worse than if they just said "you've already got a job, you're not running". If he wins you then have a leadership contest which either Burnham wins and you have some rather sub-optimal non-Starmer leadership or Starmer wins but a load of his MPs have voted against him so he looks bad. This also makes it harder to replace him later if you actually need to do that.
Not to mention presumably you have a vacancy for Burnham's current job so you get the whole divisive circus again.
Just say no.
Details regarding the safety of the Army’s Ajax armoured vehicles were withheld from ministers, a review has found. In a ministerial statement today, Luke Pollard said: “To say that I am angry… is an understatement.” 1/2
Mr Pollard continues: “It demonstrates that people were raising issues with this programme, but they were not being elevated to an appropriate level.”
He adds Chris Bowbrick, the MoD’s man overseeing the scheme, is “no longer in their role”. ..
https://x.com/TomCotterillMoL/status/2014343522065830016
If not him, it's much closer.
There is no unsplitting of those trying to beat Labour, Reform win Denton especially Denton South, Greens win most of the Gorton/Manchester bits. Greens and Reform don't do too well on the other patch. Meanwhile Labour maintain a low hum across the piece and likely come through even below 30%.
The consistuency split is 2/3ish Manchester, 1/3ish Denton.
Further than that, Galloway or YP or Independents don't necessarily galvanise a following, they just hive off bits of the Green vote.
We had polling drift in the lead up to Runcorn, I don't see similar here, so Labour perhaps start as slight favourites unless the Greens get a clearer than expected run.
I lived for a bit in Denton many years ago, but I was rather too young to gauge the political mood.
I don't get the sense Trump wants to (deliberately) get involved in a protracted war...