If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialized communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
BlueSky isn't really growing in actual engagement metrics. There has been a small bump in the last month, but It is still miles down on its peak and below start of last year. Its neither dead nor the next big thing, it a small social media platform.
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
Yeah, a lot of tap handles will be interchangeable I think, and lots of places sell replacement handles on their own.
Youtube should be able to show you how to pop off the existing handle in about 5 minutes, then you can either figure out by looking at it what online ordered replacement would fit, or just take the handle along to your nearest decent plumbing trade counter.
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
As the world falls apart and global devastation is only a sneeze away, we have a request for information on 'tap turners'. Brilliant. Only on PB.
I just do this because lots of people here want to know, but no one will admit it. Given the age profile, someone must be using one. There must be those who are like Dr No when put in a swimming pool. https://youtu.be/UiX2m7VAIHI?t=44
(Not @Benpointer ; his new bungalow will be using the "wave at it distractedly" type of controls that they had in the Heart of Gold.)
Being serious, if you suddenly struggle to turn on the tap to fill your kettle or wash your dishes, it is important.
“Many people have asked me why part of the US admin initially backed the Chagos surrender deal before Trump intervened against it. Keir Starmer launched a huge PR campaign in DC led by Lord Mandelson to sell the Chagos deal to the US. It is now blowing up”
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
To be fair, the obvious and overwhelming cross-party consensus that Mandy needs to be told to sling his hook probably has helped him as well. But he could and should have reached out to Badenoch to ask for her help in getting this through before saying he couldn't. Whatever partisan advantage there is to be gained by watching him squirm, surely as a human being she would have said yes.
And if he did and she said no, she has bloody difficult questions to answer.
First Post. I have been watching with interest for many months but this comment has piqued me to join.
With respect to the Poster, Kemi Badenoch has said "no"
Labour has offered to immediately bring forward a Bill that would allow removal of Peerage very quickly.
Jessica Eglot in the Guardian reported at around noon that (to quote her)
"Understand Tories won't create or support a bill to remove Mandelsons peerage. There is unease amongst Politicians in Westminster about the precedent of a government using its large majority to go after individuals , no matter how egregious . But mechanisms should be there to expel him"
So Kemi as Kemi will scream and scream and scream but when push comes to shove she cannot (a) get the support of Tory Lords and (b) lacks the backbone Starmer, Davey and the SNP does to do this very quickly.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
As the world falls apart and global devastation is only a sneeze away, we have a request for information on 'tap turners'. Brilliant. Only on PB.
I just do this because lots of people here want to know, but no one will admit it. Given the age profile, someone must be using one.
(Not @Benpointer ; his new bungalow will be using the type of "wave at it distractedly" type of controls that they had in the Heart of Gold.)
Being serious, if you suddenly struggle to turn on the tap to fill your kettle or wash your dishes, it is important.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
This reminds me; did I see a post of yours last night when you reckoned Boris having some cake was a bigger political scandal than Panty Pete's emails?
You think the Boris Johnson scandal which culminated in him having to resign his premiership was about him eating a piece of cake?
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
As the world falls apart and global devastation is only a sneeze away, we have a request for information on 'tap turners'. Brilliant. Only on PB.
I just do this because lots of people here want to know, but no one will admit it. Given the age profile, someone must be using one.
(Not @Benpointer ; his new bungalow will be using the type of "wave at it distractedly" type of controls that they had in the Heart of Gold.)
Being serious, if you suddenly struggle to turn on the tap to fill your kettle or wash your dishes, it is important.
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
As the world falls apart and global devastation is only a sneeze away, we have a request for information on 'tap turners'. Brilliant. Only on PB.
I just do this because lots of people here want to know, but no one will admit it. Given the age profile, someone must be using one.
(Not @Benpointer ; his new bungalow will be using the type of "wave at it distractedly" type of controls that they had in the Heart of Gold.)
Being serious, if you suddenly struggle to turn on the tap to fill your kettle or wash your dishes, it is important.
Having recently suffered considerable loss of mobility you become very conscious of who your life is affected
I can understand why Mrs T would want a modification for the taps just as I now need passenger assist every time I use a train
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
To be fair, the obvious and overwhelming cross-party consensus that Mandy needs to be told to sling his hook probably has helped him as well. But he could and should have reached out to Badenoch to ask for her help in getting this through before saying he couldn't. Whatever partisan advantage there is to be gained by watching him squirm, surely as a human being she would have said yes.
And if he did and she said no, she has bloody difficult questions to answer.
First Post. I have been watching with interest for many months but this comment has piqued me to join.
With respect to the Poster, Kemi Badenoch has said "no"
Labour has offered to immediately bring forward a Bill that would allow removal of Peerage very quickly.
Jessica Eglot in the Guardian reported at around noon that (to quote her)
"Understand Tories won't create or support a bill to remove Mandelsons peerage. There is unease amongst Politicians in Westminster about the precedent of a government using its large majority to go after individuals , no matter how egregious . But mechanisms should be there to expel him"
So Kemi as Kemi will scream and scream and scream but when push comes to shove she cannot (a) get the support of Tory Lords and (b) lacks the backbone Starmer, Davey and the SNP does to do this very quickly.
Welcome, and thank you.
Then she has, as I noted, some bloody difficult questions to answer of her own.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Starmer was so vague on the appointment of Mandelson and the checks on the rumours circulating about him and Epstein. It doesn’t seem like the actions of a man regarded as forensic and known as ‘Mr Rules’. Perhaps Sir Keir is just the dopey frontman for a sinister cabal!
“Many people have asked me why part of the US admin initially backed the Chagos surrender deal before Trump intervened against it. Keir Starmer launched a huge PR campaign in DC led by Lord Mandelson to sell the Chagos deal to the US. It is now blowing up”
Regrettably, he's wrong. My pleasant market town is presently suffering a large influx of Londoners who have finally worked out that it's way nicer a couple of hundred miles further north. This is doing lots of bad things, including pushing up house prices, and encouraging the building of loads of nasty Barratt wonders on the edge of town (the London types think they are amazing, a four bed house for the price of a ropey London flat! I don't know of a single local living in one).
We should probably build a wall between Gloucester and Kings Lynn, and make the Southerners pay for it (feels a bit harsh to keep the Brummies out by drawing a line much further north).
We've got that too. And the next Local Plan is slated to increase it.
There also seems to be a pitch for a lot (35%-40%) affordable which is pre-sold to Social Landlords who are housing the London overspill of those in temporary accommodation. Saves London Councils a lot by sending their mixed milieu off to the coast.
Evidence that rental enquiries and house prices are dropping now that Labour has got immigration under control. No wonder housing starts are down.
Until house prices drop back to a 3-4x multiple of income as they were in the 90s before they exploded, then they're still far, far, far too high.
Either a combination of massive house price falls (thus negative equity) and stable income rates, or massive income inflation and stable prices, or preferably a combination of the two, significant price falls and significant income growth, is needed to get house price to income ratios back to anywhere sane.
Prices could fall about 5% per year in cash terms, without anyone on a 25y repayment mortgage experiencing negative equity.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
There was an article last month that Threads now has more DAU on mobile than Twitter/X, presumably it has caught on due to the link to Instagram.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
There was an article last month that Threads now has more DAU on mobile than Twitter/X, presumably it has caught on due to the link to Instagram.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
No, Its because once you have joined you can't leave and Instagram pesters you to join, and it will auto repost to Threads. So loads of people just leave it set like that. I have seen loads of people who have their Instagram set on private not realising they are auto posting to a public Threads account. Have had to tell a number of people of this as they were unaware as they never actually use Threads.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
“Many people have asked me why part of the US admin initially backed the Chagos surrender deal before Trump intervened against it. Keir Starmer launched a huge PR campaign in DC led by Lord Mandelson to sell the Chagos deal to the US. It is now blowing up”
Labour pays millions to make hospital stats more flattering: ministers accused of massaging NHS figures by paying £3m a month to take off waiting lists patients who no longer need treatment. Interesting story from @oliver_wright
So they’re finding patients who died waiting for treatment, removed them from the lists, and are now boasting about the lists being shorter, alluding to more treatments being carried out.
Now imagine how this works with the elderly and vulnerable if “Assisted Dying” is allowed to happen…
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Convenient.
It's amazing how despite the great expense on IT our politicians are always getting their Twitter accounts hacked, losing their phones, data being deleted, and coincidentally this seems to happen most often when they are in trouble.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Always behind the curve.
Starmer's no good at politics.
To be fair they only took 1 day this time, rather than a week / month claiming can't be done, all too hard, if only, then to U-turn.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Convenient.
It's amazing how despite the great expense on IT our politicians are always getting their Twitter accounts hacked, losing their phones, data being deleted, and coincidentally this seems to happen most often when they are in trouble.
Also interesting that the powers that be love this idea of inserting backdoors into private messaging and id card systems, but obviously it will only be for use against the plebs, sorry terrorists.
This reminds me; did I see a post of yours last night when you reckoned Boris having some cake was a bigger political scandal than Panty Pete's emails?
This is a Profumo level scandal. A proper scandal worthy of the name. I don't believe anyone suggested this was equitable to poor Boris having his innocent birthday cake. I did comment that if a comparison to Johnson can be made the KGB Party has similar national security implications.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
They are extremely lucky to have Catherine
William chose well. Catherine is like the late Queen. Impeccably polite and well behaved, with some instinctive sense of decorum while managing to be personable
If William had married a Sarah Ferguson type, or a Meghan, then the monarchy would have been in very serious trouble
My niece was at St Andrews at the same time. Her view was that it was Catherine who chose William.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
There was an article last month that Threads now has more DAU on mobile than Twitter/X, presumably it has caught on due to the link to Instagram.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
No, Its because once you have joined you can't leave and Instagram pesters you to join, and it will auto repost to Threads. So loads of people just leave it set like that. I have seen loads of people who have their Instagram set on private not realising they are auto posting to a public Threads account. Have had to tell a number of people of this as they were unaware as they never actually use Threads.
Sure DAU is a crude metric, so I'm not even arguing that Threads is really bigger, just that by one measure at least it might have already caught up with Twitter.
They don’t realise yet that US companies will simply withdraw EU offices, costing jobs, and dare governments to actually block their websites in the face of the users.
The US has absolutely no interest in fielding lawsuits against American companies on freedom of speech issues.
Oh, and what used to be called Twitter is about to be a tiny part of the massive SpaceX IPO, worth potentially $1.5trn.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Isn't his husband from Brazil?
It's all very Boys from Brazil.
OMG. They haven't cloned Mandelsons have they?
How do we know he has a Brazilian? His Y fronts are in still in place.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Starmer was so vague on the appointment of Mandelson and the checks on the rumours circulating about him and Epstein. It doesn’t seem like the actions of a man regarded as forensic and known as ‘Mr Rules’. Perhaps Sir Keir is just the dopey frontman for a sinister cabal!
It does look more and more like on the very specific denial of knowledge of subsequent information that Starmer will be wholly vindicated.
That though is no excuse for the appointment on what was known, purely that Mandelson has always been untrustworthy
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Isn't his husband from Brazil?
It's all very Boys from Brazil.
OMG. They haven't cloned Mandelsons have they?
How do we know he has a Brazilian? His Y fronts are in still in place.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Emails are postcards sent through the ether that every server in the path can read.
I'd be surprised if there wasn't another copy somewhere in an old backup.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
The guy who oversaw the World Cup in russia (and Qatar) quite likes russia, funny that.
So this is a modern day Bill of Attainder against Lord Mandelson, who is yet to be convicted, let alone charged.
A good defence team were it come to trial could argue this is so prejudicial against their client that he couldn’t get a fair trial.
Kemi Badenoch is right to oppose such legislation.
If specific legislation is fine for Keir Starmer's pension then it's fine for removing Mandelson's peerage.
Badenoch according to the Guardian is refusing to back general non specific legislation for all
That is why Starmer is going down this route to avoid delay by Tories in HoL
General non specific legislation for all would amount to a power grab by Number 10. Badenoch is right to force them into dealing with Mandelson specifically.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
There was an article last month that Threads now has more DAU on mobile than Twitter/X, presumably it has caught on due to the link to Instagram.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
No, Its because once you have joined you can't leave and Instagram pesters you to join, and it will auto repost to Threads. So loads of people just leave it set like that. I have seen loads of people who have their Instagram set on private not realising they are auto posting to a public Threads account. Have had to tell a number of people of this as they were unaware as they never actually use Threads.
Sure DAU is a crude metric, so I'm not even arguing that Threads is really bigger, just that by one measure at least it might have already caught up with Twitter.
10% of all global threads traffic is here in Taiwan. Sometimes things just take off.
Another example of this phenomenon, from the early 2000s:
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Emails are postcards sent through the ether that every server in the path can read.
I'd be surprised if there wasn't another copy somewhere in an old backup.
At least some of the orgs who have copies of those messages won't want to admit they have copies of those messages.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
The guy who oversaw the World Cup in russia (and Qatar) quite likes russia, funny that.
So a Russia v USA final this summer (everyone else having boycotted....).
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Isn't his husband from Brazil?
It's all very Boys from Brazil.
OMG. They haven't cloned Mandelsons have they?
How do we know he has a Brazilian? His Y fronts are in still in place.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
The guy who oversaw the World Cup in russia (and Qatar) quite likes russia, funny that.
So a Russia v USA final this summer (everyone else having boycotted....).
I was tempted to put USA down for the World Cup winners.
But I expect Brazil and Argentina will play regardless.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
There was an article last month that Threads now has more DAU on mobile than Twitter/X, presumably it has caught on due to the link to Instagram.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
No, Its because once you have joined you can't leave and Instagram pesters you to join, and it will auto repost to Threads. So loads of people just leave it set like that. I have seen loads of people who have their Instagram set on private not realising they are auto posting to a public Threads account. Have had to tell a number of people of this as they were unaware as they never actually use Threads.
Sure DAU is a crude metric, so I'm not even arguing that Threads is really bigger, just that by one measure at least it might have already caught up with Twitter.
10% of all global threads traffic is here in Taiwan. Sometimes things just take off.
Another example of this phenomenon, from the early 2000s:
Yeah people who say "I don't know anyone who uses..." are generally wrong when they draw the conclusion that therefore nobody uses whatever. It's like Americans who don't get that WhatsApp is by far the largest and most used messaging service, because they are mainly using iMessage by default within their circles.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
It is mildly surprising that the Epstein dumps have not found a message from Lord Bob of the Oxford Mirror wishing you well from the West Bank
Given they say they don't have the old ones, it will just be ones when he was Ambassador. But Starmer will play the never crossed my desk, procedure been followed...case closed.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Oh dear oh dear.
Any large company IT department gets a list of personal email addresses from HR and adds them to a flag list, why the Hell did government not do the same?
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
The guy who oversaw the World Cup in russia (and Qatar) quite likes russia, funny that.
So a Russia v USA final this summer (everyone else having boycotted....).
Isn't there some sort of qualification process? Is he suggesting they are just fast-tracked in as a 49th team? Or instead of someone else? None of this would be particularly surprising for FIFA, of course.
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
As the world falls apart and global devastation is only a sneeze away, we have a request for information on 'tap turners'. Brilliant. Only on PB.
I just do this because lots of people here want to know, but no one will admit it. Given the age profile, someone must be using one.
(Not @Benpointer ; his new bungalow will be using the type of "wave at it distractedly" type of controls that they had in the Heart of Gold.)
Being serious, if you suddenly struggle to turn on the tap to fill your kettle or wash your dishes, it is important.
Having recently suffered considerable loss of mobility you become very conscious of who your life is affected
I can understand why Mrs T would want a modification for the taps just as I now need passenger assist every time I use a train
It's not always easy getting old and/or having mobility or dexterity problems. As a result of spinal problems now I always have to use a Zimmer frame or similar and if I'm 'travelling' more than about 200 metres an electric scooter. Mrs C and I used to go for walks together; now we can't.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Which is another reason personal email addresses ought never to be used for government business.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Which is another reason personal email addresses ought never to be used for government business.
Like personal WhatsApp accounts, where you can "accidentally" lose your phone / account password.
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Oh dear oh dear.
Any large company IT department gets a list of personal email addresses from HR and adds them to a flag list, why the Hell did government not do the same?
You are expecting government IT departments to show basic competence?
Following today's Russian strike, I held a coordination call to discuss the situation in the regions, particularly the energy sector.
It was a deliberate attack against energy infrastructure, involving a record number of ballistic missiles. In fact, the Russian army exploited the U.S. proposal to briefly halt strikes not to support diplomacy, but to stockpile missiles and wait until the coldest days of the year, when temperatures across large parts of Ukraine drop below -20°C (-4°F).
In this single strike alone, there were 32 ballistic missiles, 11 missiles of other types that approached their targets along a ballistic trajectory, 28 cruise missiles, and 450 attack drones—most of them “Shaheds.” A significant number were intercepted, but not all.
Energy infrastructure facilities in several regions were hit, with the greatest damage in the Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, Kyiv and the region, the Vinnytsia and Odesa regions, as well as in Zaporizhzhia. All necessary forces are being engaged, and I have directed the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Government as a whole to provide equipment from reserve stocks and to urgently contact partners regarding additional support packages. I am having a substantive discussion on this with Mark Rutte right now.
Repair and emergency crews are working in all cities and communities as needed, and all energy companies’ resources are being deployed.
The heating situation is particularly difficult in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, as well as Lozova in the Kharkiv region.
Specific tasks have been assigned to the Defense Ministry and the Air Force Commander. I expect the Foreign Ministry and our entire diplomatic corps to work at maximum intensity to inform partners about what is happening and to secure sufficient support for our people and for our country.
Each such Russian strike confirms that attitudes in Moscow have not changed: they continue to bet on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and they do not take diplomacy seriously. The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly. Glory to Ukraine! https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2018649188905505017
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
The guy who oversaw the World Cup in russia (and Qatar) quite likes russia, funny that.
So a Russia v USA final this summer (everyone else having boycotted....).
Isn't there some sort of qualification process? Is he suggesting they are just fast-tracked in as a 49th team? Or instead of someone else? None of this would be particularly surprising for FIFA, of course.
Probably not that surprising - but from recent focus groups over the weekend and yesterday the Epstein Mandelson coverage has cut through way beyond the bubble and seems even more so because of a picture saying a thousand words
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
Oh dear oh dear.
Any large company IT department gets a list of personal email addresses from HR and adds them to a flag list, why the Hell did government not do the same?
You are expecting government IT departments to show basic competence?
Thankfully governments across the globe are more tech savvy these days.
Hang on, Peter Hegseth has just sent me a Signal post. Apparently the invasion of Canada has been pencilled in for 1500 hours Eastern Time.
On a BBC documentary about Enoch Powell years ago, one of the talking heads was Roy Hattersley, who was incandescent at a constituent in the 60s telling him that the immigrants would target women. It seems that battle is still being fought
We must be mad, literally mad. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
The Royal Family would benefit from a return of Harry from the States.
I think that's probably more important than any of the reforms around crown revenues, duchies of here, there or wherever, that most people know nothing about. Harry is a personality. He seems genuinely interested in using his accident of birth for good. Whatever else William might be thinking of in terms of reform he needs to be working on a reconciliation with his brother.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
20 million using twitter? Doesn't pass the smell test, unless it's just clicking on links to it.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
The guy who oversaw the World Cup in russia (and Qatar) quite likes russia, funny that.
So a Russia v USA final this summer (everyone else having boycotted....).
Isn't there some sort of qualification process? Is he suggesting they are just fast-tracked in as a 49th team? Or instead of someone else? None of this would be particularly surprising for FIFA, of course.
Not sure how others feel but wouldn't bother me one bit if we pulled out. FIFA hate us, and no way are they going to let us get anywhere near winning. They bunged us a crooked ref against France last time round. We might not have beaten them anyway but the cheating little Brazilian did everything he could to see we didn't.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
The Royal Family would benefit from a return of Harry from the States.
I think that's probably more important than any of the reforms around crown revenues, duchies of here, there or wherever, that most people know nothing about. Harry is a personality. He seems genuinely interested in using his accident of birth for good. Whatever else William might be thinking of in terms of reform he needs to be working on a reconciliation with his brother.
Nope!
If he comes back, it will be on his own and he’ll be sharing an apartment with Andrew.
You can’t walk back from writing books and making documentaries sh!tting on your own family, and ever expect a reconciliation.
Labour pays millions to make hospital stats more flattering: ministers accused of massaging NHS figures by paying £3m a month to take off waiting lists patients who no longer need treatment. Interesting story from @oliver_wright
So they’re finding patients who died waiting for treatment, removed them from the lists, and are now boasting about the lists being shorter, alluding to more treatments being carried out.
Now imagine how this works with the elderly and vulnerable if “Assisted Dying” is allowed to happen…
I don't see putting out a more accurate statistic as an especially egregious crime.
Regrettably, he's wrong. My pleasant market town is presently suffering a large influx of Londoners who have finally worked out that it's way nicer a couple of hundred miles further north. This is doing lots of bad things, including pushing up house prices, and encouraging the building of loads of nasty Barratt wonders on the edge of town (the London types think they are amazing, a four bed house for the price of a ropey London flat! I don't know of a single local living in one).
We should probably build a wall between Gloucester and Kings Lynn, and make the Southerners pay for it (feels a bit harsh to keep the Brummies out by drawing a line much further north).
We've got that too. And the next Local Plan is slated to increase it.
There also seems to be a pitch for a lot (35%-40%) affordable which is pre-sold to Social Landlords who are housing the London overspill of those in temporary accommodation. Saves London Councils a lot by sending their mixed milieu off to the coast.
Evidence that rental enquiries and house prices are dropping now that Labour has got immigration under control. No wonder housing starts are down.
Until house prices drop back to a 3-4x multiple of income as they were in the 90s before they exploded, then they're still far, far, far too high.
Either a combination of massive house price falls (thus negative equity) and stable income rates, or massive income inflation and stable prices, or preferably a combination of the two, significant price falls and significant income growth, is needed to get house price to income ratios back to anywhere sane.
Get the dodgy foreign money out of London, and its housing market will return to something resembling normality
Following today's Russian strike, I held a coordination call to discuss the situation in the regions, particularly the energy sector.
It was a deliberate attack against energy infrastructure, involving a record number of ballistic missiles. In fact, the Russian army exploited the U.S. proposal to briefly halt strikes not to support diplomacy, but to stockpile missiles and wait until the coldest days of the year, when temperatures across large parts of Ukraine drop below -20°C (-4°F).
In this single strike alone, there were 32 ballistic missiles, 11 missiles of other types that approached their targets along a ballistic trajectory, 28 cruise missiles, and 450 attack drones—most of them “Shaheds.” A significant number were intercepted, but not all.
Energy infrastructure facilities in several regions were hit, with the greatest damage in the Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, Kyiv and the region, the Vinnytsia and Odesa regions, as well as in Zaporizhzhia. All necessary forces are being engaged, and I have directed the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Government as a whole to provide equipment from reserve stocks and to urgently contact partners regarding additional support packages. I am having a substantive discussion on this with Mark Rutte right now.
Repair and emergency crews are working in all cities and communities as needed, and all energy companies’ resources are being deployed.
The heating situation is particularly difficult in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, as well as Lozova in the Kharkiv region.
Specific tasks have been assigned to the Defense Ministry and the Air Force Commander. I expect the Foreign Ministry and our entire diplomatic corps to work at maximum intensity to inform partners about what is happening and to secure sufficient support for our people and for our country.
Each such Russian strike confirms that attitudes in Moscow have not changed: they continue to bet on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and they do not take diplomacy seriously. The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly. Glory to Ukraine! https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2018649188905505017
Ukraine's friend have to help them destroy Russia's hydrocarbons industry. Break Putin's economy. Fast.
Labour pays millions to make hospital stats more flattering: ministers accused of massaging NHS figures by paying £3m a month to take off waiting lists patients who no longer need treatment. Interesting story from @oliver_wright
So they’re finding patients who died waiting for treatment, removed them from the lists, and are now boasting about the lists being shorter, alluding to more treatments being carried out.
Now imagine how this works with the elderly and vulnerable if “Assisted Dying” is allowed to happen…
I don't see putting out a more accurate statistic as an especially egregious crime.
It’s that they’re saying “Waiting lists are down, well done us”, while all they’re actually doing is removing those who died waiting for their treatment.
If they had actually increased the number of treatments, then absolutely they can claim the win.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Isn't his husband from Brazil?
It's all very Boys from Brazil.
Nuts galore!
Mandelson's behaviour was definitely crackers.
He's certainly a wrong 'un, but I don't think he's a clone of Hitler
Probably not that surprising - but from recent focus groups over the weekend and yesterday the Epstein Mandelson coverage has cut through way beyond the bubble and seems even more so because of a picture saying a thousand words
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Any past association with him is now toxic, it seems. But only for Europeans….
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
20 million using twitter? Doesn't pass the smell test, unless it's just clicking on links to it.
I bet they're counting people viewing embeds on the same terms as actual posters.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Isn't his husband from Brazil?
It's all very Boys from Brazil.
Nuts galore!
Mandelson's behaviour was definitely crackers.
He's certainly a wrong 'un, but I don't think he's a clone of Hitler
Given he's got Jewish ancestry it seems somewhat improbable.
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Any past association with him is now toxic, it seems. But only for Europeans….
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
These days two blokes smoking skunk in a van parked outside your house will provide the same experience.
Is that what has put Mr Thomas off London?
IIRC correctly Mr Thomas also writes stuff saying that the only place in the world worth living in is London. Journalists, like lawyers, have to survive in a tough environment, and building stuff up and knocking is down a again is a central aspect of that planet wide job creation scheeme.
A good lesson is to ignore anything written purely to get clicks-through from the internet, rather than for actual physical publication.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
There was an article last month that Threads now has more DAU on mobile than Twitter/X, presumably it has caught on due to the link to Instagram.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
No, Its because once you have joined you can't leave and Instagram pesters you to join, and it will auto repost to Threads. So loads of people just leave it set like that. I have seen loads of people who have their Instagram set on private not realising they are auto posting to a public Threads account. Have had to tell a number of people of this as they were unaware as they never actually use Threads.
Sure DAU is a crude metric, so I'm not even arguing that Threads is really bigger, just that by one measure at least it might have already caught up with Twitter.
10% of all global threads traffic is here in Taiwan. Sometimes things just take off.
Another example of this phenomenon, from the early 2000s:
Yeah people who say "I don't know anyone who uses..." are generally wrong when they draw the conclusion that therefore nobody uses whatever. It's like Americans who don't get that WhatsApp is by far the largest and most used messaging service, because they are mainly using iMessage by default within their circles.
I didn't realise till a few years ago how weirdly dominant Apple compared to Android was/is in the USA compared to everywhere else tbh.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
They are extremely lucky to have Catherine
William chose well. Catherine is like the late Queen. Impeccably polite and well behaved, with some instinctive sense of decorum while managing to be personable
If William had married a Sarah Ferguson type, or a Meghan, then the monarchy would have been in very serious trouble
My niece was at St Andrews at the same time. Her view was that it was Catherine who chose William.
In which case the Royal Family are even more lucky to have her. She clearly knows what the job is, and does it well.
If the less savoury rumours about William are right then he hasn't exactly been suitably grateful for what she has done for him.
Comments
https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
Youtube should be able to show you how to pop off the existing handle in about 5 minutes, then you can either figure out by looking at it what online ordered replacement would fit, or just take the handle along to your nearest decent plumbing trade counter.
https://youtu.be/UiX2m7VAIHI?t=44
(Not @Benpointer ; his new bungalow will be using the "wave at it distractedly" type of controls that they had in the Heart of Gold.)
Being serious, if you suddenly struggle to turn on the tap to fill your kettle or wash your dishes, it is important.
“Many people have asked me why part of the US admin initially backed the Chagos surrender deal before Trump intervened against it. Keir Starmer launched a huge PR campaign in DC led by Lord Mandelson to sell the Chagos deal to the US. It is now blowing up”
https://x.com/nilegardiner/status/2018420560913391958?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
Chagos just gets fishier and fishier. Right now it’s at Fermented Anchovy Level Five
With respect to the Poster, Kemi Badenoch has said "no"
Labour has offered to immediately bring forward a Bill that would allow removal of Peerage very quickly.
Jessica Eglot in the Guardian reported at around noon that (to quote her)
"Understand Tories won't create or support a bill to remove Mandelsons peerage. There is unease amongst Politicians in Westminster about the precedent of a government using its large majority to go after individuals , no matter how egregious . But mechanisms should be there to expel him"
So Kemi as Kemi will scream and scream and scream but when push comes to shove she cannot (a) get the support of Tory Lords and (b) lacks the backbone Starmer, Davey and the SNP does to do this very quickly.
Exclusive:
I'm told that Lord Mandelson used his private BT internet email address to correspond **directly** with the most senior people in government, including Gordon Brown
We initially thought he forwarded government emails to his BT internet account then passed them on to Epstein
In fact two senior government sources say he was corresponding with ministers and officials using his BT internet account. The messages went directly to his Blackberry, and he sent them straight on to Epstein
That email address is now defunct and the Cabinet Office has no was of retrieving the messages on it
It sounds like a pretty extraordinary security breach, with fundamental implications for government record-keeping
It inherently limits the extent of any investigation by the Cabinet Secretary
For example, the Cabinet Office has today told police that the emails in the Epstein cache show evidence that market-sensitive information being passed to Epstein.
But without the Epstein files, it would have no evidence of its own
I can understand why Mrs T would want a modification for the taps just as I now need passenger assist every time I use a train
Then she has, as I noted, some bloody difficult questions to answer of her own.
Your point about the niches is correct, a lot of the most interesting people (for me at least) have abandoned Twitter. I think the whole social media microblogging space has become a lot more fragmented, there's no clear winner, and Twitter is less relevant than it used to be for a lot of people.
Now imagine how this works with the elderly and vulnerable if “Assisted Dying” is allowed to happen…
A good defence team were it come to trial could argue this is so prejudicial against their client that he couldn’t get a fair trial.
Kemi Badenoch is right to oppose such legislation.
He must be appalled as what is going on.
The US has absolutely no interest in fielding lawsuits against American companies on freedom of speech issues.
Oh, and what used to be called Twitter is about to be a tiny part of the massive SpaceX IPO, worth potentially $1.5trn.
How do we know he has a Brazilian? His Y fronts are in still in place.
I think what we have already is ample to say Mandelson has no place in the legislature.
That though is no excuse for the appointment on what was known, purely that Mandelson has always been untrustworthy
I'd be surprised if there wasn't another copy somewhere in an old backup.
That is why Starmer is going down this route to avoid delay by Tories in HoL
Do we need clean skin Reform?
Another example of this phenomenon, from the early 2000s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut
Starmer said he was “not reassured that the totality of the information” about Mandelson and Epstein had “yet emerged”.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/7a9ad1e9-8fed-4a39-b193-d0d6070fbf1d?shareToken=1741a0bacc9c7e4cb4a01926093ffade
But I expect Brazil and Argentina will play regardless.
Any large company IT department gets a list of personal email addresses from HR and adds them to a flag list, why the Hell did government not do the same?
Shelagh Fogerty on LBC wants him gone.
Mrs C and I used to go for walks together; now we can't.
It was a deliberate attack against energy infrastructure, involving a record number of ballistic missiles. In fact, the Russian army exploited the U.S. proposal to briefly halt strikes not to support diplomacy, but to stockpile missiles and wait until the coldest days of the year, when temperatures across large parts of Ukraine drop below -20°C (-4°F).
In this single strike alone, there were 32 ballistic missiles, 11 missiles of other types that approached their targets along a ballistic trajectory, 28 cruise missiles, and 450 attack drones—most of them “Shaheds.” A significant number were intercepted, but not all.
Energy infrastructure facilities in several regions were hit, with the greatest damage in the Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, Kyiv and the region, the Vinnytsia and Odesa regions, as well as in Zaporizhzhia. All necessary forces are being engaged, and I have directed the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Government as a whole to provide equipment from reserve stocks and to urgently contact partners regarding additional support packages. I am having a substantive discussion on this with Mark Rutte right now.
Repair and emergency crews are working in all cities and communities as needed, and all energy companies’ resources are being deployed.
The heating situation is particularly difficult in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, as well as Lozova in the Kharkiv region.
Specific tasks have been assigned to the Defense Ministry and the Air Force Commander. I expect the Foreign Ministry and our entire diplomatic corps to work at maximum intensity to inform partners about what is happening and to secure sufficient support for our people and for our country.
Each such Russian strike confirms that attitudes in Moscow have not changed: they continue to bet on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and they do not take diplomacy seriously. The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly. Glory to Ukraine!
https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2018649188905505017
To the final.
Probably not that surprising - but from recent focus groups over the weekend and yesterday the Epstein Mandelson coverage has cut through way beyond the bubble and seems even more so because of a picture saying a thousand words
Hang on, Peter Hegseth has just sent me a Signal post. Apparently the invasion of Canada has been pencilled in for 1500 hours Eastern Time.
Less than surprised.
I would suggest @TSE backing Badenoch speaks for her objection to Starmer's proposals
Farage supports Kemi in tomorrow opposition day debate
On a BBC documentary about Enoch Powell years ago, one of the talking heads was Roy Hattersley, who was incandescent at a constituent in the 60s telling him that the immigrants would target women. It seems that battle is still being fought
We must be mad, literally mad. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.
https://x.com/danieljhannan/status/2018663791773499512?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I think that's probably more important than any of the reforms around crown revenues, duchies of here, there or wherever, that most people know nothing about. Harry is a personality. He seems genuinely interested in using his accident of birth for good. Whatever else William might be thinking of in terms of reform he needs to be working on a reconciliation with his brother.
If he comes back, it will be on his own and he’ll be sharing an apartment with Andrew.
You can’t walk back from writing books and making documentaries sh!tting on your own family, and ever expect a reconciliation.
If they had actually increased the number of treatments, then absolutely they can claim the win.
Well, it seems I have been more subtle than Mr Eagles can hope for then.
Ref 29.7%
Lab 20.4%
Con 18.3%
Grn 12.8%
LD 12.3%
SNP 2.9%
https://electionmaps.uk/polling/vi
If the less savoury rumours about William are right then he hasn't exactly been suitably grateful for what she has done for him.