I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government. The Blair government was mainly Eastern European immigration which Brexit and the Boris wave reversed to non European immigration again until Sunak and Cleverly tightened the rules
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
The fivefold increase aiui related#s to "reported rape" not "occurrence of rape".
For "occurrence of rape", you need the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which does not show such an increase.
It’s weird that so many Western European countries are reporting the same surge in sexual crimes. I guess they all agreed to change their reporting methodologies in exactly the same same way at some conference back in 2006
It's almost as if there has been a social change about reporting such crimes and doing something about it.
Who knows, the General Medical Council may get the news? By about 2050?
There is no one currently better as PM from any party at the moment. Someone might turn up but until they do could the Drama Queens please leave the set.
I’m inclined to agree with you. It’s a pretty low bar but you’re right.
It’s that rare thing. A mildly interesting and insightful comment from @Roger even if he over eggs it
So let’s play the game. Setting aside actual policies and partisan bias, is there anyone at all in British politics who seems like they could be a better prime minister than Starmer?
Yes, clearly. Burnham, Davey, Badenoch, Jenrick and many others - they would not make Starmer’s terrible and inexplicable decisions. Like Chagos. Like the stupid u turns. Like appointing Mandelson
The better question is this: is there anyone out there who would make a GOOD prime minister - up there in the upper ranks. Able to pull Britain out of its depressing rut?
That’s much harder. Farage is probably the most skilful politician in the land but I seriously doubt he’s got economic policies to save us
Anyone else?
Until tested, most politicians can be expected to fail. Would anyone have thought Maggie Thatcher could deliver that transformation of the sick man of Europe in say 1977? In 1937, would anyone have had Churchill as the man to defend democracy against Nazism? Flip side, many thought Enoch Powell was the man to do what was required.
A fair point
Katie Lam has something about her. But maybe it’s just coz I agree with her on a lot of stuff. She is courageous, I guess
Mahmood? She talks the talk but if you look at her record she is a clueless woke apparatchik with extra prayer mats
God it’s a bleak prospect. From left to right
Ive been trying to think of who i can suggest to send you into the biggest apolplexy. Clearly the coming man is Kit Malthouse. Lump on, punters, lump on!
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Sic Transit Gloria Angliae
We wanted Justinian and we got Justin Timberlake Nigel can kiss my curvy Woolie arse
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
The fivefold increase aiui related#s to "reported rape" not "occurrence of rape".
For "occurrence of rape", you need the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which does not show such an increase.
It’s weird that so many Western European countries are reporting the same surge in sexual crimes. I guess they all agreed to change their reporting methodologies in exactly the same same way at some conference back in 2006
It's almost as if there has been a social change about reporting such crimes and doing something about it.
Who knows, the General Medical Council may get the news? By about 2050?
Or you could ask women how they feel about it. Like this Swedish woman
“When I compare my life to that of my grandmother, the difference is striking. She told me that in her youth, she used to cycle home in the middle of the night without the slightest worry. She felt no fear, no need to look over her shoulder, no need to plan escape routes. That Sweden is one I have never seen. I have never experienced it. I grew up with constant warnings. Never go home alone late at night. Always be careful. Always assume risk.”
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
I miss the days when leadership putschists needed to have phone lines installed.
I think Starmer is an honourable man and I have no doubt he is a LABOUR man.
Without McSweeney I think we will see a significant change in his mindset.
I believe he will by now have decided himself, for his family ; for his Party, and the Country in that order that it is time to let go.
The timescale though I believe is what he will want to and try to dictate and he will hope that he can sway opinion to that option.
I think he will personally want to take responsibility for by election , council and Welsh and Scottish losses, that way he gives his successor a cleaner slate.
I also believe that he will want a timetable that helps Labour to take time and to find the best option and to ensure the hard fought economic gains that WILL BE SHOWING LATER in the year are maintained and not lost and I think for that reason he will by the end of this week make a formal announcement and seek to be setting in motion a departure by early June.
Timing wise he takes the flak, timing wise he may actually improve Labour results if a small % believe they are voting for representatives "post Starmer"
The election of a new Labour Leader and therefore PM just before the summer recess gives all time to "bed in" and to hit the ground running in September.
My personal belief is that he will prefer given her loyalty Rayner to Burnham or Streeting. He can't ot won't of course endorse anyone.
Its key I think that Darren Jones is installed as Chancellor, and most key roles stay in place with the exception of Reeves (I believe time will show her to have been far better economically but not politically than she is given credit for) and Lammy (who is useless) that many personnel will continue progress being made. What Streeting ends up with I'm not sure, he has an uber marginal seat besides!
Rayner is now the default Corbynite, Starmer would prefer Streeting or Darren Jones
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government. The Blair government was mainly Eastern European immigration which Brexit and the Boris wave reversed to non European immigration again until Sunak and Cleverly tightened the rules
This is the most ludicrous nonsense. You surely realise this
I know you are eccentric and live in HYUFD-world but surely even there facts are facts. And what you have just said is factually and totally wrong
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
Oh so the article is MPs asking their staff to plan to take their leave at a time they can use it to campaign for their choice of candidate.
As an MP I wouldn’t be saying anything as the type of statements in that comment would lead to employment tribunals and you rapidly not being a Labour MP
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
Reports and prosecutions have risen.
Ask @DavidL - he's prosecuting historic cases non-stop. And they aren't the perpetrators you are looking for.
Despite no significant change in the prevalence of sexual assault experienced by people aged 16 to 59 years in the last year (2.4%) compared with YE March 2024 (2.6%), there has been a significant increase, compared with YE March 2015 (1.7%), after previously decreasing from YE March 2005 survey to YE March 2014 survey. [...] The prevalence of sexual assault among people aged 16 to 59 years has fluctuated between 1.5% and 3.0% over the last 20 years.
Figure 2 shows the details:
Figures for rape are relatively flat from 2005 onwards and show some decline in the last two years shown. Figures for other sexual assault vary more. They fell from 2005 to 2015 and have now come back up again.
Apparently William and Kate being “deeply concerned” by the Epstein files is “Breaking News”
No mention of nunky? The World Service and R4 has been running hourly bulletins on Grattan catalogue model William's Saudi visit - 'He didn't flinch when the request came in'.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
Perhaps social media should be restricted to those under 16. I think the government has it the wrong way about.
There is no one currently better as PM from any party at the moment. Someone might turn up but until they do could the Drama Queens please leave the set.
I’m inclined to agree with you. It’s a pretty low bar but you’re right.
It’s that rare thing. A mildly interesting and insightful comment from @Roger even if he over eggs it
So let’s play the game. Setting aside actual policies and partisan bias, is there anyone at all in British politics who seems like they could be a better prime minister than Starmer?
Yes, clearly. Burnham, Davey, Badenoch, Jenrick and many others - they would not make Starmer’s terrible and inexplicable decisions. Like Chagos. Like the stupid u turns. Like appointing Mandelson
The better question is this: is there anyone out there who would make a GOOD prime minister - up there in the upper ranks. Able to pull Britain out of its depressing rut?
That’s much harder. Farage is probably the most skilful politician in the land but I seriously doubt he’s got economic policies to save us
Anyone else?
Until tested, most politicians can be expected to fail. Would anyone have thought Maggie Thatcher could deliver that transformation of the sick man of Europe in say 1977? In 1937, would anyone have had Churchill as the man to defend democracy against Nazism? Flip side, many thought Enoch Powell was the man to do what was required.
A fair point
Katie Lam has something about her. But maybe it’s just coz I agree with her on a lot of stuff. She is courageous, I guess
Mahmood? She talks the talk but if you look at her record she is a clueless woke apparatchik with extra prayer mats
God it’s a bleak prospect. From left to right
Mostly, leaders surprise on the downside.
But, occasionally, (eg Truman, Thatcher, Churchill, Zelensky), you get the reverse.
Your list suggests that war brings the best out of leaders!
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Cleverly wanted the London Mayorship when the election was first past the post, those ambitions went when the election went back to the supplementary vote.
Last week I spoke to a friend whose brother was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live in January 2025. I must stress that she isn’t a conspiracy theorist, was very careful during covid, and absolutely hates Donald Trump, but she told me that, as a last resort, her brother had been taking Invectermin, without informing the doctors. He’s still alive, his cancer levels (if that is the right terminology, I’m sure that’s what she said) have gone from the tens of thousands to single figures, and the doctors are talking about surgery to remove the remaining cancer.
Obviously I have zero medical expertise, but this is a true story of someone who is being described as a medical miracle. If you feel you’re being written off @Cyclefree, it could be worth a try
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government.
Yeah, I remember the heady days of the late 1940s when Ilford North was 50% South Asian
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
For someone who didn't know the threshold for the number of letters required for a vonc [less than 20 rather than 39] and has a determination to undermime Kemi we can file this as not going to happen
Apparently William and Kate being “deeply concerned” by the Epstein files is “Breaking News”
No mention of nunky? The World Service and R4 has been running hourly bulletins on Grattan catalogue model William's Saudi visit - 'He didn't flinch when the request came in'.
BBC occasionally lapses into North Korean Radio over such things. with working royals and their PR I suppose that's fairly minor.
A more major lapse is allowing so many politicians (not just government side ones) simply to do a PR job in a fairly unchallenging environment. Like Lady Smith (IIRC) this morning on R4 Today at 8.10. The R4 Westminster Hour at 10pm on Sundays has become completely soporific on account of this. (The fact that you have a panel of dull MPs from different parties doesn't mean it isn't a PR job.)
Last week I spoke to a friend whose brother was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live in January 2025. I must stress that she isn’t a conspiracy theorist, was very careful during covid, and absolutely hates Donald Trump, but she told me that, as a last resort, her brother had been taking Invectermin, without informing the doctors. He’s still alive, his cancer levels (if that is the right terminology, I’m sure that’s what she said) have gone from the tens of thousands to single figures, and the doctors are talking about surgery to remove the remaining cancer.
Obviously I have zero medical expertise, but this is a true story of someone who is being described as a medical miracle. If you feel you’re being written off @Cyclefree, it could be worth a try
I would have PMd but your profile is private
I am glad your friend's brother is doing well. That has nothing to do with Ivermectin.
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
I miss the days when leadership putschists needed to have phone lines installed.
And you had to ask very nicely if you wanted to wait less than about three months for BT to install them!
If that was the case today, you’d have party donor types keeping ‘dark’ offices ready to go in London, to campaign for their preferred candidate.
I have totally given up on politics. Whats the point? The prospects of a dynamic reformist government fixing our long term strategic decline is practically zero at this point.
All that's left is look after number one. A behaviour I had all kinds of moral objections to when I was younger, but as I turn greyer its ah fuck it.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
Reports and prosecutions have risen.
Ask @DavidL - he's prosecuting historic cases non-stop. And they aren't the perpetrators you are looking for.
Despite no significant change in the prevalence of sexual assault experienced by people aged 16 to 59 years in the last year (2.4%) compared with YE March 2024 (2.6%), there has been a significant increase, compared with YE March 2015 (1.7%), after previously decreasing from YE March 2005 survey to YE March 2014 survey. [...] The prevalence of sexual assault among people aged 16 to 59 years has fluctuated between 1.5% and 3.0% over the last 20 years.
Figure 2 shows the details:
Figures for rape are relatively flat from 2005 onwards and show some decline in the last two years shown. Figures for other sexual assault vary more. They fell from 2005 to 2015 and have now come back up again.
Thank-you. That's the detail, though I think those stats are "sexual assault" not "rape".
And in the UK "rape" is (unless it changed and I missed the change) a crime overwhelmingly by men, as the definition in the 2003 Act requires a penis to be used, though there are minor exceptions as in the case of a gang rape with a woman as a prime mover. An example is the case of Claire Marsh.
A woman committing a "rape" with an instrument (eg stick, dildo) would aiui be charged with Serious Sexual Assault.
It's a veritable minefield and needs much care around categories.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
The fivefold increase aiui related#s to "reported rape" not "occurrence of rape".
For "occurrence of rape", you need the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which does not show such an increase.
It’s weird that so many Western European countries are reporting the same surge in sexual crimes. I guess they all agreed to change their reporting methodologies in exactly the same same way at some conference back in 2006
Another 1,250 Russian troops not reporting for duty today.
The total will go through 1.25 million this week. Doesn't seem that long since we breached 1 million.
For comparison, total British Army deaths (including Commonwealth forces) were 564,000 on the Western Front in WW1.
The official population in 1918 in the UK was 43.5m. It may have been a little higher. The population of Russia in 2025 was 144m so it is 3.3 times as great. Dividing that figure of 1.25m by that produces an equivalent figure of around 379k. Quite a bit lower but still massive. The damage Putin has done to Russia may prove irreparable.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Katie Lam? I’d stick with Kemi until at least after the next GE
The point is that things don’t turn around overnight after heavy defeats. If the polls are to be believed, voters are choosing Reform as they hate both of the established parties of government. There’s little any Conservative leader could have done to deal with that surge after being kicked out of office. The best approach is to rebuild slowly and surely rather than be guided by opinion polls. It is a rebuild, and these things take time. The public are getting to know her and they seem to be willing to give her a chance. If so, the party’s VI polling will improve in time.
Another 1,250 Russian troops not reporting for duty today.
The total will go through 1.25 million this week. Doesn't seem that long since we breached 1 million.
For comparison, total British Army deaths (including Commonwealth forces) were 564,000 on the Western Front in WW1.
The official population in 1918 in the UK was 43.5m. It may have been a little higher. The population of Russia in 2025 was 144m so it is 3.3 times as great. Dividing that figure of 1.25m by that produces an equivalent figure of around 379k. Quite a bit lower but still massive. The damage Putin has done to Russia may prove irreparable.
Putin’s war is the best argument for democracy and the rule of law that I can remember these last 20 years. At a time when western democracies are in pathetic decline and big autocracies - China - seem to thrive and grow, we can remind ourselves that if Russia had stayed democratic and adhered to its own constitution then Putin would have retired a decade ago and 2 million people would not have died on the steppes of Ukraine
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
Reports and prosecutions have risen.
Ask @DavidL - he's prosecuting historic cases non-stop. And they aren't the perpetrators you are looking for.
Despite no significant change in the prevalence of sexual assault experienced by people aged 16 to 59 years in the last year (2.4%) compared with YE March 2024 (2.6%), there has been a significant increase, compared with YE March 2015 (1.7%), after previously decreasing from YE March 2005 survey to YE March 2014 survey. [...] The prevalence of sexual assault among people aged 16 to 59 years has fluctuated between 1.5% and 3.0% over the last 20 years.
Figure 2 shows the details:
Figures for rape are relatively flat from 2005 onwards and show some decline in the last two years shown. Figures for other sexual assault vary more. They fell from 2005 to 2015 and have now come back up again.
Thank-you. That's the detail, though I think those stats are "sexual assault" not "rape".
And in the UK "rape" is (unless it changed and I missed the change) a crime overwhelmingly by men, as the definition in the 2003 Act requires a penis to be used, though there are minor exceptions as in the case of a gang rape with a woman as a prime mover. An example is the case of Claire Marsh.
A woman committing a "rape" with an instrument (eg stick, dildo) would aiui be charged with Serious Sexual Assault.
It's a veritable minefield and needs much care around categories.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Katie Lam? I’d stick with Kemi until at least after the next GE
The point is that things don’t turn around overnight after heavy defeats. If the polls are to be believed, voters are choosing Reform as they hate both of the established parties of government. There’s little any Conservative leader could have done to deal with that surge after being been kicked out of office. The best approach is to rebuild slowly and surely rather than be guided by opinion polls. It is a rebuild, and these things take time. The public are getting to know her and they seem to be willing to give her a chance. If so, the party’s VI polling will improve in time.
That is my position
The country are not listening to the conservatives, though Kemi has raised her profile and certainly cornered Starmer at last week's PMQs
The party is lagging behind her approval ratings as she beats Farage and of course Starmer
This is a 3 year project and there is no appetite in her mps to remove her, no matter how @HYUFD drones on
Cleverly, even if he wanted it, would not move the dial and another conservative psysco drama hands Farage the next election
I have totally given up on politics. Whats the point? The prospects of a dynamic reformist government fixing our long term strategic decline is practically zero at this point.
All that's left is look after number one. A behaviour I had all kinds of moral objections to when I was younger, but as I turn greyer its ah fuck it.
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
But one Labour MP said: “I’ve already told my staff, ‘If you want to take annual leave later in the year to go and work on Wes’s leadership campaign, I’d be fully supportive of that’.”
Another said: “These conversations are already happening, because even though colleagues have accepted there won’t be a change before May, they want Wes to be ready as soon as possible after.”
A spokesperson for Streeting said: “Neither Wes or his team have asked anyone to not book leave or asked MPs to lend staff for a campaign.
“Wes’s entire focus has been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, getting ambulances to arrive 15 minutes faster than last year and improving patient satisfaction with access to GPs.”
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Katie Lam? I’d stick with Kemi until at least after the next GE
The point is that things don’t turn around overnight after heavy defeats. If the polls are to be believed, voters are choosing Reform as they hate both of the established parties of government. There’s little any Conservative leader could have done to deal with that surge after being kicked out of office. The best approach is to rebuild slowly and surely rather than be guided by opinion polls. It is a rebuild, and these things take time. The public are getting to know her and they seem to be willing to give her a chance. If so, the party’s VI polling will improve in time.
The absolute kittens over polling is hilarious. After Black Wednesday the Tory poling position (with the very brief exception of the fuel protests and a couple of outliers in 2003/4) did not improve for 13 years until Cameron was elected to the leadership and we were sick of Blair
Another 1,250 Russian troops not reporting for duty today.
The total will go through 1.25 million this week. Doesn't seem that long since we breached 1 million.
For comparison, total British Army deaths (including Commonwealth forces) were 564,000 on the Western Front in WW1.
The official population in 1918 in the UK was 43.5m. It may have been a little higher. The population of Russia in 2025 was 144m so it is 3.3 times as great. Dividing that figure of 1.25m by that produces an equivalent figure of around 379k. Quite a bit lower but still massive. The damage Putin has done to Russia may prove irreparable.
Putin’s war is the best argument for democracy and the rule of law that I can remember these last 20 years. At a time when western democracies are in pathetic decline and big autocracies - China - seem to thrive and grow, we can remind ourselves that if Russia had stayed democratic and adhered to its own constitution then Putin would have retired a decade ago and 2 million people would not have died on the steppes of Ukraine
The SMO isn't a VVP exclusive. After the Odessa Trade Union Hall business and similar events there was immense pressure to Do Something. Remember, the SMO wasn't Plan А (I doubt the way things have played out are even Plans Б, В or Г) and the impetus would have been no different for any other Russian leader, democratic or not. Although the trajectory of events may not have been exactly the same.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government.
Yeah, I remember the heady days of the late 1940s when Ilford North was 50% South Asian
Read this excellent article by Adrian Lee.
It was under the 1948 Attlee government's British Nationality Act any British Empire or Commonwealth citizen had the right of abode and to seek work in the UK.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Katie Lam? I’d stick with Kemi until at least after the next GE
The point is that things don’t turn around overnight after heavy defeats. If the polls are to be believed, voters are choosing Reform as they hate both of the established parties of government. There’s little any Conservative leader could have done to deal with that surge after being kicked out of office. The best approach is to rebuild slowly and surely rather than be guided by opinion polls. It is a rebuild, and these things take time. The public are getting to know her and they seem to be willing to give her a chance. If so, the party’s VI polling will improve in time.
The absolute kittens over polling is hilarious. After Black Wednesday the Tory poling position (with the very brief exception of the fuel protests and a couple of outliers in 2003/4) did not improve for 13 years until Cameron was elected to the leadership and we were sick of Blair
Seems to me there can only be one person more uneasy concerning events in the Labour Party at the moment than Keir Starmer and that is Nigel Farage. The GE which is coming will not be at the right time for Farage. His reaction / reporting of Kemi's performance at last week's PMQ's on GB News said more about him than the subject he was supposedly leading on.
No one, not even Saint Margaret herself could have done better than Kemi did last week. The girl done good ! There is more than a spot of truth on the Crewkerne Gazette HMS Pinafore skit, especially the last 5 seconds.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government.
Yeah, I remember the heady days of the late 1940s when Ilford North was 50% South Asian
Read this excellent article by Adrian Lee.
It was the 1948 British Nationality Act any British Empire or Commonwealth citizen had the right of abode and to work in the UK.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
We even had someone at our community council remisincing about the peace and beauty of Leith in the 80s and 90s. You know, the part of Edinburgh [sic] famous for heroin abuse and brutal murders.
It's more than rose-tinted spectacles at this point.
Rapes in England and wales have more than quintupled in a decade. We are not imagining this
Reports and prosecutions have risen.
Ask @DavidL - he's prosecuting historic cases non-stop. And they aren't the perpetrators you are looking for.
We are prosecuting historic cases, mainly involving child abuse and spinning out of the inquiry into that in various institutions but our bread and butter is current rapes. These often involve some "historic" element because the police in appropriate cases go looking for sexual assault and rape in prior relationships which has not been reported and all too often find it.
So what has changed? I think the Crown is much more positive about taking on and pursuing rape cases than it historically was. We now work hard at keeping complainers engaged whilst in the past disengagement was a good enough reason to drop it. The police are much, much better trained, supportive and sympathetic. Woman are less likely to put rape down as a mistake on their part. Forensics have played an important part in proving intercourse and sexual assault. Doctors and hospitals are much more geared up to collect and identify this evidence.
These factors and more mean that the incidence of rape that comes before the courts is increasing and it is entirely possible for this to happen when the overall incidence of the crime is falling. Indeed, I suspect and fear that we are still prosecuting a relatively small percentage of the actual rapes.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
For someone who didn't know the threshold for the number of letters required for a vonc [less than 20 rather than 39] and has a determination to undermime Kemi we can file this as not going to happen
Given 2/3 of Tory MPs did not vote for Kemi in the final round in 2024, if the Tories are third in May they will get rid of her
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
It will be Cleverly who can hold 2024 Tory voters better than Kemi has and win swing voters from Labour more than Kemi has and get anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats better than Kemi has. He isn't going to win London Mayor and anyway CCHQ are already now lining up Seb Coe for that.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Katie Lam? I’d stick with Kemi until at least after the next GE
The point is that things don’t turn around overnight after heavy defeats. If the polls are to be believed, voters are choosing Reform as they hate both of the established parties of government. There’s little any Conservative leader could have done to deal with that surge after being kicked out of office. The best approach is to rebuild slowly and surely rather than be guided by opinion polls. It is a rebuild, and these things take time. The public are getting to know her and they seem to be willing to give her a chance. If so, the party’s VI polling will improve in time.
The absolute kittens over polling is hilarious. After Black Wednesday the Tory poling position (with the very brief exception of the fuel protests and a couple of outliers in 2003/4) did not improve for 13 years until Cameron was elected to the leadership and we were sick of Blair
Seems to me there can only be one person more uneasy concerning events in the Labour Party at the moment than Keir Starmer and that is Nigel Farage. The GE which is coming will not be at the right time for Farage. His reaction / reporting of Kemi's performance at last week's PMQ's on GB News said more about him than the subject he was supposedly leading on.
No one, not even Saint Margaret herself could have done better than Kemi did last week. The girl done good ! There is more than a spot of truth on the Crewkerne Gazette HMS Pinafore skit, especially the last 5 seconds.
They are opening candidate selection today. I must remember to gouge my eyes out before that beauty parade
Good morning one and all. Though whether it actually good appears to be somewhat of a moot point!
Obviously Prime Ministers have groups of advisors around them; individual Cabinet Ministers have their own worries, so PM's can't sit down with a group ion them and, over whatever relaxation aid suits them, try to sort out whatever problem is high on the list today, or, more sensibly, looks as though it will be tomorrow.
And I can well imagine that Starmer sat down with his group a year or so ago and discussed the ambassadorship in Washington. Trump was about to be installed and he was obviously not someone upon whom one could rely. So someone, may well have been McSweeny, came up with the idea of Mandelson, on the reasonable grounds that he, Mandelson, was well suited to the kind of White House which seemed to be developing. After all, the Epstein business wasn't a major feature at the time, and anyway seemed to be primarily a New York issue.
So that was decided upon. Recall the current post-holder, sort out something for her and install Mandelson.
Then it all went wrong, and as soon as it was reasonably clear that Mandelson was deep in the whole sorry mess, he was sacked.
What's wrong with that? Apart from the fact that a) a significant part of the British Press will NEVER find anything good about a Labour Governments actions and another part wants to keep their political correspondents busy with something, anything which makes them look busy.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government. The Blair government was mainly Eastern European immigration which Brexit and the Boris wave reversed to non European immigration again until Sunak and Cleverly tightened the rules
This is the most ludicrous nonsense. You surely realise this
I know you are eccentric and live in HYUFD-world but surely even there facts are facts. And what you have just said is factually and totally wrong
It was the British Nationality Act 1948 more than any other Act that set the immigration changes of the last century
A prescient foretelling of boomer rage and dissatisfaction.
Kraut @The_Davos_Man · 11h Fukuyama didn't say it was the end of history. In "The End of History and the Last Man" the part no one reads is about "The Last Man". Go read the last chapter of the book, here is the important part summarised:
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
It will be Cleverly who can hold 2024 Tory voters better than Kemi has and win swing voters from Labour more than Kemi has and get anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats better than Kemi has. He isn't going to win London Mayor and anyway CCHQ are already now lining up Seb Coe for that.
There's quite a lot of Reform-ism in the 'urban' bit of Cleverley's constituency. Flags, parades and such, largely linked to the Weathersfield base.
The reality is that the only reason Sir Keir is still there is that nobody of note has called for him to quit.
When that happens I am almost certain he will quit. There won’t be a formal challenge, he will quit and they will elect a new leader.
Bemused why Streeting isn’t ranked higher when it seems unlikely Rayner will be able to run and nobody else has his ability to communicate.
Streeting is a Mandy protege. It will (imo) nobble him
My understanding is that they aren’t as close as people think; depends who you ask.
In any case, is that worse than actually being a criminal? That’s why Rayner is disqualified IMHO.
If not Streeting then who?
It does matter how close Streeting is to Mandelson, the question is how close others (who want someone other than Streeting as the next leader) can place him to Mandelson
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government. The Blair government was mainly Eastern European immigration which Brexit and the Boris wave reversed to non European immigration again until Sunak and Cleverly tightened the rules
This is the most ludicrous nonsense. You surely realise this
I know you are eccentric and live in HYUFD-world but surely even there facts are facts. And what you have just said is factually and totally wrong
It was the British Nationality Act 1948 more than any other Act that set the immigration changes of the last century
Because labour was needed, we'd lost a lot of men in the war, and, importantly, travel was easier and cheaper.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
The Tories perhaps dodged a bullet with Penny in these limited circumstances.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
For someone who didn't know the threshold for the number of letters required for a vonc [less than 20 rather than 39] and has a determination to undermime Kemi we can file this as not going to happen
Given 2/3 of Tory MPs did not vote for Kemi in the final round in 2024, if the Tories are third in May they will get rid of her
Just as well for Kemi, then, that the Tories will outpoll Labour in May, at least in England.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
Having used both Courtdesk and Courtserve, the HMCTS have always had an issue with accuracy of their reporting. It has become worse as the pressure on the courts has become much greater. You only have to attend any court on any day to see people wandering around lost and looking for the case they thought was being heard that day.
Good header TSE. Yes the Tories are notorious for removing leaders who are badly beaten in local elections and/or trail in polls from Thatcher in 1990 to May in 2019 and Boris in 2022 and Truss after her deeply unpopular budget in late 2022.
Bad by election performances can also see a Tory party leader removed, as IDS discovered after Brent East in 2003.
Labour however are sentimental with their leaders, even Foot and Brown and Ed Miliband left at a time of their choosing. Blair was not really forgiven by some on the left for not being socialist enough and winning multiple general elections anyway and going to war in Iraq but he still was not formally ousted just pressured to handover to the great Brown. The only time Labour MPs turned on a Labour leader was Corbyn but Labour members re elected him anyway in 2016.
So yes it is Kemi who is in the greatest danger. If the Tories are third on NEV and seats won in May Tory MPs won't hesitate to VONC Kemi and replace her with Kemi. Starmer though is more likely to be able to go at a time of his choosing, even if Labour were third in May it is not certain Rayner could get the 81 Labour MPs she needs to nominate her to challenge him
You keep spouting this, without telling us who is going to perform better than Kemi. (And not Cleverly - he wants a shot at London mayoral.)
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
It will be Cleverly who can hold 2024 Tory voters better than Kemi has and win swing voters from Labour more than Kemi has and get anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats better than Kemi has. He isn't going to win London Mayor and anyway CCHQ are already now lining up Seb Coe for that.
Cleverly has shown no interest in defenestrating Kemi.
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
If anything the problem now is things are just a bit shit, but not at crisis levels, and with very little optimism it'll improve.
So in the interests of balance I'll have a go:
1) Economic growth is positive. It is weak, but positive, and likely to trend upwards over the next few years - at least on a per capita basis because... 2) Net migration is being brought under control. It's come down a lot and will move further. There's no doubt the unsustainably high period (almost 1 million per year) would have put a strain on capacity in places. 3) Inflation will soon be back at its 2% target and will likely remain there for the foreseeable future. There is a reason high inflation features heavily in the economic 'misery index'. Moving back to stable prices will help. 4) Unemployment really did not rise very high during the period of monetary tightening. It should fall back down we low inflation allows rates to drift lower still.
I won't deny there's lots more negative to say, and much of the above has very little to do with the government's actions but just a part of the economic cycle, but the idea that we're in some unique crisis is clearly wrong.
On 4 - I’m not so sure - firstly I’m not seeing IT projects get kicked off (and there are usually IT projects kicking off because you want to replace old systems with new ones).
Secondly youth and graduate unemployment is sky high and shows little signs of dropping
Unemployment is a lagging indicator, and youth unemployment is always hit worst when it rises. First we need price stability, then monetary easing (beyond simply neutral levels) then employment improves. We are still at step 1 of the process.
Our main problems are not macro - they are micro.
Our over-regulated and over-taxed economy simply cannot respond to increases in demand because its supply side has been crippled by the government, and, just as important, everybody knows that the moment any sector shows signs of dynamism, the government will be there to strip it and shovel the cash to its client base of welfare and civil service layabouts.
So no matter how good fiscal and monetary policy is, growth will remain very weak compared to what it should be until we have a public sector that stops treating the private sector like an ATM.
That’s never going to happen. Especially with Labour in power.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
Does nothing for me. Perhaps I'm too old!
You’re not racist, though. I have no idea whether you shave your head!
I doubt there has been a more depressing time since WW2
We have a government in crisis led by a leader who has no future though may hang on just continuing the daily pyscho drama
We await enormous volumns of e mails and whats app messages during Mandelson's time as ambassador with unknown consquences for other labour mps and advisors and unrest with politics by the public
The real danger is the public voting for Reform or the Greens in a mass protest vote and electing extreme right or left mps wholly unsuitable for public office
More Epstein files will be realeased as we watch each breaking news fearing what next
Indeed we could see untold problems with Trump over revelations in our dealing through Mandelson
I would suggest labour need to lance the boil now and demand Starmer resigns and install a temporary leader to stabiise the party with either John Healey or Hilary Benn being a good call
Goodness knows how the bond markets will react and letting things drift is not an option
I had hopes that Starmer would do as he said before the election to promote integrity and accountability into our politics but here we are just over 18 months later with the most unpopular PM in recent hiistory
This is not about point scoring but a deep desire for labour to steady the ship for all our sakes as anything else is unthinkable
May wise minds in labour led by many of the women who are so aggrieved prevail
Good grief Big_G is your memory ok?
What about: - Rationing persisting on into the 1950s - Suez Crisis 1956 - Three-day week & power cuts 1974 - IMF bail out 1976 - Winter of Discontent 1979 - Covid crisis 2020
To name but a few?
Reflects the polling though, with older people spiralling into a deep and irrational melancholy. Lots of free time + social media is a not a good combination.
You can critise me as much as you like and disagree with whether this is the worst crisis since WW2 but what is the problem with my suggestion on how to address it ?
According to Sky journalist this morning some want Starmer to continue to May and take responsibilty for the likely polling disaster but other mps are saying they cannot allow Mandelson and Epstein to continue and need to take action
I have no problem with people disagreing but suggesting older people spiral into deep and irrational melancholy is pure 'ageism'
No, it's not. There has been a dramatic divergence in sentiment, and this is going to cause us massive issues because so much of the country's disposable income is now held by older people:
That is nothing to do with your ageism comment
Disagree by all means but do not descend into ageism
It's not ageism to point to a real difference between age groups. The data is there.
Why are older people much more negative now? Is it simply a partisan thing, where they're unhappy with a Labour government? Is it the media they're consuming?
There's genuinely something going on.
I have a sad answer
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
The biggest amount of non European immigration to the UK actually came under the Attlee government. The Blair government was mainly Eastern European immigration which Brexit and the Boris wave reversed to non European immigration again until Sunak and Cleverly tightened the rules
This is the most ludicrous nonsense. You surely realise this
I know you are eccentric and live in HYUFD-world but surely even there facts are facts. And what you have just said is factually and totally wrong
It was the British Nationality Act 1948 more than any other Act that set the immigration changes of the last century
This is the problem that Enoch Powell referred to in almost every interview he gave on immigration, that until recently there had been no way of distinguishing members of the Commonwealth from British people living in Britain as far as right to live in Britain was concerned. When travel to Britain en masse was nigh on impossible, there was no problem with immigration, but once air travel became commonplace, that meant tens of millions of people were entitled to come and live here, and what was once a hypothetical possibility became reality. That was why he suggested paying immigrants to return to their place of birth, he saw it as the only way of rectifying an oversight that changed the country in a way no one had thought of.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
The reality is that the only reason Sir Keir is still there is that nobody of note has called for him to quit.
When that happens I am almost certain he will quit. There won’t be a formal challenge, he will quit and they will elect a new leader.
Bemused why Streeting isn’t ranked higher when it seems unlikely Rayner will be able to run and nobody else has his ability to communicate.
Streeting is a Mandy protege. It will (imo) nobble him
My understanding is that they aren’t as close as people think; depends who you ask.
In any case, is that worse than actually being a criminal? That’s why Rayner is disqualified IMHO.
If not Streeting then who?
Is making a mistake over your tax affairs something that makes you a criminal? Different if its a deliberate scam, but genuine mistake? Its a bit worse that a speeding ticket or parking fine, but its hardly GBH.
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
Big Nige knows exactly how to massage an enlarged boomer prostate with a nicotine stained finger.
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
I think the argument is that there is a difference between 'bank the win' and 'take victory laps'
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
Quite. If the two minis of Reform/actually shit tory MPs can claim to be 'the real opposition' and unveil their shadow cabinet, Kemi can have her moment
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
She could join Reform as according to their Candidate Application form "No prior political experience is necessary."
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
Does nothing for me. Perhaps I'm too old!
You’re not racist, though. I have no idea whether you shave your head!
I don't shave my head, but I have kept my hair very short for the last few years.
At one time, many years ago, it was shoulder-length.
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
Big Nige knows exactly how to massage an enlarged boomer prostate with a nicotine stained finger.
There’s been some issues about their accuracy/focussing on sensationalist trials, also end of last year they were accused of accessing information they weren’t supposed to have, that was the final straw.
Blaming Starmer for not getting Jimmy Lai released
The Pritti whose Government were in power in 2020 when he was released and did precisely Jack shit for years because they won't communicate with China.
She should have done her job at the time with Boris, Liz and Rishi.
Starmer tried, better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all
Trumps tried no success
May be he will succeed when he goes to China
The Chinese despise Starmer's weakness. Xi didn't even show him round the Forbidden City, they got a tourist guide to do it. They don't respond to the begging bowl, they respond to credible threats to their economy - especially now. Starmer is an abysmal negotiator. The quicker he goes, the better for our standing in the world.
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
I think the argument is that there is a difference between 'bank the win' and 'take victory laps'
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
Big Nige knows exactly how to massage an enlarged boomer prostate with a nicotine stained finger.
Is that Clacton?
Sun sets in the West, so no. And that doesn't look like dawn to me.
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
Big Nige knows exactly how to massage an enlarged boomer prostate with a nicotine stained finger.
Is that Clacton?
Juan-les-Pins.
Well you could've knocked me down withj a feather.....I could swear i smelt fish and chips
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
I think the argument is that there is a difference between 'bank the win' and 'take victory laps'
Being humble isnt known for its political savvy
Last year I advised Kemi Badenoch to be more modest and self effacing.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
They say that politics is show business for ugly people, so the good-looking ones to tend to stand out!
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
Big Nige knows exactly how to massage an enlarged boomer prostate with a nicotine stained finger.
Is that Clacton?
Sun sets in the West, so no. And that doesn't look like dawn to me.
It is Clacton, he's walking his dog in the morning
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
I think the argument is that there is a difference between 'bank the win' and 'take victory laps'
Being humble isnt known for its political savvy
Last year I advised Kemi Badenoch to be more modest and self effacing.
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
I think the argument is that there is a difference between 'bank the win' and 'take victory laps'
Being humble isnt known for its political savvy
Last year I advised Kemi Badenoch to be more modest and self effacing.
Older people can remember when things were better. 20-30 years ago. When the land was calmer and happier. Before the epic levels of migration
Much of Western Europe has been economically stagnant for two decades while importing millions of people from alien cultures in a disastrous experiment gone horribly wrong
Older people are old enough to recall the days before the experiment.
Big Nige knows exactly how to massage an enlarged boomer prostate with a nicotine stained finger.
It will have to be nigel. We are left with no choice but to pin our hopes on a ex-stockbroker buffoon with a good line in saloon bar demagoguery and just one decent policy: on immigration
Kemi doesn't stand a chance against Big Nige's retrograde agitprop. She's also uniquely poorly placed to win back those voters from the Fukkers that the tories need: aged 60+ racist men with shaved heads. She's got zero chance with those types by dint of being a Globalist of Colour.
Problem is which potential Tory leader is in a position to attract the 60+ racist male vote - the obvious candidate their would drool over (Penny who can hold a sword) is not an MP
A childhood friend of mine whom i last saw just after HMQs funeral and is (or was anyway) a lifelong Labour voter (his Dad was a councillor and big trade Unioinst) almost had to excuse hinself when we discussed the admiral and her sword. She has a strange effect on men of a certain age.
They say that politics is show business for ugly people, so the good-looking ones to tend to stand out!
This is very true
Katie Lam is a case in point. If you look at her objectively she is not very pretty (sorry, Ms Lam - I admire your mind!). Indeed she is quite plain
But simply by being youngissh, blonde-ish and not hideous she stands out. Penny Mordaunt is genuinely attractive, however
It's noticeable how the populist right wing Eiropean parties specialise in hot blonde women. Meloni in Italy. Marianne Le Pen in France. the AfD woman isn.t too bad, Eva Banned-from-Britain in Holland
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
Badenoch asked the question about whether Epstein was in the vetting report or not, which prompted Starmer to say “yes” and essentially was the moment that kick started this period of acute crisis in Labour, so I think she is entitled to claim some credit.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
I think the argument is that there is a difference between 'bank the win' and 'take victory laps'
Being humble isnt known for its political savvy
Last year I advised Kemi Badenoch to be more modest and self effacing.
Comments
Exclusive from @breeallegretti
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
Who knows, the General Medical Council may get the news? By about 2050?
Nigel can kiss my curvy Woolie arse
The total will go through 1.25 million this week. Doesn't seem that long since we breached 1 million.
For comparison, total British Army deaths (including Commonwealth forces) were 564,000 on the Western Front in WW1.
“When I compare my life to that of my grandmother, the difference is striking. She told me that in her youth, she used to cycle home in the middle of the night without the slightest worry. She felt no fear, no need to look over her shoulder, no need to plan escape routes. That Sweden is one I have never seen. I have never experienced it. I grew up with constant warnings. Never go home alone late at night. Always be careful. Always assume risk.”
https://x.com/evelinahahne/status/2020517830836527603?s=46
I know you are eccentric and live in HYUFD-world but surely even there facts are facts. And what you have just said is factually and totally wrong
As an MP I wouldn’t be saying anything as the type of statements in that comment would lead to employment tribunals and you rapidly not being a Labour MP
Despite no significant change in the prevalence of sexual assault experienced by people aged 16 to 59 years in the last year (2.4%) compared with YE March 2024 (2.6%), there has been a significant increase, compared with YE March 2015 (1.7%), after previously decreasing from YE March 2005 survey to YE March 2014 survey. [...] The prevalence of sexual assault among people aged 16 to 59 years has fluctuated between 1.5% and 3.0% over the last 20 years.
Figure 2 shows the details:
Figures for rape are relatively flat from 2005 onwards and show some decline in the last two years shown. Figures for other sexual assault vary more. They fell from 2005 to 2015 and have now come back up again.
The World Service and R4 has been running hourly bulletins on Grattan catalogue model William's Saudi visit - 'He didn't flinch when the request came in'.
Who are the Tories hiding away for some great unveiling? Dear God, I wish they were. It would give Leon someone to focus on beyond his Farage-frotting.
Obviously I have zero medical expertise, but this is a true story of someone who is being described as a medical miracle. If you feel you’re being written off @Cyclefree, it could be worth a try
I would have PMd but your profile is private
A more major lapse is allowing so many politicians (not just government side ones) simply to do a PR job in a fairly unchallenging environment. Like Lady Smith (IIRC) this morning on R4 Today at 8.10. The R4 Westminster Hour at 10pm on Sundays has become completely soporific on account of this. (The fact that you have a panel of dull MPs from different parties doesn't mean it isn't a PR job.)
If that was the case today, you’d have party donor types keeping ‘dark’ offices ready to go in London, to campaign for their preferred candidate.
All that's left is look after number one. A behaviour I had all kinds of moral objections to when I was younger, but as I turn greyer its ah fuck it.
And in the UK "rape" is (unless it changed and I missed the change) a crime overwhelmingly by men, as the definition in the 2003 Act requires a penis to be used, though there are minor exceptions as in the case of a gang rape with a woman as a prime mover. An example is the case of Claire Marsh.
A woman committing a "rape" with an instrument (eg stick, dildo) would aiui be charged with Serious Sexual Assault.
It's a veritable minefield and needs much care around categories.
The point is that things don’t turn around overnight after heavy defeats. If the polls are to be believed, voters are choosing Reform as they hate both of the established parties of government. There’s little any Conservative leader could have done to deal with that surge after being kicked out of office. The best approach is to rebuild slowly and surely rather than be guided by opinion polls. It is a rebuild, and these things take time. The public are getting to know her and they seem to be willing to give her a chance. If so, the party’s VI polling will improve in time.
The country are not listening to the conservatives, though Kemi has raised her profile and certainly cornered Starmer at last week's PMQs
The party is lagging behind her approval ratings as she beats Farage and of course Starmer
This is a 3 year project and there is no appetite in her mps to remove her, no matter how @HYUFD drones on
Cleverly, even if he wanted it, would not move the dial and another conservative psysco drama hands Farage the next election
Exclusive from @breeallegretti
MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister
Allies of the health secretary have held talks with their parliamentary officials and suggested they hold back annual leave in preparation for a challenge after the local elections in May.
But one Labour MP said: “I’ve already told my staff, ‘If you want to take annual leave later in the year to go and work on Wes’s leadership campaign, I’d be fully supportive of that’.”
Another said: “These conversations are already happening, because even though colleagues have accepted there won’t be a change before May, they want Wes to be ready as soon as possible after.”
A spokesperson for Streeting said: “Neither Wes or his team have asked anyone to not book leave or asked MPs to lend staff for a campaign.
“Wes’s entire focus has been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, getting ambulances to arrive 15 minutes faster than last year and improving patient satisfaction with access to GPs.”
https://x.com/steven_swinford/status/2020782829047562435?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
It was under the 1948 Attlee government's British Nationality Act any British Empire or Commonwealth citizen had the right of abode and to seek work in the UK.
'It is estimated that around half a million Commonwealth migrants entered the U.K. between 1949 and 1962.' Then the Macmillan government introduced the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 which only allowed Commonwealth citizens with work permits entry into the UK
https://conservativehome.com/2026/02/06/adrian-lee-the-transformation-of-britains-population-and-the-british-nationality-act-1948/
No one, not even Saint Margaret herself could have done better than Kemi did last week. The girl done good ! There is more than a spot of truth on the Crewkerne Gazette HMS Pinafore skit, especially the last 5 seconds.
So what has changed? I think the Crown is much more positive about taking on and pursuing rape cases than it historically was. We now work hard at keeping complainers engaged whilst in the past disengagement was a good enough reason to drop it. The police are much, much better trained, supportive and sympathetic. Woman are less likely to put rape down as a mistake on their part. Forensics have played an important part in proving intercourse and sexual assault. Doctors and hospitals are much more geared up to collect and identify this evidence.
These factors and more mean that the incidence of rape that comes before the courts is increasing and it is entirely possible for this to happen when the overall incidence of the crime is falling. Indeed, I suspect and fear that we are still prosecuting a relatively small percentage of the actual rapes.
They have form for this.
Obviously Prime Ministers have groups of advisors around them; individual Cabinet Ministers have their own worries, so PM's can't sit down with a group ion them and, over whatever relaxation aid suits them, try to sort out whatever problem is high on the list today, or, more sensibly, looks as though it will be tomorrow.
And I can well imagine that Starmer sat down with his group a year or so ago and discussed the ambassadorship in Washington. Trump was about to be installed and he was obviously not someone upon whom one could rely. So someone, may well have been McSweeny, came up with the idea of Mandelson, on the reasonable grounds that he, Mandelson, was well suited to the kind of White House which seemed to be developing.
After all, the Epstein business wasn't a major feature at the time, and anyway seemed to be primarily a New York issue.
So that was decided upon. Recall the current post-holder, sort out something for her and install Mandelson.
Then it all went wrong, and as soon as it was reasonably clear that Mandelson was deep in the whole sorry mess, he was sacked.
What's wrong with that? Apart from the fact that a) a significant part of the British Press will NEVER find anything good about a Labour Governments actions and another part wants to keep their political correspondents busy with something, anything which makes them look busy.
When that happens I am almost certain he will quit. There won’t be a formal challenge, he will quit and they will elect a new leader.
Bemused why Streeting isn’t ranked higher when it seems unlikely Rayner will be able to run and nobody else has his ability to communicate.
Kraut
@The_Davos_Man
·
11h
Fukuyama didn't say it was the end of history. In "The End of History and the Last Man" the part no one reads is about "The Last Man". Go read the last chapter of the book, here is the important part summarised:
https://x.com/The_Davos_Man/status/2020619862226407813?s=20
https://x.com/thomasgodfreyuk/status/2020763666245623910
In any case, is that worse than actually being a criminal? That’s why Rayner is disqualified IMHO.
If not Streeting then who?
Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.
His associations on the NHS won't help either.
I thought you were a Lib Dem. Supporting Rayner now ?
Timing.
A couple of weeks ago on ITN News it was Brooklyn Beckham posting online.
Now anyone in her position should have asked that question so it doesn’t mark her as some kind of tactical genius, but let her bank a win, the Tories don’t have much to cheer about right now.
If the two minis of Reform/actually shit tory MPs can claim to be 'the real opposition' and unveil their shadow cabinet, Kemi can have her moment
https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/candidates/apply
At one time, many years ago, it was shoulder-length.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/01/14/does-kemi-need-to-be-more-modest-and-self-effacing/
Katie Lam is a case in point. If you look at her objectively she is not very pretty (sorry, Ms Lam - I admire your mind!). Indeed she is quite plain
But simply by being youngissh, blonde-ish and not hideous she stands out. Penny Mordaunt is genuinely attractive, however
It's noticeable how the populist right wing Eiropean parties specialise in hot blonde women. Meloni in Italy. Marianne Le Pen in France. the AfD woman isn.t too bad, Eva Banned-from-Britain in Holland
I have an underlying theory about the phenomenon