How very convenient. What exactly did they warn him about? I don't believe either him or Rayner on this. At the time Lammy said this "Mandelson had “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector”.
Why are you so determined not to believe Rayner on this? It's hard to think of any leading Labour figure who would be less inclined than Rayner to give Starmer a ringing recommendation of why he should appoint Mandelson to anything.
Anyway where there is correspondence on this it is all going to be released before too long. So it's best for MPs to stick to the truth this time, because otherwise this will end badly for them. It's the ones who are not saying anything that could be interesting.
And I note that Mandelson's mate Streeting is one of those who has so far said nothing.......
Peter Mandelson was interviewed and warned in 2008 by British security services that he was being targeted by Russian assets. But he appears to have ignored them. It is inconceivable Keir Starmer was not aware."
There will be no smoking gun. It will be claims some lacky didn't do the research properly, so this information never touched Starmers desk.
Do you think it is possible, with an shared belief between government and the security services that Mandelson could do a "job of work" for them, that a mutual understanding to sex down the Mandelson dossier was reached between them?
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
Peter Mandelson was interviewed and warned in 2008 by British security services that he was being targeted by Russian assets. But he appears to have ignored them. It is inconceivable Keir Starmer was not aware."
There will be no smoking gun. It will be claims some lacky didn't do the research properly, so this information never touched Starmers desk.
Do you think it is possible, with an shared belief between government and the security services that Mandelson could do a "job of work" for them, that a mutual understanding to sex down the Mandelson dossier was reached between them?
Doesn't seem crazy...Sir Humphrey talks to their opposite number in the security services, and says you know old chap you might just want to not go looking too hard there old buddy. Maybe they thought he was just a mate, they didn't actually know that he was passing sensitive info. Or could it even be that Mandy has done a bit of work for the security services in the past, he knows a lot of important people.
"I have been amazed by the seeming lack of interest or simply inability of US journalists to really get to grips with the story of Jeffrey Epstein, how he made such a fortune and why so many powerful people were seemingly so enchanted by him. What has been written has been predictably lurid, yet there is clearly so much more to this story."
They make a good point. The story is only interesting because it involves the rich and famous. This is not about child exploitation.There were more girls and of a younger age trafficed in Rotherham.
In the last two years the Israelis with the help of the Americans killed over 25,000 children.
Virginia Giuffre was abused from the age of 7 by her father and her father's best friend. We haven't been introduced to either of them but HRH Perince Andrew who possibly had sex with her aged 17 he believed consensually is now a pariah.
The only thing that gives this story legs is our prurient interest in the celebrity of the clients. And yet no one seems to be particularly interested in what these clients did or even who they were. Just the two pimps and not even who financed them and why.
That's a load of cobblers Roger.
There are other reasons an awful lot of people are extremely interested in the story which you ignore completely.
It involves people with power who have used that power to cover up, and to prevent legal investigation on a massive scale. It also involves international money laundering and influence peddling for hostile powers like Russia.
Do you really think "release the files" has become a political issue purely because of prurience ?
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
If Epstein had happened ten or twenty years earlier or later then there would still had been a scandal, all that would have changed is that there would have been people in a different generation implicated. Who they would have been is a hypothetical which can never be answered but they would have included some people otherwise thought to be 'decent guys'.
Incidentally I also referred to JD Vance in my initial comment, yet you haven't been concerned about that.
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
The evidence is that Reform have gone from 7.7% to about 20% in polling and the Tories from 12.7% to an average of 11% so the bulk of Reforms increase in support is not coming from Scottish Tories and thus the Tory vote is very unlikely to collapse yo them where it held up in 2024
There's also coming 5th in Perth and Kinross on less than their national average to consider re the rural Perth seats
If Epstein had happened ten or twenty years earlier or later then there would still had been a scandal, all that would have changed is that there would have been people in a different generation implicated. Who they would have been is a hypothetical which can never be answered but they would have included some people otherwise thought to be 'decent guys'.
Incidentally I also referred to JD Vance in my initial comment, yet you haven't been concerned about that.
Altogether now - my side good, their side bad.
So you're now saying Vance gives every indication of being a decent guy ?
You make some interesting arguments.
"which of us knows if we'd participate in the rape of children" if we had the opportunity, is up there, too.
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
The evidence is that Reform have gone from 7.7% to about 20% in polling and the Tories from 12.7% to an average of 11% so the bulk of Reforms increase in support is not coming from Scottish Tories and thus the Tory vote is very unlikely to collapse yo them where it held up in 2024
In 2021 the Scottish Tories got 21.9% on the Holyrood constituency vote.
So clearly nearly half of them voted Labour in 2024 and now many of them back Reform as well as the nearly a third of 2021 and 2024 Scottish Tories who have gone Reform,
In 2024 in Perth and Kinrosshire for example the SNP got 37%, the Tories 29% and Labour 18%. The combined Tory and Labour vote was 10% more than the SNP vote and Reform are gaining from 2024 Labour as well as Tory voters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_and_Kinross-shire
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
The evidence is that Reform have gone from 7.7% to about 20% in polling and the Tories from 12.7% to an average of 11% so the bulk of Reforms increase in support is not coming from Scottish Tories and thus the Tory vote is very unlikely to collapse yo them where it held up in 2024
In 2021 the Scottish Tories got 21.9% on the Holyrood constituency vote.
So clearly nearly half of them voted Labour in 2024 and now many of them back Reform as well as the nearly a third of 2021 and 2024 Scottish Tories who have gone Reform
Well good luck to Reform building on their 5th place and 5.9% in Perth and Kinross in 2024. The 6.9% and fourth in Angus and the Perthshire Glen's might be more fruitful Even half the Tory 2021 vote isn't enough
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
The evidence is that Reform have gone from 7.7% to about 20% in polling and the Tories from 12.7% to an average of 11% so the bulk of Reforms increase in support is not coming from Scottish Tories and thus the Tory vote is very unlikely to collapse yo them where it held up in 2024
In 2021 the Scottish Tories got 21.9% on the Holyrood constituency vote.
So clearly nearly half of them voted Labour in 2024 and now many of them back Reform as well as the nearly a third of 2021 and 2024 Scottish Tories who have gone Reform,
In 2024 in Perth and Kinrosshire for example the SNP got 37%, the Tories 29% and Labour 18%. The combined Tory and Labour vote was 10% more than the SNP vote and Reform are gaining from 2024 Labour as well as Tory voters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_and_Kinross-shire
Reform aren't on 'the Tury and Labour vote combined' in the polls
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
The evidence is that Reform have gone from 7.7% to about 20% in polling and the Tories from 12.7% to an average of 11% so the bulk of Reforms increase in support is not coming from Scottish Tories and thus the Tory vote is very unlikely to collapse yo them where it held up in 2024
In 2021 the Scottish Tories got 21.9% on the Holyrood constituency vote.
So clearly nearly half of them voted Labour in 2024 and now many of them back Reform as well as the nearly a third of 2021 and 2024 Scottish Tories who have gone Reform
Well good luck to Reform building on their 5th place and 5.9% in Perth and Kinross in 2024. The 6.9% and fourth in Angus and the Perthshire Glen's might be more fruitful Even half the Tory 2021 vote isn't enough
Angus North in 2021 was SNP 48%, Conservative 39%, Labour 8%,
The SNP vote is down 13% on 2021, so if Reform took most of the 2021 Conservative vote (which Yougov says they have) and added a bit of the Labour vote they could take it. Especially if the Scottish Greens stand a candidate for the constituency too and eat into the SNP voteshare
You often see (and enjoy) Left on Left battles, but Right on Right feels more common than it used to be, and a subset of that I enjoy is when it comes to differing views about the online right and how much it reflects reality, with some traditional or even non-traditional right wingers rather more skeptical about claims of youthful popularity which are in vogue with the more online heavy rightists.
I disagree with @HYUFD about Badenoch's ouster should the Tories poll below Labour in May. And yet another leadership contest would just bring ridicule and derision on the party whoever emerged as the victor. It's not going to happen.
However, he is on much stronger ground criticising her dismissal of the Ruth Davidson/Andy Street initiative and others on the one-nation wing. That was not good politics when the Conservatives need to expand their support, particularly if they stand any chance of regaining the dozens of seats lost to the LibDems in what were once their heartlands.
Well I disagree, if the Tories poll BELOW the most unpopular government of the last 50 years after the Truss administration in May, let alone below Reform too, then Tory MPs will see their seats as gone anyway, letters will flood into the 1922, a VONC will be held and Kemi will be gone by the summer.
It wouldn't be the leadership contest that would have brought derision on the party, it would be voters deciding Kemi's leadership had done that, most UK voters would have decided Kemi was so bad they wouldn't even pick her over Starmer let alone Farage!
Your second paragraph is spot on, having already lost the Jenrick wing of the party to Reform, for Kemi to then trash the centrist One Nation wing that until then were loyal to her too was a major error. It will have sent the likes of Davidson and Street from allies to enemies and they will I expect already be plotting to replace her with Cleverly
Have you asked Cleverly if he would stand against Kemi ?
If Tory MPs removed Kemi by VONC he wouldn't need to, the job would be his anyway
Tory mps wont VONC her and he may not even want it
If the Tories are third in May they definitely will VONC her, as Tory MPs would see their seats as gone otherwise
The Tories are fifth in Scotland according to the latest polling.
Kemi having an impact.
Cammo only won one seat in Scotland in 2010. He was UK PM for 6 years.
True enough, and on some models (uncertain though they are) retain more in Scotland even going sub-100 seats, but a Holyrood masscare is at the least another heavy blow if it happens.
Matching Annie's 2011 vote share and winning a couple of constituencies is probably the baseline target for worst acceptable result
I always remember Eck paying tribute to Ms Goldie after she announced she was stepping down as leader saying without her their result could have been far worse. I'd guess an absolute base of 12 or 13 MSP's or thereabouts ... there are 3 Tory constituencies which feel too posh to go Reform - Borders, W Aberdeens, Eastwood
They'd polled 8% in the period before so yes, it could have been much worse Yeah I've got 12 and 2 or 3 Constituencies pencilled in. Eastwood might go SNP. Not sure what JCs personal vote is like.....
Just getting a feeling right now that Reform are doing better in working class areas in Scotland than rural wards. I guess Tories will target an MSP in every region, Glasgow being the biggest challenge. Of the 5 constituencies they hold, I can't pick one which they'll definitely lose. Vote will be down, substantially, but so will the SNPs.
Not sure on JC, but Newton Mearns (south) generally weighs the Tory vote. Even with a sitting MP, Slab wont target Eastwood - it feels a bit like you scratch my back i'll scratch yours, with voters swapping Con for Holyrood and Lab for W minster
Think there are a few SNP MP retreads standing in May
Eastwood is a retread i think Of the Tory held seats i guess I'd order likelihood of holding as Berwickshire, West Aberdeenshire, Eastwood, Dumfriesshire, Dumfries and Galloway Then they'd probably target Ayr relatively hard and Banff nominally and put everything else into the list effort
Perthshire rural seats, even Swinney's, could also go Reform on the Yougov constituency Holyrood swing to Reform since 2021
Reform would need the tory vote to collapse to them I think, the SNP should probably be over 35% in both and even on a straight swing from 2021 the Tories will get towards 25% in each
The evidence is that Reform have gone from 7.7% to about 20% in polling and the Tories from 12.7% to an average of 11% so the bulk of Reforms increase in support is not coming from Scottish Tories and thus the Tory vote is very unlikely to collapse yo them where it held up in 2024
In 2021 the Scottish Tories got 21.9% on the Holyrood constituency vote.
So clearly nearly half of them voted Labour in 2024 and now many of them back Reform as well as the nearly a third of 2021 and 2024 Scottish Tories who have gone Reform
Well good luck to Reform building on their 5th place and 5.9% in Perth and Kinross in 2024. The 6.9% and fourth in Angus and the Perthshire Glen's might be more fruitful Even half the Tory 2021 vote isn't enough
Angus North in 2021 was SNP 48%, Conservative 39%, Labour 8%,
The SNP vote is down 13% on 2021, so if Reform took most of the 2021 Conservative vote (which Yougov says they have) and added a bit of the Labour vote they could take it. Especially if the Scottish Greens stand a candidate for the constituency too and eat into the SNP voteshare
If they get more votes than the SNP they win, yes. I dispute the number of votes you think they are getting and from where The Rural Toriesdidnt jump to Reform en masse in Stranraer and the Rhins for example
If Epstein had happened ten or twenty years earlier or later then there would still had been a scandal, all that would have changed is that there would have been people in a different generation implicated. Who they would have been is a hypothetical which can never be answered but they would have included some people otherwise thought to be 'decent guys'.
Incidentally I also referred to JD Vance in my initial comment, yet you haven't been concerned about that.
Altogether now - my side good, their side bad.
So you're now saying Vance gives every indication of being a decent guy ?
You make some interesting arguments.
"which of us knows if we'd participate in the rape of children" if we had the opportunity, is up there, too.
Thanks for admitting that your concern about imagined slights only applies to people you deem to be on your side.
You really have overdosed on the pompom waving that led people to insist that there was nothing wrong with Joe Biden and that Hunter Biden was a victim of a political witch hunt.
By the way Vance is a self-made man who has risen to the top from an disadvantaged beginning.
He seems to be a good family man and there doesn't appear to be any apparent scandals about him - if there had been the Dems wouldn't have needed to make up stories about him. He doesn't even seem to have betrayed anyone politically yet. Perhaps the easiest thing to criticise him for is his change of attitude to Trump - whether he truly believes that or has been using Trump to rise to his present position is open for debate.
Now Vance isn't in line with your political views (or mine for that matter) but as politicians go I wouldn't class him as less decent than average.
If you want to put politicians into the non-decent category then perhaps you could start with those Dems that lied about Biden's health. Including, it seems in a mild way, Jon Ossoff.
You often see (and enjoy) Left on Left battles, but Right on Right feels more common than it used to be, and a subset of that I enjoy is when it comes to differing views about the online right and how much it reflects reality, with some traditional or even non-traditional right wingers rather more skeptical about claims of youthful popularity which are in vogue with the more online heavy rightists.
Reform are the most popular party amongst men over 50. Women over 50 it's the Tories. Greens are the most popular party amongst women under 50. Men under 50 it's Labour.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
Speaking of which, @fitalass, I asked you on Dec 26 if you could provide a discussant contribution. That would require you to read Draft 12 of the article and provide a comment (about 300 words would be nice). If you can't then that's OK, it's not a problem, but I need to know if you can't.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
Reasons are as follows
People just grow out of it.
There aren't as many elections as there were in the 2010's. Don't forget in the 2010s there were two POTUS elections (12,16), two UK referenda (Scot, EU), four UK General Elections (10,15,17,19), and two European Parliament elections (14,19), all of which generated interest. Now it's just whining about stuff we can't fix or isn't at the election level.
The 2015's Event. In the middle of the 2010s something happened. The advent of large screens, smartphones, social media and engagement algorithms led to everybody getting excited and aggressive. Social media isn't fun anymore and people silo'd themselves.
Some other stuff I've forgotten.
I'm only here because it's difficult to sleep and I work from a laptop for clients who don't care about office hours. If life was different I'd be somewhere else...but it isn't so I'm not.
Lib Dem’s have insitututed a ‘review’ - kick it into the long grass ?
‘ It’s been THIRTEEN years since @Channel4News first reported on sexual harassment allegations against the Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard. Then, the Lib Dems were in government. This week their leader was in Parliament haranguing @Keir_Starmer about why Peter Mandelson was still in the House of Lords. That incensed @aligoldsworthy - one of the women who originally came forward. She emailed @EdwardJDavey and passed the email to me on @TimesRadio . We interviewed her again and before I came off air Sir Ed said he wanted Lord Rennard out of the second chamber. Change is happening. Lord Rennard continues to deny the allegations.’
He suspended Rennard straight away. That's not kicking it into the long grass.
2013 to today is not ‘straight away’ and why did it take these victims making a fuss over his parties double standards when Ed D criticised why Mandelson was still in the Lords. It was only done as his hand was forced.
As Cathy Newman says
It’s been THIRTEEN years since @Channel4News first reported on sexual harassment allegations against the Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard.
He was suspended at the time. There was an investigation at the time that was inconclusive. He was eventually re-admitted to the party. Someone recently wrote to Davey and pointed out the case to him, arguing this wasn't good enough, and Davey agreed, immediately suspending Rennard again.
Now is a good time to clear out the skeletons in the cupboard while the media is fixated on Epstein / Mandelson. As long as Trump doesn't start WW3 there will be a few more newsworthy items.
Peter Mandelson was interviewed and warned in 2008 by British security services that he was being targeted by Russian assets. But he appears to have ignored them. It is inconceivable Keir Starmer was not aware."
There will be no smoking gun. It will be claims some lacky didn't do the research properly, so this information never touched Starmers desk.
DESPERATE DAN uses words like "inconceivable" like confetti. There is simply no logical reason it would cross Starmers desk unless some one put it there!
Looks like they have got a "volunteer" who has agreed to jump under the bus.
There is also growing speculation that Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary responsible for the vetting process for Mandelson’s appointment, will soon leave No 10 as part of a wider shake-up.
Meanwhile, an unnamed minister is said to be on the verge of resigning, which could trigger a leadership challenge by a stalking horse, or even a genuine challenger.
Good riddance. Man’s a complete drip. Disaster at Education, disaster at Health and a disaster at the top.
He was slightly better than Simon Case but so would my pet cat have been.
However, that’s not a lot of use unless someone capable, honest and competent takes over, and there don’t seem to be many available. If Starmer’s track record holds true he’ll probably appoint Susan Acland-Hood and the catastrophes will inevitably continue.
If Epstein had happened ten or twenty years earlier or later then there would still had been a scandal, all that would have changed is that there would have been people in a different generation implicated. Who they would have been is a hypothetical which can never be answered but they would have included some people otherwise thought to be 'decent guys'.
Incidentally I also referred to JD Vance in my initial comment, yet you haven't been concerned about that.
Altogether now - my side good, their side bad.
So you're now saying Vance gives every indication of being a decent guy ?
You make some interesting arguments.
"which of us knows if we'd participate in the rape of children" if we had the opportunity, is up there, too.
Thanks for admitting that your concern about imagined slights only applies to people you deem to be on your side.
You really have overdosed on the pompom waving that led people to insist that there was nothing wrong with Joe Biden and that Hunter Biden was a victim of a political witch hunt.
By the way Vance is a self-made man who has risen to the top from an disadvantaged beginning.
He seems to be a good family man and there doesn't appear to be any apparent scandals about him - if there had been the Dems wouldn't have needed to make up stories about him. He doesn't even seem to have betrayed anyone politically yet. Perhaps the easiest thing to criticise him for is his change of attitude to Trump - whether he truly believes that or has been using Trump to rise to his present position is open for debate.
Now Vance isn't in line with your political views (or mine for that matter) but as politicians go I wouldn't class him as less decent than average.
If you want to put politicians into the non-decent category then perhaps you could start with those Dems that lied about Biden's health. Including, it seems in a mild way, Jon Ossoff.
Lib Dem’s have insitututed a ‘review’ - kick it into the long grass ?
‘ It’s been THIRTEEN years since @Channel4News first reported on sexual harassment allegations against the Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard. Then, the Lib Dems were in government. This week their leader was in Parliament haranguing @Keir_Starmer about why Peter Mandelson was still in the House of Lords. That incensed @aligoldsworthy - one of the women who originally came forward. She emailed @EdwardJDavey and passed the email to me on @TimesRadio . We interviewed her again and before I came off air Sir Ed said he wanted Lord Rennard out of the second chamber. Change is happening. Lord Rennard continues to deny the allegations.’
He suspended Rennard straight away. That's not kicking it into the long grass.
2013 to today is not ‘straight away’ and why did it take these victims making a fuss over his parties double standards when Ed D criticised why Mandelson was still in the Lords. It was only done as his hand was forced.
As Cathy Newman says
It’s been THIRTEEN years since @Channel4News first reported on sexual harassment allegations against the Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard.
He was suspended at the time. There was an investigation at the time that was inconclusive. He was eventually re-admitted to the party. Someone recently wrote to Davey and pointed out the case to him, arguing this wasn't good enough, and Davey agreed, immediately suspending Rennard again.
If he still has scope to suspend him despite a previous inconclusive investigation and readmission, then then obvious question would be was there not a way to not readmit him in the first place? They can argue about the timelines of what was reasonably reaction perhaps, but at a glance (all most people will see), it probably doesn't look great.
You can read all the details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Rennard,_Baron_Rennard#Allegations_of_sexual_harassment An investigation was held and concluded there was insufficient evidence to do anything. The police had already concluded there was insufficient evidence to continue an investigation. This was during Nick Clegg's leadership. Farron and Swinson kept Rennard sidelined in the party, but didn't stop him being in the party. Davey was challenged on the matter and has taken this new action, apparently on the basis of new legal advice. I see it as a case of the best time to do something about Rennard was 12 years ago, but the second best time to do something about Rennard is now. But, sure, it's not good PR for the party.
I thought one of the victims was encouraged to believe that pursuing her claims would be bad for her career so she withdrew the allegations
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
Speaking of which, @fitalass, I asked you on Dec 26 if you could provide a discussant contribution. That would require you to read Draft 12 of the article and provide a comment (about 300 words would be nice). If you can't then that's OK, it's not a problem, but I need to know if you can't.
Hi viewcode, just seen this and I have messaged you.
Peter Mandelson was interviewed and warned in 2008 by British security services that he was being targeted by Russian assets. But he appears to have ignored them. It is inconceivable Keir Starmer was not aware."
There will be no smoking gun. It will be claims some lacky didn't do the research properly, so this information never touched Starmers desk.
DESPERATE DAN uses words like "inconceivable" like confetti. There is simply no logical reason it would cross Starmers desk unless some one put it there!
Surely the vetting for Ambassador to the US should include intelligence assessments and, er, spying for a foreign power is a bit serious. You would expect it to go to the decision maker for a post of this nature
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
Good morning, everyone.
Spellcheckers can often be poor. Gaol trips up plenty of them.
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Indeed. There are significant Epstein criminal investigations or people losing their jobs in the UK, France, Spain, Norway, but not the US, where most of Epstein’s associates were.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Sadly I think Hurstllama is deceased.not 100pc certain but think so.
Well done for getting through it. They miust pay by the word.
I think it goes into considerable detail as to why Starmer doesn't get it. He never was a politician.. didn't come up thro the ranks. The party was foolish to choose him but them again the talent pool was empty. Look at the front bench.. just awful.
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Sadly I think Hurstllama is deceased.not 100pc certain but think so.
I would be so sorry to hear this news, a lovely gentleman and always a delight to engage with on here even when we did not always agree. I once lost a charity bet to HurstLlama and immediately donated the agreed amount to his chosen charity many years ago. I still to this day get mail from them and it always make me think of him.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Sadly I think Hurstllama is deceased.not 100pc certain but think so.
Sorry to hear that.
I'm not a social animal, but did have a few meals with him when he visited Leeds (his son was a student here). A good egg, and sadly missed.
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
“ I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG! ”
Does this mean that you require cask strength turnip juice, like @malcolmg ?
But, at least in the real world, you are not entitled to that when you are guilty of gross misconduct. Contracts are mutual. If, as Starmer claimed on Thursday, he lied and lied to get the appointment he was not entitled to any notice and would not be able to enforce any notice period in it.
So sack him for gross misconduct and he sues. I’d imagine that Starmer doesn’t want disclosure
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
True.
Having said that, the clock is always ticking for all of us, not just Prime Ministers. The end is always a question of "when, not if".
Powell (E, not L)'s dictum about political careers was right. The successful politicians are the ones who manage to do some good first.
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I think most who post regularly know the answer to that though it has got better over the last three or four weeks
How very convenient. What exactly did they warn him about? I don't believe either him or Rayner on this. At the time Lammy said this "Mandelson had “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector”.
It's a curious line to walk in such situations, as obviously everyone wants to give the impression (or outright state) that they had their doubts about the decision, but they have to know that there will be public statements from them saying otherwise.
It is not impossible such claims are true, people might have given warnings but then once the decision was made they were good little soldiers and advanced the approved lines, but that doesn't really help since it is an admission they lied to push a party narrative. Which often happens I'm sure, but you don't want to be caught out doing so.
To be fair to Lammy (what!?) the quote that @cyclefree cites is absolutely true. It doesn’t mean that he is the right person for the job or that Lammy was keen on his appointment
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
True.
Having said that, the clock is always ticking for all of us, not just Prime Ministers. The end is always a question of "when, not if".
Powell (E, not L)'s dictum about political careers was right. The successful politicians are the ones who manage to do some good first.
Been a little while since I read a bio of an English king but it was striking that they almost always end badly. If they fail in war they may get killed off and die young (or, worse, survive long enough to do as much damage as John). But even if they're successful (Edward III, Edward I, Henry IV) and live a while they can die enfeebled by age or disease.
But, at least in the real world, you are not entitled to that when you are guilty of gross misconduct. Contracts are mutual. If, as Starmer claimed on Thursday, he lied and lied to get the appointment he was not entitled to any notice and would not be able to enforce any notice period in it.
So sack him for gross misconduct and he sues. I’d imagine that Starmer doesn’t want disclosure
Governments are not very good at getting rid of people using Employment Law. There is a long list but with the new Employment Rights Act coming, the chances to get rid of people is getting much more difficult. Can you imagine what "Day 1" rights would do?
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
Is Starmer an idiot for bringing Mandelson into government of his own volition, or was he forced to do it by the circumstances by which he achieved his position?
It was entirely Starmer's call. If he was influenced by McSweeney that decision was his choice too. It was, as Gove suggested at the time, a work of genius in order to handle Trump. Twelve months later it wasn't such a good idea.
Them's the breaks.
It should have been obvious how bad it was when that absolute bellend Gove lauded it.
Peter Mandelson was interviewed and warned in 2008 by British security services that he was being targeted by Russian assets. But he appears to have ignored them. It is inconceivable Keir Starmer was not aware."
There will be no smoking gun. It will be claims some lacky didn't do the research properly, so this information never touched Starmers desk.
DESPERATE DAN uses words like "inconceivable" like confetti. There is simply no logical reason it would cross Starmers desk unless some one put it there!
Well done for getting through it. They miust pay by the word.
I think it goes into considerable detail as to why Starmer doesn't get it. He never was a politician.. didn't come up thro the ranks. The party was foolish to choose him but them again the talent pool was empty. Look at the front bench.. just awful.
The front bench by standards 20-30 years ago is poor but by the standards of the past 10-15 years is in parts highly competent. Name me a Shadow Cabinter Minister who is head and shoulders better than equavalent in Cabinet as an example?
Healy, McFadden , both Alexanders, E Reynolds , Jones , Benn , Mahmood , Streeting , Miliband , Phiilipson comparable with any in their respective roles in the past decade.
I mean Burghart, Stride , Patel , Philp , Trott , Atkins , Lopez , Griffith , Whatley , Atkins , Couthino , Holden fecking dicky Holden ! You're having a laugh Tories!
How very convenient. What exactly did they warn him about? I don't believe either him or Rayner on this. At the time Lammy said this "Mandelson had “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector”.
It's a curious line to walk in such situations, as obviously everyone wants to give the impression (or outright state) that they had their doubts about the decision, but they have to know that there will be public statements from them saying otherwise.
It is not impossible such claims are true, people might have given warnings but then once the decision was made they were good little soldiers and advanced the approved lines, but that doesn't really help since it is an admission they lied to push a party narrative. Which often happens I'm sure, but you don't want to be caught out doing so.
To be fair to Lammy (what!?) the quote that @cyclefree cites is absolutely true. It doesn’t mean that he is the right person for the job or that Lammy was keen on his appointment
Hammy is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike, however the ashtray would make a better PM.
Well done for getting through it. They miust pay by the word.
I think it goes into considerable detail as to why Starmer doesn't get it. He never was a politician.. didn't come up thro the ranks. The party was foolish to choose him but them again the talent pool was empty. Look at the front bench.. just awful.
To use everyone's favourite cliche there's a lot to unpick there. It struck me as a hatchet job full of bile and prejudice and therefore really irritating
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
A good article by Rawnsey and a wonderfully ironic end sentence!
Banjaxed is a new word to.me...even spellchecker doesn't seem to know it.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
NYT: FBI agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Renee Good's SUV received orders to stop, including from Kash Patel.
The fear? "a civil rights investigation would contradict Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle."
Can the head of the FbI obstruct justice? Genuine question surprisingly!
Edit: I mean be charge with rather than do it; of course he can do it
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Ironic you mention Men’s Sheds. I looked to possibly join one locally as it sounded a worthy thing for men to get together, and can talk about issues. The two local to me are run by women !!
This board since I first same in 2021 has steadily moved towards ‘my side right or wrong’ and a lack of tolerance of views that the majority posters don’t align with. Be it on US politics, again just look at the bullying of William Glenn over his posts during the US election, or be it on U.K. politics.
Here's a story that's both old as time, and of our age;
The result was the account Reform_UK_2025, which co-opted the logo and name of Nigel Farage’s political movement without permission from the party. It posted video tours of Londoners’ homes accompanied by an AI-generated voice claiming properties in Knightsbridge and Chelsea had been handed over to illegal immigrants for free. It smeared residents, who were visible in some of the videos, as rapists and said that others proclaimed their hatred of the UK while collecting the keys.
It was an instant hit, attracting millions of views. It was also, the man confesses, all lies.
"Never mind the truth or the consequences, count the sales/clicks" has been the motto of a certain sort of media for as long as we've had media. But the numbers now doing it means that it's got a lot worse.
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
I disagree
If he was he would support Kemi
I don’t think that he doesn’t support Kemi
He’s just one of those people who gets tied up in knots in data analytics about today and doesn’t have the ability to lift his head from the numbers to form his own judgement about the future
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
I disagree
If he was he would support Kemi
I don’t think that he doesn’t support Kemi
He’s just one of those people who gets tied up in knots in data analytics about today and doesn’t have the ability to lift his head from the numbers to form his own judgement about the future
NYT: FBI agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Renee Good's SUV received orders to stop, including from Kash Patel.
The fear? "a civil rights investigation would contradict Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle."
Can the head of the FbI obstruct justice? Genuine question surprisingly!
Edit: I mean be charge with rather than do it; of course he can do it
Yes, but Trump would pardon and then reinstate him so why bother?
How very convenient. What exactly did they warn him about? I don't believe either him or Rayner on this. At the time Lammy said this "Mandelson had “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector”.
It's a curious line to walk in such situations, as obviously everyone wants to give the impression (or outright state) that they had their doubts about the decision, but they have to know that there will be public statements from them saying otherwise.
It is not impossible such claims are true, people might have given warnings but then once the decision was made they were good little soldiers and advanced the approved lines, but that doesn't really help since it is an admission they lied to push a party narrative. Which often happens I'm sure, but you don't want to be caught out doing so.
To be fair to Lammy (what!?) the quote that @cyclefree cites is absolutely true. It doesn’t mean that he is the right person for the job or that Lammy was keen on his appointment
Hammy is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike, however the ashtray would make a better PM.
A lot of hindsight judgmentalism going on here. The UK isn't a surveillance state, Mandeson's social diary and private communications weren't public from 2010 onwards until the Epstein files were released. So the full extent of his involvement wasn't known He got fired in September when it first began to leak, prior to that it was his previous form in govt he could be judged on and 2008-10 he appeared to have behaved until the emails to Epstein were released last week. It was a mistake to appoint him clearly, but unlike some of his colleagues, Kier hadn't worked alongside and didn't have the same distrust based on experience as Ed Milliband and others.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Ironic you mention Men’s Sheds. I looked to possibly join one locally as it sounded a worthy thing for men to get together, and can talk about issues. The two local to me are run by women !!
This board since I first same in 2021 has steadily moved towards ‘my side right or wrong’ and a lack of tolerance of views that the majority posters don’t align with. Be it on US politics, again just look at the bullying of William Glenn over his posts during the US election, or be it on U.K. politics.
Hopefully your health picks up.
I've looked at similar things round this way for mental health purposes/assistance. They seem OK but I struggle with in person anythings anyway. The chance to do or try some stuff is quite alluring though. The board in 2026 doesn't feel that different in some ways to 2006, although far fewer Labour devotees and far fewer blue devotees, PB Tories have gone shy. Although I'm probably ready to get back on board tbf, I like Kemi enough and dislike pretty much all the Reform big names enough to be considering rejoining. I haven't been a party member since 2010. There's still the willy waving about 'back it with a bet' (understandable on a betting forum) and the 'you would say that/your views are invalid because of the box I've put you in' tendency but there have been far worse posters here historically (imo). For my part I'm often too emotional and/or waspish and I have a pretty gruelling sense of humour that some posters clearly don't gel with or get but it's frustrating when that gets used as a baton to hit you with when I'm posting a drier analysis or predictive post or people can't differentiate the two. You can viscerally dislike Labour as I do or generally not particularly like the Libs, Greens, Reform etc as I do but that's never (for me anyway) a comnent or guide to how I feel about their posters or voters. There only a couple of people on here I've ever spoken to off of here so I'm not 'qualified' to judge as it were
It would be ICONTHEIVABLE!! to enforce not paying Mandelson. He is Of The Elect (not Elected). His Golden Goodbye is a Human Right.
If you failed to pay, it would suggest he was just another employee. Just like the 99%, not the 1%
Next you’ll be suggesting that he can’t have some non-executive directorships, chair a think thank or two and get a job advising the government!!
These arseholes always look after their chums with our money. Bring out the tumbrils.
Unfortunately, the Tumbril Delivery Project for Scotland has been stuck in development longer than the ferries were. The latest attempt costs £234 million a copy. It lacks wheels.
They are relatively hopefully that a revised design can be delivered in 6 years time.
How very convenient. What exactly did they warn him about? I don't believe either him or Rayner on this. At the time Lammy said this "Mandelson had “a wealth of experience in trade, economic and foreign policy from his years in government and the private sector”.
It's a curious line to walk in such situations, as obviously everyone wants to give the impression (or outright state) that they had their doubts about the decision, but they have to know that there will be public statements from them saying otherwise.
It is not impossible such claims are true, people might have given warnings but then once the decision was made they were good little soldiers and advanced the approved lines, but that doesn't really help since it is an admission they lied to push a party narrative. Which often happens I'm sure, but you don't want to be caught out doing so.
To be fair to Lammy (what!?) the quote that @cyclefree cites is absolutely true. It doesn’t mean that he is the right person for the job or that Lammy was keen on his appointment
Hammy is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike, however the ashtray would make a better PM.
A lot of hindsight judgmentalism going on here. The UK isn't a surveillance state, Mandeson's social diary and private communications weren't public from 2010 onwards until the Epstein files were released. So the full extent of his involvement wasn't known He got fired in September when it first began to leak, prior to that it was his previous form in govt he could be judged on and 2008-10 he appeared to have behaved until the emails to Epstein were released last week. It was a mistake to appoint him clearly, but unlike some of his colleagues, Kier hadn't worked alongside and didn't have the same distrust based on experience as Ed Milliband and others.
NYT: FBI agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Renee Good's SUV received orders to stop, including from Kash Patel.
The fear? "a civil rights investigation would contradict Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who fired at her as she drove her vehicle."
Can the head of the FbI obstruct justice? Genuine question surprisingly!
Edit: I mean be charge with rather than do it; of course he can do it
If he's in cahoots with the Justice Department, and if Congress won't exercise its powers of oversight, then it's extremely difficult.
It's possible to bring a civil rights case without the cooperation of the DOJ, but doing so against the full resources of the federal government - and with the chance that you'll land in front of a judge like Eileen Cannon - isn't quick, east, or hf certain outcome.
Does anyone know why so many of the best PB posters have left the site over the last few years? I'm thinking of people like Antifrank/Alistair Meeks, SouthamObserver, Richard Navabi, Fitalass, etc. I just think it's sad and regrettable that they're not here anymore.
I was sorry to see Antifrank and David Herdson leave PB, both regularly contributed very insightful and imformative must read regular articles. And I also miss SouthernObserver, Richard Navabi and HurstLlama as well as that ancient old Jacobite rogue JackW who was always teasing us all tried to guess his identity. Sadly I have not been posting as much since Christmas due to ill health.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
Ironic you mention Men’s Sheds. I looked to possibly join one locally as it sounded a worthy thing for men to get together, and can talk about issues. The two local to me are run by women !!
This board since I first same in 2021 has steadily moved towards ‘my side right or wrong’ and a lack of tolerance of views that the majority posters don’t align with. Be it on US politics, again just look at the bullying of William Glenn over his posts during the US election, or be it on U.K. politics.
Hopefully your health picks up.
Going to a PB drinks is quite interesting. Quite a lot of posters I didnt think I would get along with were quite different in person. It changed my online relationships to them afterwards.
Interesting the ladies on the Trevor Phillips programme are incandescent that this is all about men acting as if they are the victims from Mandelson, to Blair, Brown, Starmer and in the US
They reminded viewers it is the female victims who are wronged not an international mans club
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
I disagree
If he was he would support Kemi
I don’t think that he doesn’t support Kemi
He’s just one of those people who gets tied up in knots in data analytics about today and doesn’t have the ability to lift his head from the numbers to form his own judgement about the future
Good morning
I agree
Morning Big G. On the whole Kemi, Tory, May elections, the future thing.... i spend a lot of time perhaps pointlessly poring over data points ftom local by elections and the like to fill my time. It seems to me fairly clear that statistically it does not look like May 26 will be anywhere near as bad as May 25 for the Tories in England - fewer councils to defend, the local organisations seem better organised and funded, they have London which should be relatively OK results wise and Reform won't look as dominant (tories will be hoping to outpoll them there too). Scotland they ought to be able to at least match their previous low point of 2011 or close to and Wales they just have to take the inevitable massive hit and hope Labours implosion takes the headlines. So, unless they underachieve badly from that expectation things will be 'improving' from the bottom and any challenge would be seen for what it is - reginacide for the sake of it
Any athlete embarrassed to represent the United States has no business wearing Team USA across their chest. Representing this country is an honor. If you don’t love America, step aside, someone who does will gladly take your place. https://x.com/emilyraustin/status/2020154206301155429
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
I disagree
If he was he would support Kemi
I don’t think that he doesn’t support Kemi
He’s just one of those people who gets tied up in knots in data analytics about today and doesn’t have the ability to lift his head from the numbers to form his own judgement about the future
Good morning
I agree
Morning Big G. On the whole Kemi, Tory, May elections, the future thing.... i spend a lot of time perhaps pointlessly poring over data points ftom local by elections and the like to fill my time. It seems to me fairly clear that statistically it does not look like May 26 will be anywhere near as May 25 for the Tories in England - fewer councils to defend, the local organisations seem better organised and funded, they have London which should be relatively OK results wise and Reform won't look as dominant (tories will be hoping to outpoll them too). Scotland they ought p yo be able to at least match their previous low point of 2011 or close to and Wales they just have to take the inevitable massive hit and hope Labours implosion takes the headlines. So, unless they underachieve badly from that expectation things will be 'improving' from the bottom and any challenge would be seen for heat it is - reginacide for the sake of it
Thank you and agree it would be reginacide and simply ridiculous
Actually it feeds into this mornings Trevor Phillips panel whose ladies are furious with men acting as if they are victims and the idea one of the only 2 high profile women [ Angela Rayner the other] should be defenestrated by men just adds to the anti women narrative
Interesting the ladies on the Trevor Phillips programme are incandescent that this is all about men acting as if they are the victims from Mandelson, to Blair, Brown, Starmer and in the US
They reminded viewers it is the female victims who are wronged not an international mans club
I think Starmers 'he lied to me, woe is me!' approach was misguided and has backfired He's not a victim of anything but getting caught employing a serious wrong un who was known to be a serious wrong un and is now exposed as an even more serious wrong un
Just finishing my whisky before bed. Two random comments on tonight's musings:
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
I disagree
If he was he would support Kemi
I don’t think that he doesn’t support Kemi
He’s just one of those people who gets tied up in knots in data analytics about today and doesn’t have the ability to lift his head from the numbers to form his own judgement about the future
Comments
There are other reasons an awful lot of people are extremely interested in the story which you ignore completely.
It involves people with power who have used that power to cover up, and to prevent legal investigation on a massive scale.
It also involves international money laundering and influence peddling for hostile powers like Russia.
Do you really think "release the files" has become a political issue purely because of prurience ?
1. It must be terribly frustrating to his opponents that Starmer, and all his cabinet, are still in place and that the press is having to rely on gossip as to what's going to happen.
2. I want to stick up for HYUFD: even if one disagrees with some of his opinions, he is by far the most loyal out-and-out Tory in the entire PB village; to question his loyalty to the true Tory cause is sacrilegious.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53977-snp-lead-reform-uk-in-second-in-yougov-january-2026-holyrood-voting-intention
Wherever the votes Reform are picking up in Scotland are coming from, very few are rural Scottish Tories
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Results_HolyroodVI_Jan26_formatted_w.pdf
If he was he would support Kemi
Ever heard this phrase ?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there_but_for_the_grace_of_God_go_I
If Epstein had happened ten or twenty years earlier or later then there would still had been a scandal, all that would have changed is that there would have been people in a different generation implicated. Who they would have been is a hypothetical which can never be answered but they would have included some people otherwise thought to be 'decent guys'.
Incidentally I also referred to JD Vance in my initial comment, yet you haven't been concerned about that.
Altogether now - my side good, their side bad.
There's also coming 5th in Perth and Kinross on less than their national average to consider re the rural Perth seats
You make some interesting arguments.
"which of us knows if we'd participate in the rape of children" if we had the opportunity, is up there, too.
So clearly nearly half of them voted Labour in 2024 and now many of them back Reform as well as the nearly a third of 2021 and 2024 Scottish Tories who have gone Reform,
In 2024 in Perth and Kinrosshire for example the SNP got 37%, the Tories 29% and Labour 18%. The combined Tory and Labour vote was 10% more than the SNP vote and Reform are gaining from 2024 Labour as well as Tory voters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_and_Kinross-shire
The 6.9% and fourth in Angus and the Perthshire Glen's might be more fruitful
Even half the Tory 2021 vote isn't enough
The SNP vote is down 13% on 2021, so if Reform took most of the 2021 Conservative vote (which Yougov says they have) and added a bit of the Labour vote they could take it. Especially if the Scottish Greens stand a candidate for the constituency too and eat into the SNP voteshare
The Rural Toriesdidnt jump to Reform en masse in Stranraer and the Rhins for example
You really have overdosed on the pompom waving that led people to insist that there was nothing wrong with Joe Biden and that Hunter Biden was a victim of a political witch hunt.
By the way Vance is a self-made man who has risen to the top from an disadvantaged beginning.
He seems to be a good family man and there doesn't appear to be any apparent scandals about him - if there had been the Dems wouldn't have needed to make up stories about him. He doesn't even seem to have betrayed anyone politically yet. Perhaps the easiest thing to criticise him for is his change of attitude to Trump - whether he truly believes that or has been using Trump to rise to his present position is open for debate.
Now Vance isn't in line with your political views (or mine for that matter) but as politicians go I wouldn't class him as less decent than average.
If you want to put politicians into the non-decent category then perhaps you could start with those Dems that lied about Biden's health. Including, it seems in a mild way, Jon Ossoff.
https://www.facebook.com/MikeCollinsGA/posts/jon-ossoff-last-year-said-he-found-biden-to-be-sharp-focused-impressive-formidab/1102157428760063/
Greens are the most popular party amongst women under 50. Men under 50 it's Labour.
Speaking of which, @fitalass, I asked you on Dec 26 if you could provide a discussant contribution. That would require you to read Draft 12 of the article and provide a comment (about 300 words would be nice). If you can't then that's OK, it's not a problem, but I need to know if you can't.
- People just grow out of it.
- There aren't as many elections as there were in the 2010's. Don't forget in the 2010s there were two POTUS elections (12,16), two UK referenda (Scot, EU), four UK General Elections (10,15,17,19), and two European Parliament elections (14,19), all of which generated interest. Now it's just whining about stuff we can't fix or isn't at the election level.
- The 2015's Event. In the middle of the 2010s something happened. The advent of large screens, smartphones, social media and engagement algorithms led to everybody getting excited and aggressive. Social media isn't fun anymore and people silo'd themselves.
- Some other stuff I've forgotten.
I'm only here because it's difficult to sleep and I work from a laptop for clients who don't care about office hours. If life was different I'd be somewhere else...but it isn't so I'm not.https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/disintegration-00815e8a5fe5
Couple reading paper with headline. "Mandy shares too much information" and one says to other and that's before we saw him in those underpants.
The source suggests it is'nt true.
I mean are you seriously suggesting Labour MP's only talk to Right Wing Newspapers?
He was slightly better than Simon Case but so would my pet cat have been.
However, that’s not a lot of use unless someone capable, honest and competent takes over, and there don’t seem to be many available. If Starmer’s track record holds true he’ll probably appoint Susan Acland-Hood and the catastrophes will inevitably continue.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/091af980-e57a-433e-b458-45210e3eaa87?shareToken=5b2d0b60b3a1d17f3260da0d28bc10b3
I’ve heard people make comparisons with the Profumo affair which harrowed Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the early 1960s, but this looks much worse. The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson shared extremely market-sensitive government secrets with a convicted foreign paedophile and did so almost in real time.
I am sure Sir Keir knew nothing of this at the time he gave Mandelson his fifth high-profile act in public life by making him the UK’s ambassador to Washington. But what he did know is quite enough to damn the prime minister in the eyes of most Labour MPs. The many who think he ought never to have touched Mandelson with a barge pole are angrily vindicated. Those who went along with the appointment at the time, buying Number 10’s argument that he would be an artful Trump whisperer, now feel like fools.
Questions about the prime minister’s judgment are daggers to the heart of what was supposed to be the Starmer brand. His primary pitch to both party and country has been as a trustworthy and serious man with a decent moral compass. He would find it easier to endure this storm were it an exceptional lapse. What makes it more corrosive is that it fits with a pattern of rotten decision-making which has made him spectacularly unpopular. “We have systematically gone about offending everyone,” groans one former cabinet minister who once counted himself a fan… “No drama Starmer” has turned out to be a soap opera as lurid as the Tory one that preceded it.
It is not difficult to find Labour MPs ready to call this “the beginning of the end” or to suggest that his removal has become a question of “when, not if”. It is harder to find Labour MPs with a plausible account of how this happens in the immediate future. Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him.
Spellcheckers can often be poor. Gaol trips up plenty of them.
There doesn't seem to be such a big pool of cross party contributors these days, and definitely not enough much needed cross party female contributions to add more spice to a broader robust debate across a range of political issues. I still also miss the contributions from the SNP supporting poster Marcia, such a lovely lady and always a pleasure to debate with her on back in the days when we both posted here regularly and before that Indy Referendum tribally turned Scottish political discourse toxic across social media.
I hate to say it and I know I am not going to be popular, but lads, some nights/weekends on here its like reading the equivalent of watching what I call Fitaloon's and our sons beloved mens shed TV programmes on the documentary channels. And now more than twenty years on from when I first started posting on here I hit the big 60 recently, and I am now officially calling myself the Scottish grumpy female equivalent of MalcolmG!
https://searchlightmagazine.com/2026/02/reform-treasurer-kept-contact-with-epstein-after-sex-conviction/
I'm not a social animal, but did have a few meals with him when he visited Leeds (his son was a student here). A good egg, and sadly missed.
Does this mean that you require cask strength turnip juice, like @malcolmg ?
Having said that, the clock is always ticking for all of us, not just Prime Ministers. The end is always a question of "when, not if".
Powell (E, not L)'s dictum about political careers was right. The successful politicians are the ones who manage to do some good first.
Not seeing where the crime is?
Healy, McFadden , both Alexanders, E Reynolds , Jones , Benn , Mahmood , Streeting , Miliband , Phiilipson comparable with any in their respective roles in the past decade.
I mean Burghart, Stride , Patel , Philp , Trott , Atkins , Lopez , Griffith , Whatley , Atkins , Couthino , Holden fecking dicky Holden !
You're having a laugh Tories!
Edit: I mean be charge with rather than do it; of course he can do it
#NU10K
It would be ICONTHEIVABLE!! to enforce not paying Mandelson. He is Of The Elect (not Elected). His Golden Goodbye is a Human Right.
If you failed to pay, it would suggest he was just another employee. Just like the 99%, not the 1%
Next you’ll be suggesting that he can’t have some non-executive directorships, chair a think thank or two and get a job advising the government!!
This board since I first same in 2021 has steadily moved towards ‘my side right or wrong’ and a lack of tolerance of views that the majority posters don’t align with. Be it on US politics, again just look at the bullying of William Glenn over his posts during the US election, or be it on U.K. politics.
Hopefully your health picks up.
The result was the account Reform_UK_2025, which co-opted the logo and name of Nigel Farage’s political movement without permission from the party. It posted video tours of Londoners’ homes accompanied by an AI-generated voice claiming properties in Knightsbridge and Chelsea had been handed over to illegal immigrants for free. It smeared residents, who were visible in some of the videos, as rapists and said that others proclaimed their hatred of the UK while collecting the keys.
It was an instant hit, attracting millions of views. It was also, the man confesses, all lies.
https://www.londoncentric.media/p/london-tiktok-fake-news-creator-hate-immigrants
"Never mind the truth or the consequences, count the sales/clicks" has been the motto of a certain sort of media for as long as we've had media. But the numbers now doing it means that it's got a lot worse.
14 more to come apparently.
Sheesh.
He’s just one of those people who gets tied up in knots in data analytics about today and doesn’t have the ability to lift his head from the numbers to form his own judgement about the future
I agree
He is throwing Starmer to the wolves
The UK isn't a surveillance state, Mandeson's social diary and private communications weren't public from 2010 onwards until the Epstein files were released. So the full extent of his involvement wasn't known
He got fired in September when it first began to leak, prior to that it was his previous form in govt he could be judged on and 2008-10 he appeared to have behaved until the emails to Epstein were released last week.
It was a mistake to appoint him clearly, but unlike some of his colleagues, Kier hadn't worked alongside and didn't have the same distrust based on experience as Ed Milliband and others.
The board in 2026 doesn't feel that different in some ways to 2006, although far fewer Labour devotees and far fewer blue devotees, PB Tories have gone shy. Although I'm probably ready to get back on board tbf, I like Kemi enough and dislike pretty much all the Reform big names enough to be considering rejoining. I haven't been a party member since 2010.
There's still the willy waving about 'back it with a bet' (understandable on a betting forum) and the 'you would say that/your views are invalid because of the box I've put you in' tendency but there have been far worse posters here historically (imo).
For my part I'm often too emotional and/or waspish and I have a pretty gruelling sense of humour that some posters clearly don't gel with or get but it's frustrating when that gets used as a baton to hit you with when I'm posting a drier analysis or predictive post or people can't differentiate the two.
You can viscerally dislike Labour as I do or generally not particularly like the Libs, Greens, Reform etc as I do but that's never (for me anyway) a comnent or guide to how I feel about their posters or voters. There only a couple of people on here I've ever spoken to off of here so I'm not 'qualified' to judge as it were
They are relatively hopefully that a revised design can be delivered in 6 years time.
It's possible to bring a civil rights case without the cooperation of the DOJ, but doing so against the full resources of the federal government - and with the chance that you'll land in front of a judge like Eileen Cannon - isn't quick, east, or hf certain outcome.
Perhaps it is time for another one.
They reminded viewers it is the female victims who are wronged not an international mans club
On the whole Kemi, Tory, May elections, the future thing.... i spend a lot of time perhaps pointlessly poring over data points ftom local by elections and the like to fill my time. It seems to me fairly clear that statistically it does not look like May 26 will be anywhere near as bad as May 25 for the Tories in England - fewer councils to defend, the local organisations seem better organised and funded, they have London which should be relatively OK results wise and Reform won't look as dominant (tories will be hoping to outpoll them there too). Scotland they ought to be able to at least match their previous low point of 2011 or close to and Wales they just have to take the inevitable massive hit and hope Labours implosion takes the headlines.
So, unless they underachieve badly from that expectation things will be 'improving' from the bottom and any challenge would be seen for what it is - reginacide for the sake of it
Listening to athletes opine on politics is going to ruin the Olympics
https://x.com/marcthiessen/status/2020084783519555840
YOU chose to wear our flag.
YOU chose to represent our country.
YOU chose to compete at the
@Olympics
If that’s too hard for you, then GO HOME.
Some things are bigger than politics.
You just don’t get it.
https://x.com/ByronDonalds/status/2020194247618519361
If you can’t say you love America while competing on behalf of our nation then you shouldn’t be at the Olympics.
https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2020276797397709137
Any athlete embarrassed to represent the United States has no business wearing Team USA across their chest. Representing this country is an honor.
If you don’t love America, step aside, someone who does will gladly take your place.
https://x.com/emilyraustin/status/2020154206301155429
Actually it feeds into this mornings Trevor Phillips panel whose ladies are furious with men acting as if they are victims and the idea one of the only 2 high profile women [ Angela Rayner the other] should be defenestrated by men just adds to the anti women narrative
He's not a victim of anything but getting caught employing a serious wrong un who was known to be a serious wrong un and is now exposed as an even more serious wrong un