I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
What prompted this fellow feeling ?
BTW you were asking for TV recommendations; have you tried Wonder Man ? First couple of episodes are promising, and Ben Kingsley (I've never really been a huge fan) is superb. Silly but very entertaining.
I will have a look, ta
I can strongly recommend The North Water (if I haven't recommended it already). A brilliantly bleak period drama about a surgeon on a whaling boat out of Hull in about 1850. Relentlessly grim. Nothing really happens, it's just an endless parade of sodomy, rum, scurvy, blubber, ice caps, flensing and death. It's superb
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
Maybe Elton John could sing "Candle in the wind," at his funeral.
If you want a song for a guy like Andrew, Sorry Seem to be the Hardest Word ?
Perhaps "Fire", by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
More appropriate for the former MP for Bournemouth West.
Partly because it does sound like Arthur Brown is singing "You're Conor Burns" at the end. (Thank Danny Baker for that observation.)
From @yougov 8th - 9th February Changes with 2nd February"
Nothing to see here
If I were a Tory voter or member I'd be going ballistic
Asking why the schoolgirl antagonist in charge of my Party is wasting her 3 day working week and twitter feed on nit picking on who mailed Mandelson and when.
When meanwhile fee were leaking Members, Experts and donors to Reform at an alarming rate.
More so, why nothing was being done to shore up the inexorable drip drip drip of vote share to the point where we'll finish 5th at best on Wales 4th at best in Scotland, 4th probably in England.
While Farage , Polanski, Davey are focusing 90% of their time on votes and policy and Labour are announcing a new policy and new investment impacting real lives every day.
What calamity Kemi doing, photo shoots in London, tweeting and spending all of her time doing absolutely Jack shit to try to rescue the Tories from oblivion.
How many more MPs does she have to lose to wake up.
You are rather ignoring the fact that these polls show Reform with Nigel Farage as leader in a comfortable lead. And he does and doesn't do exactly the sort of things that you are accused Kemi of doing or not doing. Maybe this make work really doesn't make much difference after all. Maybe politics has moved on somewhat.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
Maybe Elton John could sing "Candle in the wind," at his funeral.
If you want a song for a guy like Andrew, Sorry Seem to be the Hardest Word ?
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
Maybe Elton John could sing "Candle in the wind," at his funeral.
If you want a song for a guy like Andrew, Sorry Seem to be the Hardest Word ?
BREAKING: Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch says, "Starmer is now in office, but not in power", after his cabinet came out in support of the Prime Minister following the Mandelson scandal
There's an original take, we've never heard before. #gokemi
Sometimes the old tunes are the best, and there's no point in trying (ineptly) to innovate for the sake of it.
Used to be the USP of the Conservatives.
Right. Thatcherism sent them all mad.
You might have thought that they would have said, "Thatcher fixed Britain, so we can lay off the radical change for another century or so," but instead they decided on a course of permanent revolution so that in 2026, when Britain has been run by Tories for 32 of the last 47 years, the debate on the right of British politics is between those who say that Britain is completely broken and those who say that it's not quite totally wrecked.
Great job lads. Top work.
And Thatcherism is not repeatable. You can sell off the public utilities on the cheap once. You can only sell the council houses off on the cheap once. You can only steal Scotland's oil once.
Why is John Healey not higher? As an outsider to Labour, I'd be expecting him to be a far better candidate than those ahead of him.
Healey is the sensible choice for the country.
Which means that Labour MPs and Labour members will have no interest in nominating him.
Keeping Starmer in place is preferable to replacing him with Miliband or Rayner.
In what respect is Healey greatly different from Starmer ? I've nothing against the guy, but I'm unaware of any notable achievements.
And it's time for a reminder that the Defence Review was published at the beginning of June last year. The Defence Investment Plan, intended to set out spending priorities for the next decade, was due last autumn. Still crickets.
He's just Baldy Ben with a less catastrophic cholesterol level, presiding over the same torpor and dysfunction at the MoD.
Why he's anybody's idea of a PM is beyond me. Labour's challenge is to sell occasionally unpalatable reform to the MPs and then sell it again to the electorate as what they need and want. That takes a big personality and some degree of personal charm. Healey has the personality and charm of a Minecraft Creeper so we can cross him off.
I'm not particularly concerned about Britain having low stockpiles of munitions. I'd hope most munitions production was focused on supplying Ukraine rather than filling warehouses in Britain.
That increased spending on nuclear weapons is more than consuming the modest increases in defence spending is concerning, though. Forget about Healy becoming PM. He ought to have resigned rather than accept such a budget settlement. In the current geopolitical circumstances it is suicidal to be reducing spending on conventional military capability.
I thought the situation was that Britain was moving in the right direction, but too slowly. It is so much worse than that.
I am. It means that everything we field - artillery; aircraft; ships; air defence - is of use only for the shortest of conflicts.
Our army isn't really a priority. In the European context it's basically an irrelevancy and will remain so for the rest of the decade; and it's unlikely we're going to fight a land war on home soil.
But the hollowing out of the navy and airforce is of much more significance. And precious little of that kit is supplied to Ukraine.
The shortfall is as much in production capacity as it is in stocks of munitions - and the production capacity won't ever exist unless we order significant amounts.
That's actually the one silver lining, It means that we can simply cancel Ajax and not worry about a replacement for the rest of this parliament at least (and set the lawyers onto GDLS).
We can't get on GD's bad side because we're 100% reliant on them for the Astute successor. It'll almost certainly turn out to be largely the fault of the MoD/Army anyway...
Cancelling it is a grand idea, as long we don't spend any more money trying to replace it with something else. Just use Boxer/Patria for everything.
Agreed with the last bit. It will piss off the army brass, but since they're also responsible for the disaster, they deserve a few years without the fun toys. And it would be of very little consequence indeed for the UK's security.
Bin the Challenger upgrade too while we're at it. The Challenger hulls are both overweight and obsolete compared to the new generation of MBTs, and I'm pretty sure the money could be spent more usefully.
Not to mention Britain has precisely no use for tanks since the post-cold war peace dividend. No longer are they stationed in West Germany to hold back the Red Army until reinforcements can be flown in from the United States. Britain is an island with a footnote for Ireland.
There needs to be in my 6a fundamental assessment of defence spending.
Not should we be spending more, in fact the polar opposite, should we stop wasting money that can and should be spent on far more pressing matters. Health, cost of living, growth.
Our Army, Navy, Air Force and all other component parts arev inadequate after 15 years of chronic under investment.
We are being asked to fund massive increases for what?
Global status Romance of past status Little England mentality
Why don't we adopt Swiss neutrality We are a third world country long irrelevant on the global stage
We are like Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland. Important but not an A lister
Spend what we can to retain a largely ceremonial armed services who can provide peace keeping functionality
Our tanks and troop Ships and sailors Planes and Pilots
Are frankly sitting ducks and rusting relics in the modern age.
Our rusting nuclear deterrent is risible, the button is probably jammed.
Just who, who, is seriously going to invade us.
Cyber security is far more important than self grandeur, self flagfelation and arrogance
Let the first man or woman to encompass this reality and truth stand up, wake up and smell the coffee
Raynor is a case of turkeys voting for Xmas. Her basic instincts are thoroughly Corbynite and that would we exposed by being PM and in the full glare of media attention. Just like SKS is just so obviously a north London lawyer. But progressives are so self-congratulatory and inward looking these days they don't see it.
I wonder whether this is Milliband's chance - he protesteth too much imho
I see Ed Miliband as the steady pair of hands who can safely guide Labour to a respectable defeat and opposition.
That's preferable to choosing someone who would blow everything up and put Labour in fifth, but are Labour yet reconciled to defeat at the next GE? I suspect not, and so I think someone else will be chosen.
Ed Miliband would be a suicidal move
If anyone is Labour's Liz Truss, it's Ed Miliband. He's away with the fairies.
It's sad how triggering the Green Industrial Revolution is for some people. The future will be EVs, smart tariffs, an upgraded grid, BESS and more renewable generation, you can try to be in the vanguard with Miliband or you can resist, screaming and kicking, like Kemi, Reform or a bit quieter like the yellow NIMBYs. The end result will be the same, just whether we get there faster willingly or later in a sulk.
The problem is Miliband isn't the vanguard. That the Telegraph (and friends) has gone completely and irrationally hysterical over him rather disguises this.
If he were, we'd have no standing charges, taxes on electricity would have been migrated over to gas and fuel duties, we'd all be on 30-minute variable tariffs, and pricing would reflect the cost of generation and transmission in different parts of the country. We'd have significant investment in EV infrastructure and aggressive carbon taxes on imports to protect our industries.
Contrary to the the hysterics, Miliband so far has had next to zero impact on energy policy compared with the course set by the prior Conservative government.
OTOH, some good news today with lots of exceptionally cheap solar and onshore wind being approved. And relative to other energy projects, should be up and running quickly.
I fail to see how building more onshore wind on upload peat soils with no means to connect them to a useful grid is a win.
Another one in Skye near Loch Harport I see, on what should be blanket bog.
Just stick them on the Cuillin and be done with it.
To be fair, the biggest projects approved today are far closer to existing transmission infrastructure/demand than offshore wind - e.g. Lincolnshire, D&G, Cornwall. I don't disagree in general though.
As I'm sure you know, peat bogs are by far our best carbon sink, not trees.
Admittedly a high proportion are being trashed by muirburn (and this should 100% be stopped, yesterday) but that's no excuse to double trash them. Once these things are built there is no way the concrete bases can ever be removed and the water table recovered.
Whereas the North Sea seems the ideal place for wind at a scale which will actually make a difference. Surely it is easier to run new network offshore (Russians permitting)?
To me it just seems like a gold rush for landowners and companies that don't really care what the long term effects are as long as there is short term money to be made (nothing new there).
Solar farms are different as most of the infrastructure can easily be removed if it is no longer needed, and it won't leave a permanent legacy in the landscape. Although it is a bit annoying that a lot of our local greenspace is going to be filled in just because the landscape has already been trashed for coal (leaving a network of grid connections).
Noticing a big surge in solar panel developments in today's announcement.
One thing which will come into play, not for a few years yet is offshore wind decommissioning costs. That's going to need to be paid for and factored in by government, so we will see how good Orsted etc are at Decex. This is where solar will piss all over wind turbines in future cost savings, and they wont need as generous CfD payments to keep them going. No clunky cables to get them onshore either, and no need to worry about Russian subs messing around.
Miliband would however, be wise to restrict solar away from the best quality land. You can graze sheep round them, but in practice this doesn't happen too often
New houses pretty much all have panels fitted, so capacity should get a good boost in coming years.
It depends if he looks himself in the mirror, and takes responsibility. Without that, any statements are entirely meaningless.
On Bear of Little Brain, a great Chief Scout aiui, but a complete pratt in his engagement with R Brand Esq.
On shoot-from-the-hip Ms Proudman, that is probably the first thing I have ever agreed with s/him on.
On Bear Grylls - big fan of his hubris in rewriting the bible recently. Takes some doing. Which of course reminded me of when Michael Gove wrote a forward to the bible and sent it to every school in the UK. Bonkers stuff. And the connection between the two?
Bear’s dad was MP for the seat they became Surrey Heath. Former seat of the Gove.
From @yougov 8th - 9th February Changes with 2nd February"
Nothing to see here
If I were a Tory voter or member I'd be going ballistic
Asking why the schoolgirl antagonist in charge of my Party is wasting her 3 day working week and twitter feed on nit picking on who mailed Mandelson and when.
When meanwhile fee were leaking Members, Experts and donors to Reform at an alarming rate.
More so, why nothing was being done to shore up the inexorable drip drip drip of vote share to the point where we'll finish 5th at best on Wales 4th at best in Scotland, 4th probably in England.
While Farage , Polanski, Davey are focusing 90% of their time on votes and policy and Labour are announcing a new policy and new investment impacting real lives every day.
What calamity Kemi doing, photo shoots in London, tweeting and spending all of her time doing absolutely Jack shit to try to rescue the Tories from oblivion.
How many more MPs does she have to lose to wake up.
You are rather ignoring the fact that these polls show Reform with Nigel Farage as leader in a comfortable lead. And he does and doesn't do exactly the sort of things that you are accused Kemi of doing or not doing. Maybe this make work really doesn't make much difference after all. Maybe politics has moved on somewhat.
Farage as much as I detest him, is out there campaigning, NOT showboating like a schoolgirl
Reading the messages between Streeting and Mandelson is vomit inducing. I don't see how he becomes PM now, he's tainted even more than Starmer IMO having such a close friendship to Mandelson who we now know to have been trading price sensitive information for favours. That Streeting could be blinded by what seems like infatuation for Mandelson shows very, very poor character judgement and should bar him from becoming PM.
Indeed-doody
Also, they are the messages of close friends, for sure, and yet at the same time Streeting is claiming he met Mandyboots about "once a year, at formal dinners, with many others"
It stretches credulity. I think Peerpantsgate has some way to run, yet
Absolutely. The tone confirms that they were bosom buddies, the content and frequency confirms that Mandelson was a confidante of Streeting and the overall impression does nothing to dispel the view that Streeting was a Mandelson protege.
These emails would have come out anyway. Streeting's calculation was that it was less damaging to get it out of the way now than later, but it is still damaging nonetheless.
I also note that the group emails involving Streeting haven't been released, and there is the potential for the groups involving Mandelson, Streeting and other leading lights of New Labour to be quite meaty, if not quite on a par with the "Shiver My Timbers" stuff.
Mandelson was a founder of New Labour along with Blair and Brown. That much is no secret so finding a link between Mandelson and Blairites is not the coup some make it out to be. There needs to be something connecting any new figure beyond Mandelson to Epstein. Their exchanges are:- https://news.sky.com/story/read-wes-streetings-messages-with-mandelson-in-full-13505439
The most damaging part for a leadership campaign might be Streeting's fear that his own seat is at risk.
It may not be news Westminster insiders, but the revelations that Mandelson and Streeting had such close political and personal relations will make many of the Labour membership think twice about Streeting, and it is they who are the electorate here. Even though some had been saying as much, you could still choose not to believe them, yet now the evidence is out there in your face.
Also, may I remind you that Streeting went on LBC in the wake of the September 2025 revelations of emails which caused Starmer to sack Mandelson, and still chose to defend his associate Mandelson by saying; "we shouldn't tar everyone as guilty by association".
It's ironic that he's now trying to use the same argument to defend his own dealings with Mandelson.
You confirm what you wish to deny. Streeting publicly, in your link, defended (to a point) Mandelson so last week was no revelation. The newly released exchanges last week, linked earlier, contain nothing new and nothing that could not be inferred by anyone with the slightest knowledge of Labour politics and New Labour history. Unless direct links to Epstein are found, there is not much here.
Next PM betting: 5/2 favourite Angela Rayner; 9/2 next best Wes Streeting.
Quite an interesting take from Mons. Macaron, no the need for Europe to be a world power:
Macron urges Europe to start acting like world power ... Macron admitted that France "has never had a balanced model, unlike certain economies of the north, which are built more on a sense of responsibility.
"And we have never had reforms like the ones initiated in the 2010s in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, which are paying dividends today."
But he said there was growing demand in the world's financial markets for mutualised European debt, which currently the EU was not equipped to supply. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8n1zdnpd3o
I think he is right that there needs to be groundwork starting for systems which can work around the USA perhaps especially from "middle ranking powers" with GDPs of $0.5tn to $5tn (ie top 30 economies by GDP), especially at the BRICS are gradually pushing ahead with their system.
But he is being too French-centric, it being a day with Y in it.
Raynor is a case of turkeys voting for Xmas. Her basic instincts are thoroughly Corbynite and that would we exposed by being PM and in the full glare of media attention. Just like SKS is just so obviously a north London lawyer. But progressives are so self-congratulatory and inward looking these days they don't see it.
I wonder whether this is Milliband's chance - he protesteth too much imho
I see Ed Miliband as the steady pair of hands who can safely guide Labour to a respectable defeat and opposition.
That's preferable to choosing someone who would blow everything up and put Labour in fifth, but are Labour yet reconciled to defeat at the next GE? I suspect not, and so I think someone else will be chosen.
Ed Miliband would be a suicidal move
If anyone is Labour's Liz Truss, it's Ed Miliband. He's away with the fairies.
It's sad how triggering the Green Industrial Revolution is for some people. The future will be EVs, smart tariffs, an upgraded grid, BESS and more renewable generation, you can try to be in the vanguard with Miliband or you can resist, screaming and kicking, like Kemi, Reform or a bit quieter like the yellow NIMBYs. The end result will be the same, just whether we get there faster willingly or later in a sulk.
The problem is Miliband isn't the vanguard. That the Telegraph (and friends) has gone completely and irrationally hysterical over him rather disguises this.
If he were, we'd have no standing charges, taxes on electricity would have been migrated over to gas and fuel duties, we'd all be on 30-minute variable tariffs, and pricing would reflect the cost of generation and transmission in different parts of the country. We'd have significant investment in EV infrastructure and aggressive carbon taxes on imports to protect our industries.
Contrary to the the hysterics, Miliband so far has had next to zero impact on energy policy compared with the course set by the prior Conservative government.
OTOH, some good news today with lots of exceptionally cheap solar and onshore wind being approved. And relative to other energy projects, should be up and running quickly.
I fail to see how building more onshore wind on upload peat soils with no means to connect them to a useful grid is a win.
Another one in Skye near Loch Harport I see, on what should be blanket bog.
Just stick them on the Cuillin and be done with it.
To be fair, the biggest projects approved today are far closer to existing transmission infrastructure/demand than offshore wind - e.g. Lincolnshire, D&G, Cornwall. I don't disagree in general though.
As I'm sure you know, peat bogs are by far our best carbon sink, not trees.
Admittedly a high proportion are being trashed by muirburn (and this should 100% be stopped, yesterday) but that's no excuse to double trash them. Once these things are built there is no way the concrete bases can ever be removed and the water table recovered.
Whereas the North Sea seems the ideal place for wind at a scale which will actually make a difference. Surely it is easier to run new network offshore (Russians permitting)?
To me it just seems like a gold rush for landowners and companies that don't really care what the long term effects are as long as there is short term money to be made (nothing new there).
Solar farms are different as most of the infrastructure can easily be removed if it is no longer needed, and it won't leave a permanent legacy in the landscape. Although it is a bit annoying that a lot of our local greenspace is going to be filled in just because the landscape has already been trashed for coal (leaving a network of grid connections).
Noticing a big surge in solar panel developments in today's announcement.
One thing which will come into play, not for a few years yet is offshore wind decommissioning costs. That's going to need to be paid for and factored in by government, so we will see how good Orsted etc are at Decex. This is where solar will piss all over wind turbines in future cost savings, and they wont need as generous CfD payments to keep them going. No clunky cables to get them onshore either, and no need to worry about Russian subs messing around.
Miliband would however, be wise to restrict solar away from the best quality land. You can graze sheep round them, but in practice this doesn't happen too often
New houses pretty much all have panels fitted, so capacity should get a good boost in coming years.
Better still when solar panels are replaced by solar tiles, so every roof is one big solar receptor
Why is John Healey not higher? As an outsider to Labour, I'd be expecting him to be a far better candidate than those ahead of him.
Healey is the sensible choice for the country.
Which means that Labour MPs and Labour members will have no interest in nominating him.
Keeping Starmer in place is preferable to replacing him with Miliband or Rayner.
In what respect is Healey greatly different from Starmer ? I've nothing against the guy, but I'm unaware of any notable achievements.
And it's time for a reminder that the Defence Review was published at the beginning of June last year. The Defence Investment Plan, intended to set out spending priorities for the next decade, was due last autumn. Still crickets.
He's just Baldy Ben with a less catastrophic cholesterol level, presiding over the same torpor and dysfunction at the MoD.
Why he's anybody's idea of a PM is beyond me. Labour's challenge is to sell occasionally unpalatable reform to the MPs and then sell it again to the electorate as what they need and want. That takes a big personality and some degree of personal charm. Healey has the personality and charm of a Minecraft Creeper so we can cross him off.
I'm not particularly concerned about Britain having low stockpiles of munitions. I'd hope most munitions production was focused on supplying Ukraine rather than filling warehouses in Britain.
That increased spending on nuclear weapons is more than consuming the modest increases in defence spending is concerning, though. Forget about Healy becoming PM. He ought to have resigned rather than accept such a budget settlement. In the current geopolitical circumstances it is suicidal to be reducing spending on conventional military capability.
I thought the situation was that Britain was moving in the right direction, but too slowly. It is so much worse than that.
I am. It means that everything we field - artillery; aircraft; ships; air defence - is of use only for the shortest of conflicts.
Our army isn't really a priority. In the European context it's basically an irrelevancy and will remain so for the rest of the decade; and it's unlikely we're going to fight a land war on home soil.
But the hollowing out of the navy and airforce is of much more significance. And precious little of that kit is supplied to Ukraine.
The shortfall is as much in production capacity as it is in stocks of munitions - and the production capacity won't ever exist unless we order significant amounts.
That's actually the one silver lining, It means that we can simply cancel Ajax and not worry about a replacement for the rest of this parliament at least (and set the lawyers onto GDLS).
We can't get on GD's bad side because we're 100% reliant on them for the Astute successor. It'll almost certainly turn out to be largely the fault of the MoD/Army anyway...
Cancelling it is a grand idea, as long we don't spend any more money trying to replace it with something else. Just use Boxer/Patria for everything.
Agreed with the last bit. It will piss off the army brass, but since they're also responsible for the disaster, they deserve a few years without the fun toys. And it would be of very little consequence indeed for the UK's security.
Bin the Challenger upgrade too while we're at it. The Challenger hulls are both overweight and obsolete compared to the new generation of MBTs, and I'm pretty sure the money could be spent more usefully.
Not to mention Britain has precisely no use for tanks since the post-cold war peace dividend. No longer are they stationed in West Germany to hold back the Red Army until reinforcements can be flown in from the United States. Britain is an island with a footnote for Ireland.
There needs to be in my 6a fundamental assessment of defence spending.
Not should we be spending more, in fact the polar opposite, should we stop wasting money that can and should be spent on far more pressing matters. Health, cost of living, growth.
Our Army, Navy, Air Force and all other component parts arev inadequate after 15 years of chronic under investment.
We are being asked to fund massive increases for what?
Global status Romance of past status Little England mentality
Why don't we adopt Swiss neutrality We are a third world country long irrelevant on the global stage
We are like Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland. Important but not an A lister
Spend what we can to retain a largely ceremonial armed services who can provide peace keeping functionality
Our tanks and troop Ships and sailors Planes and Pilots
Are frankly sitting ducks and rusting relics in the modern age.
Our rusting nuclear deterrent is risible, the button is probably jammed.
Just who, who, is seriously going to invade us.
Cyber security is far more important than self grandeur, self flagfelation and arrogance
Let the first man or woman to encompass this reality and truth stand up, wake up and smell the coffee
Yes, of course, we live in a world where the lion lies down with the lamb, and never is heard is a disparaging word.
Mike Tapp MP @MikeTappTweets I’ve received countless emails from constituents thanking my support of the PM and offering theirs, I’ve never seen anything like it.
The country does not want chaos.
Stability and delivery is what they voted for and that is what we are getting on with.
With Jenrick and Braverman now safely tucked up in the spare room at Reform HQ, we can probably look forward to far fewer 'senior Tory source' negative briefings.
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
What prompted this fellow feeling ?
BTW you were asking for TV recommendations; have you tried Wonder Man ? First couple of episodes are promising, and Ben Kingsley (I've never really been a huge fan) is superb. Silly but very entertaining.
I will have a look, ta
I can strongly recommend The North Water (if I haven't recommended it already). A brilliantly bleak period drama about a surgeon on a whaling boat out of Hull in about 1850. Relentlessly grim. Nothing really happens, it's just an endless parade of sodomy, rum, scurvy, blubber, ice caps, flensing and death. It's superb
Raynor is a case of turkeys voting for Xmas. Her basic instincts are thoroughly Corbynite and that would we exposed by being PM and in the full glare of media attention. Just like SKS is just so obviously a north London lawyer. But progressives are so self-congratulatory and inward looking these days they don't see it.
I wonder whether this is Milliband's chance - he protesteth too much imho
I see Ed Miliband as the steady pair of hands who can safely guide Labour to a respectable defeat and opposition.
That's preferable to choosing someone who would blow everything up and put Labour in fifth, but are Labour yet reconciled to defeat at the next GE? I suspect not, and so I think someone else will be chosen.
Ed Miliband would be a suicidal move
If anyone is Labour's Liz Truss, it's Ed Miliband. He's away with the fairies.
It's sad how triggering the Green Industrial Revolution is for some people. The future will be EVs, smart tariffs, an upgraded grid, BESS and more renewable generation, you can try to be in the vanguard with Miliband or you can resist, screaming and kicking, like Kemi, Reform or a bit quieter like the yellow NIMBYs. The end result will be the same, just whether we get there faster willingly or later in a sulk.
The problem is Miliband isn't the vanguard. That the Telegraph (and friends) has gone completely and irrationally hysterical over him rather disguises this.
If he were, we'd have no standing charges, taxes on electricity would have been migrated over to gas and fuel duties, we'd all be on 30-minute variable tariffs, and pricing would reflect the cost of generation and transmission in different parts of the country. We'd have significant investment in EV infrastructure and aggressive carbon taxes on imports to protect our industries.
Contrary to the the hysterics, Miliband so far has had next to zero impact on energy policy compared with the course set by the prior Conservative government.
OTOH, some good news today with lots of exceptionally cheap solar and onshore wind being approved. And relative to other energy projects, should be up and running quickly.
I fail to see how building more onshore wind on upload peat soils with no means to connect them to a useful grid is a win.
Another one in Skye near Loch Harport I see, on what should be blanket bog.
Just stick them on the Cuillin and be done with it.
To be fair, the biggest projects approved today are far closer to existing transmission infrastructure/demand than offshore wind - e.g. Lincolnshire, D&G, Cornwall. I don't disagree in general though.
As I'm sure you know, peat bogs are by far our best carbon sink, not trees.
Admittedly a high proportion are being trashed by muirburn (and this should 100% be stopped, yesterday) but that's no excuse to double trash them. Once these things are built there is no way the concrete bases can ever be removed and the water table recovered.
Whereas the North Sea seems the ideal place for wind at a scale which will actually make a difference. Surely it is easier to run new network offshore (Russians permitting)?
To me it just seems like a gold rush for landowners and companies that don't really care what the long term effects are as long as there is short term money to be made (nothing new there).
Solar farms are different as most of the infrastructure can easily be removed if it is no longer needed, and it won't leave a permanent legacy in the landscape. Although it is a bit annoying that a lot of our local greenspace is going to be filled in just because the landscape has already been trashed for coal (leaving a network of grid connections).
Noticing a big surge in solar panel developments in today's announcement.
One thing which will come into play, not for a few years yet is offshore wind decommissioning costs. That's going to need to be paid for and factored in by government, so we will see how good Orsted etc are at Decex. This is where solar will piss all over wind turbines in future cost savings, and they wont need as generous CfD payments to keep them going. No clunky cables to get them onshore either, and no need to worry about Russian subs messing around.
Miliband would however, be wise to restrict solar away from the best quality land. You can graze sheep round them, but in practice this doesn't happen too often
New houses pretty much all have panels fitted, so capacity should get a good boost in coming years.
Better still when solar panels are replaced by solar tiles, so every roof is one big solar receptor
Not going to happen as too much can go wrong. Best to have panels built into the roof and tile round the edge
Mike Tapp MP @MikeTappTweets I’ve received countless emails from constituents thanking my support of the PM and offering theirs, I’ve never seen anything like it.
The country does not want chaos.
Stability and delivery is what they voted for and that is what we are getting on with.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
With Jenrick and Braverman now safely tucked up in the spare room at Reform HQ, we can probably look forward to far fewer 'senior Tory source' negative briefings.
One would hope so, though I'm sure those industrious chaps in the media will find someone and label them 'senior'.
Serious question, though: who is the standard-bearer for that strand of right-wingery in the Conservative party now? I'm fairly sure they've not gone away entirely.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
219 arrived on 3 small boats on February 8th.
If those numbers kick off again it might affect the salience of the issue - though I'm surprised to see that there were some high numbers during December 2025.
Wikipedia says that, under Starmer's much vaunted one-in one-out scheme Britain has sent 281 migrants to France, while accepting 350 in return (by 27th January 2026). So those numbers still aren't high enough to act as a deterrent.
Why is John Healey not higher? As an outsider to Labour, I'd be expecting him to be a far better candidate than those ahead of him.
Healey is the sensible choice for the country.
Which means that Labour MPs and Labour members will have no interest in nominating him.
Keeping Starmer in place is preferable to replacing him with Miliband or Rayner.
In what respect is Healey greatly different from Starmer ? I've nothing against the guy, but I'm unaware of any notable achievements.
And it's time for a reminder that the Defence Review was published at the beginning of June last year. The Defence Investment Plan, intended to set out spending priorities for the next decade, was due last autumn. Still crickets.
He's just Baldy Ben with a less catastrophic cholesterol level, presiding over the same torpor and dysfunction at the MoD.
Why he's anybody's idea of a PM is beyond me. Labour's challenge is to sell occasionally unpalatable reform to the MPs and then sell it again to the electorate as what they need and want. That takes a big personality and some degree of personal charm. Healey has the personality and charm of a Minecraft Creeper so we can cross him off.
I'm not particularly concerned about Britain having low stockpiles of munitions. I'd hope most munitions production was focused on supplying Ukraine rather than filling warehouses in Britain.
That increased spending on nuclear weapons is more than consuming the modest increases in defence spending is concerning, though. Forget about Healy becoming PM. He ought to have resigned rather than accept such a budget settlement. In the current geopolitical circumstances it is suicidal to be reducing spending on conventional military capability.
I thought the situation was that Britain was moving in the right direction, but too slowly. It is so much worse than that.
I am. It means that everything we field - artillery; aircraft; ships; air defence - is of use only for the shortest of conflicts.
Our army isn't really a priority. In the European context it's basically an irrelevancy and will remain so for the rest of the decade; and it's unlikely we're going to fight a land war on home soil.
But the hollowing out of the navy and airforce is of much more significance. And precious little of that kit is supplied to Ukraine.
The shortfall is as much in production capacity as it is in stocks of munitions - and the production capacity won't ever exist unless we order significant amounts.
That's actually the one silver lining, It means that we can simply cancel Ajax and not worry about a replacement for the rest of this parliament at least (and set the lawyers onto GDLS).
We can't get on GD's bad side because we're 100% reliant on them for the Astute successor. It'll almost certainly turn out to be largely the fault of the MoD/Army anyway...
Cancelling it is a grand idea, as long we don't spend any more money trying to replace it with something else. Just use Boxer/Patria for everything.
Agreed with the last bit. It will piss off the army brass, but since they're also responsible for the disaster, they deserve a few years without the fun toys. And it would be of very little consequence indeed for the UK's security.
Bin the Challenger upgrade too while we're at it. The Challenger hulls are both overweight and obsolete compared to the new generation of MBTs, and I'm pretty sure the money could be spent more usefully.
Not to mention Britain has precisely no use for tanks since the post-cold war peace dividend. No longer are they stationed in West Germany to hold back the Red Army until reinforcements can be flown in from the United States. Britain is an island with a footnote for Ireland.
There needs to be in my 6a fundamental assessment of defence spending.
Not should we be spending more, in fact the polar opposite, should we stop wasting money that can and should be spent on far more pressing matters. Health, cost of living, growth.
Our Army, Navy, Air Force and all other component parts arev inadequate after 15 years of chronic under investment.
We are being asked to fund massive increases for what?
Global status Romance of past status Little England mentality
Why don't we adopt Swiss neutrality We are a third world country long irrelevant on the global stage
We are like Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland. Important but not an A lister
Spend what we can to retain a largely ceremonial armed services who can provide peace keeping functionality
Our tanks and troop Ships and sailors Planes and Pilots
Are frankly sitting ducks and rusting relics in the modern age.
Our rusting nuclear deterrent is risible, the button is probably jammed.
Just who, who, is seriously going to invade us.
Cyber security is far more important than self grandeur, self flagfelation and arrogance
Let the first man or woman to encompass this reality and truth stand up, wake up and smell the coffee
There we differ. Britain does need to defend its trade routes and the odd overseas corner, not to mention underseas cables used for power and communication. You are right about the nuclear deterrent not working and the need for cybersecurity.
With Jenrick and Braverman now safely tucked up in the spare room at Reform HQ, we can probably look forward to far fewer 'senior Tory source' negative briefings.
One would hope so, though I'm sure those industrious chaps in the media will find someone and label them 'senior'.
Serious question, though: who is the standard-bearer for that strand of right-wingery in the Conservative party now? I'm fairly sure they've not gone away entirely.
McVey, Swayne, Vickers, Chope, Rankin Francois but hes gone tribal since allegedly being rebuffed by Farage
Edit - Vickers and Rankin seem pretty Tory loyal and im not sure McVey would jump as Tatton isnt going Reform any time soon
Quite an interesting take from Mons. Macaron, no the need for Europe to be a world power:
Macron urges Europe to start acting like world power ... Macron admitted that France "has never had a balanced model, unlike certain economies of the north, which are built more on a sense of responsibility.
"And we have never had reforms like the ones initiated in the 2010s in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, which are paying dividends today."
But he said there was growing demand in the world's financial markets for mutualised European debt, which currently the EU was not equipped to supply. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8n1zdnpd3o
I think he is right that there needs to be groundwork starting for systems which can work around the USA perhaps especially from "middle ranking powers" with GDPs of $0.5tn to $5tn (ie top 30 economies by GDP), especially at the BRICS are gradually pushing ahead with their system.
But he is being too French-centric, it being a day with Y in it.
Jour with an ‘i’ in it, as they say in La Francophonie.
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
What prompted this fellow feeling ?
BTW you were asking for TV recommendations; have you tried Wonder Man ? First couple of episodes are promising, and Ben Kingsley (I've never really been a huge fan) is superb. Silly but very entertaining.
I will have a look, ta
I can strongly recommend The North Water (if I haven't recommended it already). A brilliantly bleak period drama about a surgeon on a whaling boat out of Hull in about 1850. Relentlessly grim. Nothing really happens, it's just an endless parade of sodomy, rum, scurvy, blubber, ice caps, flensing and death. It's superb
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Labour will be seen in 12 months as being very successful in stability and turning around the decline.
I've always believed Starmer would either hand over before a 2029 election or shortly after, I've no reason to change opinion on that.
Reform have hit peak. the Tories remain in decline, the LD are close to the peak of their reach, the Greens are emerging but as a left wing party that no longer even pretends to consider the environment, under Polanski.
Ed Miliband is actually greener and more focused on the Environment than any Green
Once all of that filters through there is a chance for Labour to get a 2nd term, with a younger leader.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Maybe, maybe. But at a pitiful % and very vulnerable
Why is John Healey not higher? As an outsider to Labour, I'd be expecting him to be a far better candidate than those ahead of him.
Healey is the sensible choice for the country.
Which means that Labour MPs and Labour members will have no interest in nominating him.
Keeping Starmer in place is preferable to replacing him with Miliband or Rayner.
In what respect is Healey greatly different from Starmer ? I've nothing against the guy, but I'm unaware of any notable achievements.
And it's time for a reminder that the Defence Review was published at the beginning of June last year. The Defence Investment Plan, intended to set out spending priorities for the next decade, was due last autumn. Still crickets.
He's just Baldy Ben with a less catastrophic cholesterol level, presiding over the same torpor and dysfunction at the MoD.
Why he's anybody's idea of a PM is beyond me. Labour's challenge is to sell occasionally unpalatable reform to the MPs and then sell it again to the electorate as what they need and want. That takes a big personality and some degree of personal charm. Healey has the personality and charm of a Minecraft Creeper so we can cross him off.
I'm not particularly concerned about Britain having low stockpiles of munitions. I'd hope most munitions production was focused on supplying Ukraine rather than filling warehouses in Britain.
That increased spending on nuclear weapons is more than consuming the modest increases in defence spending is concerning, though. Forget about Healy becoming PM. He ought to have resigned rather than accept such a budget settlement. In the current geopolitical circumstances it is suicidal to be reducing spending on conventional military capability.
I thought the situation was that Britain was moving in the right direction, but too slowly. It is so much worse than that.
I am. It means that everything we field - artillery; aircraft; ships; air defence - is of use only for the shortest of conflicts.
Our army isn't really a priority. In the European context it's basically an irrelevancy and will remain so for the rest of the decade; and it's unlikely we're going to fight a land war on home soil.
But the hollowing out of the navy and airforce is of much more significance. And precious little of that kit is supplied to Ukraine.
The shortfall is as much in production capacity as it is in stocks of munitions - and the production capacity won't ever exist unless we order significant amounts.
That's actually the one silver lining, It means that we can simply cancel Ajax and not worry about a replacement for the rest of this parliament at least (and set the lawyers onto GDLS).
We can't get on GD's bad side because we're 100% reliant on them for the Astute successor. It'll almost certainly turn out to be largely the fault of the MoD/Army anyway...
Cancelling it is a grand idea, as long we don't spend any more money trying to replace it with something else. Just use Boxer/Patria for everything.
Agreed with the last bit. It will piss off the army brass, but since they're also responsible for the disaster, they deserve a few years without the fun toys. And it would be of very little consequence indeed for the UK's security.
Bin the Challenger upgrade too while we're at it. The Challenger hulls are both overweight and obsolete compared to the new generation of MBTs, and I'm pretty sure the money could be spent more usefully.
Not to mention Britain has precisely no use for tanks since the post-cold war peace dividend. No longer are they stationed in West Germany to hold back the Red Army until reinforcements can be flown in from the United States. Britain is an island with a footnote for Ireland.
There needs to be in my 6a fundamental assessment of defence spending.
Not should we be spending more, in fact the polar opposite, should we stop wasting money that can and should be spent on far more pressing matters. Health, cost of living, growth.
Our Army, Navy, Air Force and all other component parts arev inadequate after 15 years of chronic under investment.
We are being asked to fund massive increases for what?
Global status Romance of past status Little England mentality
Why don't we adopt Swiss neutrality We are a third world country long irrelevant on the global stage
We are like Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland. Important but not an A lister
Spend what we can to retain a largely ceremonial armed services who can provide peace keeping functionality
Our tanks and troop Ships and sailors Planes and Pilots
Are frankly sitting ducks and rusting relics in the modern age.
Our rusting nuclear deterrent is risible, the button is probably jammed.
Just who, who, is seriously going to invade us.
Cyber security is far more important than self grandeur, self flagfelation and arrogance
Let the first man or woman to encompass this reality and truth stand up, wake up and smell the coffee
Yes, of course, we live in a world where the lion lies down with the lamb, and never is heard is a disparaging word.
Exactly my piont
No future in being a lion or kidding ourselves that we can be a lion.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
He's in Manchester
He's definitely not in Manchester.
He or she are sat in the Hoc in plain sight.
Burnham was yesterday's man 5 years ago, his chance came and went.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Labour will be seen in 12 months as being very successful in stability and turning around the decline.
I've always believed Starmer would either hand over before a 2029 election or shortly after, I've no reason to change opinion on that.
Reform have hit peak. the Tories remain in decline, the LD are close to the peak of their reach, the Greens are emerging but as a left wing party that no longer even pretends to consider the environment, under Polanski.
Ed Miliband is actually greener and more focused on the Environment than any Green
Once all of that filters through there is a chance for Labour to get a 2nd term, with a younger leader.
Starmer should have quit however I’ve not got any issues with the policy platform in general. They just need somebody else to front it. Ditching it all would be a mistake.
Personally think a new leader should come in after Starmer has done the unpopular bit, do a bit of optimism and call an election in 2028/2029. Starmer won’t fight it, have also thought that for ages.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
He's in Manchester
He's definitely not in Manchester.
He or she are sat in the Hoc in plain sight.
Burnham was yesterday's man 5 years ago, his chance came and went.
He's found his niche.
Did you listen to him because if you did you would see why labour need him
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
You really don't think that do you.
Your being very clever and playing political mind games
Stir the pot.
I really don't think the big strategists from either party are on here thinking "let's see what those fellas off the internet think, particularly the ones with a history of voting for the other lot." And I'm pretty sure Big G doesn't think that either. We're just having a chat; there's no strategy or illusion that this has any impact except a bit on the betting markets.
I wonder if we’ve found Labour core support of around 19%.
The opinion poll graph on Wikipedia does suggest that their support has stabilised at that level.
As to whether to interpret that as being rock bottom core support, or due to a rally round the flag effect with the various geopolitical tensions at the start of this year, I am not sure.
If it is core support it is a much lower level of core support than in previous years. Even at his nadir Corbyn's Labour was polling on average above 20% and similarly for the depths of Brown's unpopularity.
So I'm not sure that core support is that useful a concept. If things get bad enough then Labour's support will drop further.
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
What prompted this fellow feeling ?
BTW you were asking for TV recommendations; have you tried Wonder Man ? First couple of episodes are promising, and Ben Kingsley (I've never really been a huge fan) is superb. Silly but very entertaining.
I will have a look, ta
I can strongly recommend The North Water (if I haven't recommended it already). A brilliantly bleak period drama about a surgeon on a whaling boat out of Hull in about 1850. Relentlessly grim. Nothing really happens, it's just an endless parade of sodomy, rum, scurvy, blubber, ice caps, flensing and death. It's superb
That was pretty good.
Go back to.the late 70s Strangers and Brothers by CP snow adapted in 13 episodes by the BBC all.available on you tube. Just started re watching it. It is as good as I remember it.
I think Labour MPs are in serious danger of thinking that them pretending to support Starmer becomes public endorsement by osmosis. They wouldn't be the first beleaguered party to make that mistake.
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
His success in Manchester comes from business investment which should be the model
I wonder if we’ve found Labour core support of around 19%.
The Labour and Tory floors seem very very similar
Edit - Labour are a bit below the Brown bottom and the Corbyn basement
Quite why anyone supports Labour or the Tories at the moment is unclear. Both are absolute car-crashes in terms of party direction and leadership.
Because not everyone shares your opinion and analysis of them. Id question why anyone would be responding Lib Dem to a poll or in a voting booth right now but they are and more power to them for their choice
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
There is a third option of course, which would be to cut expenditure on something not as important, to redirect that money elsewhere.
Plenty of things that could be cut, but if you're not willing to cut anything then don't expect to be able to afford to spend what you want either.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Labour will be seen in 12 months as being very successful in stability and turning around the decline.
I've always believed Starmer would either hand over before a 2029 election or shortly after, I've no reason to change opinion on that.
Reform have hit peak. the Tories remain in decline, the LD are close to the peak of their reach, the Greens are emerging but as a left wing party that no longer even pretends to consider the environment, under Polanski.
Ed Miliband is actually greener and more focused on the Environment than any Green
Once all of that filters through there is a chance for Labour to get a 2nd term, with a younger leader.
This smells like wishful thinking with nothing to back it up
Why is John Healey not higher? As an outsider to Labour, I'd be expecting him to be a far better candidate than those ahead of him.
Healey is the sensible choice for the country.
Which means that Labour MPs and Labour members will have no interest in nominating him.
Keeping Starmer in place is preferable to replacing him with Miliband or Rayner.
In what respect is Healey greatly different from Starmer ? I've nothing against the guy, but I'm unaware of any notable achievements.
And it's time for a reminder that the Defence Review was published at the beginning of June last year. The Defence Investment Plan, intended to set out spending priorities for the next decade, was due last autumn. Still crickets.
He's just Baldy Ben with a less catastrophic cholesterol level, presiding over the same torpor and dysfunction at the MoD.
Why he's anybody's idea of a PM is beyond me. Labour's challenge is to sell occasionally unpalatable reform to the MPs and then sell it again to the electorate as what they need and want. That takes a big personality and some degree of personal charm. Healey has the personality and charm of a Minecraft Creeper so we can cross him off.
I'm not particularly concerned about Britain having low stockpiles of munitions. I'd hope most munitions production was focused on supplying Ukraine rather than filling warehouses in Britain.
That increased spending on nuclear weapons is more than consuming the modest increases in defence spending is concerning, though. Forget about Healy becoming PM. He ought to have resigned rather than accept such a budget settlement. In the current geopolitical circumstances it is suicidal to be reducing spending on conventional military capability.
I thought the situation was that Britain was moving in the right direction, but too slowly. It is so much worse than that.
I am. It means that everything we field - artillery; aircraft; ships; air defence - is of use only for the shortest of conflicts.
Our army isn't really a priority. In the European context it's basically an irrelevancy and will remain so for the rest of the decade; and it's unlikely we're going to fight a land war on home soil.
But the hollowing out of the navy and airforce is of much more significance. And precious little of that kit is supplied to Ukraine.
The shortfall is as much in production capacity as it is in stocks of munitions - and the production capacity won't ever exist unless we order significant amounts.
That's actually the one silver lining, It means that we can simply cancel Ajax and not worry about a replacement for the rest of this parliament at least (and set the lawyers onto GDLS).
We can't get on GD's bad side because we're 100% reliant on them for the Astute successor. It'll almost certainly turn out to be largely the fault of the MoD/Army anyway...
Cancelling it is a grand idea, as long we don't spend any more money trying to replace it with something else. Just use Boxer/Patria for everything.
Agreed with the last bit. It will piss off the army brass, but since they're also responsible for the disaster, they deserve a few years without the fun toys. And it would be of very little consequence indeed for the UK's security.
Bin the Challenger upgrade too while we're at it. The Challenger hulls are both overweight and obsolete compared to the new generation of MBTs, and I'm pretty sure the money could be spent more usefully.
Not to mention Britain has precisely no use for tanks since the post-cold war peace dividend. No longer are they stationed in West Germany to hold back the Red Army until reinforcements can be flown in from the United States. Britain is an island with a footnote for Ireland.
There needs to be in my 6a fundamental assessment of defence spending.
Not should we be spending more, in fact the polar opposite, should we stop wasting money that can and should be spent on far more pressing matters. Health, cost of living, growth.
Our Army, Navy, Air Force and all other component parts arev inadequate after 15 years of chronic under investment.
We are being asked to fund massive increases for what?
Global status Romance of past status Little England mentality
Why don't we adopt Swiss neutrality We are a third world country long irrelevant on the global stage
We are like Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland. Important but not an A lister
Spend what we can to retain a largely ceremonial armed services who can provide peace keeping functionality
Our tanks and troop Ships and sailors Planes and Pilots
Are frankly sitting ducks and rusting relics in the modern age.
Our rusting nuclear deterrent is risible, the button is probably jammed.
Just who, who, is seriously going to invade us.
Cyber security is far more important than self grandeur, self flagfelation and arrogance
Let the first man or woman to encompass this reality and truth stand up, wake up and smell the coffee
Yes, of course, we live in a world where the lion lies down with the lamb, and never is heard is a disparaging word.
Exactly my piont
No future in being a lion or kidding ourselves that we can be a lion.
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
There is a third option of course, which would be to cut expenditure on something not as important, to redirect that money elsewhere.
Plenty of things that could be cut, but if you're not willing to cut anything then don't expect to be able to afford to spend what you want either.
If everything is a priority, then nothing is.
Well, given the reaction to Starmer's attempts to slow the growth in spending on pensioners, or on PIP, I didn't think it was worth mentioning that option in relation to a Labour politician.
@GuidoFawkes Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan breaks silence to (sort of) back Starmer:
Ultimately, I judge any Prime Minister by a simple test: whether they deliver for Wales. I have been clear with Keir about what Wales needs. Action on the cost of living, investment in our economy and infrastructure, and a continued commitment to stronger devolution.
So KS has failed Eluned's 'simple test'. Why is she still (sort of) backing him?
Todays Pembrokehire (Fishguard) by election coukd be fun and won on a low % Should be Plaid vs Ref but a couple of indies to add confusion and you could just about make a case for Lab or Con as only those two ran last time and this is a fairly small electorate LD gain then
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Labour will be seen in 12 months as being very successful in stability and turning around the decline.
I've always believed Starmer would either hand over before a 2029 election or shortly after, I've no reason to change opinion on that.
Reform have hit peak. the Tories remain in decline, the LD are close to the peak of their reach, the Greens are emerging but as a left wing party that no longer even pretends to consider the environment, under Polanski.
Ed Miliband is actually greener and more focused on the Environment than any Green
Once all of that filters through there is a chance for Labour to get a 2nd term, with a younger leader.
This smells like wishful thinking with nothing to back it up
Plenty of data to back it up Take the blinkers off
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
You really don't think that do you.
Your being very clever and playing political mind games
Stir the pot.
No - my wife and I were both impressed with his speech especially on housing and bringing together politics across the divide and working together
It is time labour got out of London and smelt the coffee
Dismissing him as irrelevant is silly
He has been a success in Manchester again by bringing politicians, organizations, and businesses together
The best bits were his complete rejection of of Thatchers Council House programme.
The building of 500,000 new low cost homes by 2030
Thats actually Labour manifesto objective.
He does well in Britain's 9th largest City with a chunk of outlying towns added on.
He's found his niche as I say.
Frankly I thought Andy Street a far more effective Mayor of Britain's 2nd City despite our political differences.
Manchester is building; the government isn't.
Given the govt failure in housebuilding I think Angela Rayner losing her cabinet role will be a blessing in disguise longer term. She won’t be associated with the failure.
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
His success in Manchester comes from business investment which should be the model
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
You really don't think that do you.
Your being very clever and playing political mind games
Stir the pot.
No - my wife and I were both impressed with his speech especially on housing and bringing together politics across the divide and working together
It is time labour got out of London and smelt the coffee
Dismissing him as irrelevant is silly
He has been a success in Manchester again by bringing politicians, organizations, and businesses together
The best bits were his complete rejection of of Thatchers Council House programme.
The building of 500,000 new low cost homes by 2030
Thats actually Labour manifesto objective.
He does well in Britain's 9th largest City with a chunk of outlying towns added on.
He's found his niche as I say.
Frankly I thought Andy Street a far more effective Mayor of Britain's 2nd City despite our political differences.
Manchester is building; the government isn't.
Given the govt failure in housebuilding I think Angela Rayner losing her cabinet role will be a blessing in disguise longer term. She won’t be associated with the failure.
If the government continues to fail to build under her successor as Housing Secretary, then it would suggest the fault lies in Number 10 or 11.
I do and I am both surprised and disappointed that he has not had the Epstein treatment yet. It would solve a lot of KC3's problems because he's going to get "Epstein" shouted at him wherever he goes now until the cancer finally kicks the shit out of him.
They're probably scarred by the last time they tried this, when they offed Diana, and suddenly the nation went into paroxysms of prayerful sorrow
If *something happens* to a kind, sweet, much-loved ex Prince like Andrew, similar waves of grief will convulse the realm, the swans of the Cam will be seen to weep as blind old nuns wail in Windsor Great Park, destabilising the crown even more
It would be a struggle, but we are Englishmen, and I think we could bear our grief manfully, if Andrew passed away.
You say that, but would we show such fortitude, if this horror really happened?
Imagine it, Andrew, the sweet beloved Prince Andrew - with his affable smile and humble charm, that piercing intelligence and decorous self awareness - snatched away from us, in the prime of his blesssed life? Snuffed out like a candle, leaving us with the darkness of his absence, which can never be filled?
I don't know. Just thinking about it is desolating
What prompted this fellow feeling ?
BTW you were asking for TV recommendations; have you tried Wonder Man ? First couple of episodes are promising, and Ben Kingsley (I've never really been a huge fan) is superb. Silly but very entertaining.
I will have a look, ta
I can strongly recommend The North Water (if I haven't recommended it already). A brilliantly bleak period drama about a surgeon on a whaling boat out of Hull in about 1850. Relentlessly grim. Nothing really happens, it's just an endless parade of sodomy, rum, scurvy, blubber, ice caps, flensing and death. It's superb
Lovely word, "flensing".
I used to have a boss who liked to say "smite" or "smote" just for the sound of the thing.
Surely that was, in part, the point of Streeting releasing the messages. It forces others to do the same, reveals they too were close buddies with Lord Mandypants, and thus takes some of the heat OFF The Wez
Hodges and others reporting cabinet have been instructed not to release as there is some idea floating about revisiting the humble address to restrict what is released (as the newly super popular Keir thinks he can win a vote)
This is just going to drag on and get worse, and worse, for Labour
It would have been painful, but the best result for them was what @TheScreamingEagles suggested last night: briskly get rid of Starmer then have someone uncontroversial coronated. Maybe Cooper. Just get it done. Then steady the ship, and ditch the worst of Starmer's stupider policies
But no. He's still there in Number 10, like a half dead rat in a cistern, poisoning the water for everyone
I think the only person in the Cabinet worthy of being PM is Shabana Mahmood, but I don't think the misogynists in the Labour party will be willing to go along with it.
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
There is a third option of course, which would be to cut expenditure on something not as important, to redirect that money elsewhere.
Plenty of things that could be cut, but if you're not willing to cut anything then don't expect to be able to afford to spend what you want either.
If everything is a priority, then nothing is.
Well, given the reaction to Starmer's attempts to slow the growth in spending on pensioners, or on PIP, I didn't think it was worth mentioning that option in relation to a Labour politician.
Its absolutely worth mentioning, because it is the viable solution.
What is needed is a leader who can lead better than Starmer can, who can make a case that "these are my priorities" which means that other things will have to change as 'hard choices' to fund those priorities.
Starmer has never set out any priorities. He has failed, so he has not been able to carry the room.
That does not mean its not possible for a better leader than Starmer to actually lead.
The regime is now so steeped in blood that it cannot realistically relent in its pogroms against its own people. The consequence of losing its grip would be too grim; the score-settling too bloody. Every mosque will likely end up a smoking ruin. There'll surely be no velvet revolution, more likely to be the French Revolution with a Persian twist.
I think Labour MPs are in serious danger of thinking that them pretending to support Starmer becomes public endorsement by osmosis. They wouldn't be the first beleaguered party to make that mistake.
I take your point. But actually, if Labour MPs, and ministers, could all shut the fuck up for a few months, stop gossiping to what is a largely hostile press, stop tweeting nonsense, and get on with supporting the government's agenda, I think it could make a difference to public perceptions. Divided parties rarely do well.
Also if there's clear evidence that Streeting plotted to remove the PM then why hasn't he been sacked this morning? He's already irreparably damaged because of the sickening messages to Mandelson so sticking him on the back benches seems like a no brainer to.
Just listening to Andy Burnham at the resolution foundation and he is without doubt the leader labour need
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
Does he still want to borrow an extra £40bn and to tell the bond markets to go swivel if they don't like it?
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
He did address the bond markets and recognized they are important
He's not saying that taxes need to go up to pay for his spending wishes, or to reduce Britain's dependency on the bond markets.
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
His success in Manchester comes from business investment which should be the model
Sadly the North East Mayor lacks that vision.
This is what Andy Burnham does and take the train into Manchester and see the building
And labour supporters on here dismiss him when he is the answer
Something else to applaud from the Government that is allegedly paralysed and doing nothing.
It might be a necessary short-term measure, but it's not actually doing anything to fix local government funding or SEND provision.
And where does the £5bn come from, less than three months after the budget?
Reading the article, the funding will revert to central Government in 2028.
Unfortunately, the SEN debate has become poisoned by those who assert a lot of the referrals are unnecessary and parents are "playing the system". I'm sure that's true in some instances but not widely - the surge in referrals has many causes which we can all list but this has left gaps in qualified teachers and specialist teaching accommodation.
The Schools White Paper wll be the next key document in ascertaining where Government policy is going on this and you'd better believe it will be as eagerly read in Finance departments as Education departments in most councils.
I think Labour MPs are in serious danger of thinking that them pretending to support Starmer becomes public endorsement by osmosis. They wouldn't be the first beleaguered party to make that mistake.
I take your point. But actually, if Labour MPs, and ministers, could all shut the fuck up for a few months, stop gossiping to what is a largely hostile press, stop tweeting nonsense, and get on with supporting the government's agenda, I think it could make a difference to public perceptions. Divided parties rarely do well.
It's almost as though Labour looked at the Tories post 2020 and decided that was the model of governing that was best.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced. In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal. A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
Under the surface, Labour is doing fine. That’s why a new leader will lead the polls in my view.
Labour will be seen in 12 months as being very successful in stability and turning around the decline.
I've always believed Starmer would either hand over before a 2029 election or shortly after, I've no reason to change opinion on that.
Reform have hit peak. the Tories remain in decline, the LD are close to the peak of their reach, the Greens are emerging but as a left wing party that no longer even pretends to consider the environment, under Polanski.
Ed Miliband is actually greener and more focused on the Environment than any Green
Once all of that filters through there is a chance for Labour to get a 2nd term, with a younger leader.
This smells like wishful thinking with nothing to back it up
Some commentators, and not just pro Labour ones, are talking about green shoots in the economy and the potential to get away from the anaemic growth. So there is that. But inflation looks sticky to me.
I think it is highly unlikely Labour come back from this. They are just not appearing as competent.
Comments
I can strongly recommend The North Water (if I haven't recommended it already). A brilliantly bleak period drama about a surgeon on a whaling boat out of Hull in about 1850. Relentlessly grim. Nothing really happens, it's just an endless parade of sodomy, rum, scurvy, blubber, ice caps, flensing and death. It's superb
Partly because it does sound like Arthur Brown is singing "You're Conor Burns" at the end. (Thank Danny Baker for that observation.)
And partly because he was fired. Twice.
Immigration falls in salience to its lowest since early 2025 with YG. If this continues in to May one of the key Reform vote drivers is reduced.
In that case I'd expect it to hobble theor progress most in London where their advance will be most marginal.
A bad night for reform? Failing to tale Bexley with majoroty would probably fill that descriptor
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-capitals-deleting-us-technology-not-realistic/
The Empire has announced the intention to join NATO’s PURL initiative to supply Ukraine with ammunition and equipment
https://x.com/astraiaintel/status/2021152770762441002
A 20-year-old Iranian protester, Ali Heydari, was executed today by the Islamic regime.
https://x.com/elicalebon/status/2020986401643487436
You can sell off the public utilities on the cheap once.
You can only sell the council houses off on the cheap once.
You can only steal Scotland's oil once.
Not should we be spending more, in fact the polar opposite, should we stop wasting money that can and should be spent on far more pressing matters. Health, cost of living, growth.
Our Army, Navy, Air Force and all other component parts arev inadequate after 15 years of chronic under investment.
We are being asked to fund massive increases for what?
Global status
Romance of past status
Little England mentality
Why don't we adopt Swiss neutrality
We are a third world country long irrelevant on the global stage
We are like Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland. Important but not an A lister
Spend what we can to retain a largely ceremonial armed services who can provide peace keeping functionality
Our tanks and troop
Ships and sailors
Planes and Pilots
Are frankly sitting ducks and rusting relics in the modern age.
Our rusting nuclear deterrent is risible, the button is probably jammed.
Just who, who, is seriously going to invade us.
Cyber security is far more important than self grandeur, self flagfelation and arrogance
Let the first man or woman to encompass this reality and truth stand up, wake up and smell the coffee
One thing which will come into play, not for a few years yet is offshore wind decommissioning costs. That's going to need to be paid for and factored in by government, so we will see how good Orsted etc are at Decex. This is where solar will piss all over wind turbines in future cost savings, and they wont need as generous CfD payments to keep them going. No clunky cables to get them onshore either, and no need to worry about Russian subs messing around.
Miliband would however, be wise to restrict solar away from the best quality land. You can graze sheep round them, but in practice this doesn't happen too often
New houses pretty much all have panels fitted, so capacity should get a good boost in coming years.
Bear’s dad was MP for the seat they became Surrey Heath. Former seat of the Gove.
Bravery beyond words.
Next PM betting: 5/2 favourite Angela Rayner; 9/2 next best Wes Streeting.
Macron urges Europe to start acting like world power
...
Macron admitted that France "has never had a balanced model, unlike certain economies of the north, which are built more on a sense of responsibility.
"And we have never had reforms like the ones initiated in the 2010s in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, which are paying dividends today."
But he said there was growing demand in the world's financial markets for mutualised European debt, which currently the EU was not equipped to supply.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8n1zdnpd3o
I think he is right that there needs to be groundwork starting for systems which can work around the USA perhaps especially from "middle ranking powers" with GDPs of $0.5tn to $5tn (ie top 30 economies by GDP), especially at the BRICS are gradually pushing ahead with their system.
But he is being too French-centric, it being a day with Y in it.
https://x.com/paulg/status/2020921655309238578?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Serious question, though: who is the standard-bearer for that strand of right-wingery in the Conservative party now? I'm fairly sure they've not gone away entirely.
If those numbers kick off again it might affect the salience of the issue - though I'm surprised to see that there were some high numbers during December 2025.
Wikipedia says that, under Starmer's much vaunted one-in one-out scheme Britain has sent 281 migrants to France, while accepting 350 in return (by 27th January 2026). So those numbers still aren't high enough to act as a deterrent.
Francois but hes gone tribal since allegedly being rebuffed by Farage
Edit - Vickers and Rankin seem pretty Tory loyal and im not sure McVey would jump as Tatton isnt going Reform any time soon
I am surprised how much I agree with his policies
If labour want to win they need to find a way for Burnham into parliament
I've always believed Starmer would either hand over before a 2029 election or shortly after, I've no reason to change opinion on that.
Reform have hit peak. the Tories remain in decline, the LD are close to the peak of their reach, the Greens are emerging but as a left wing party that no longer even pretends to consider the environment, under Polanski.
Ed Miliband is actually greener and more focused on the Environment than any Green
Once all of that filters through there is a chance for Labour to get a 2nd term, with a younger leader.
No future in being a lion or kidding ourselves that we can be a lion.
Edit - Labour are a bit below the Brown bottom and the Corbyn basement
He or she are sat in the Hoc in plain sight.
Burnham was yesterday's man 5 years ago, his chance came and went.
He's found his niche.
Personally think a new leader should come in after Starmer has done the unpopular bit, do a bit of optimism and call an election in 2028/2029. Starmer won’t fight it, have also thought that for ages.
(I notice today it seems to be confirmed that the Franco/German fighter collaboration is dead.)
Your being very clever and playing political mind games
Stir the pot.
As to whether to interpret that as being rock bottom core support, or due to a rally round the flag effect with the various geopolitical tensions at the start of this year, I am not sure.
If it is core support it is a much lower level of core support than in previous years. Even at his nadir Corbyn's Labour was polling on average above 20% and similarly for the depths of Brown's unpopularity.
So I'm not sure that core support is that useful a concept. If things get bad enough then Labour's support will drop further.
Let’s hope they decide to relax all barriers to planning.
It is time labour got out of London and smelt the coffee
Dismissing him as irrelevant is silly
He has been a success in Manchester again by bringing politicians, organizations, and businesses together
He's the mirror image of Liz Truss.
https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2021191508582375488
Quite why anyone supports Labour or the Tories at the moment is unclear. Both are absolute car-crashes in terms of party direction and leadership.
They wouldn't be the first beleaguered party to make that mistake.
Ah I see she's gone back to her roots, a few hours at Maccy Dees close to her home
Thats about her level.
What a great photo shop for labour
If he won't even mention the word tax then I fail to see how he can deliver on anything else he has said. So he's either intending to borrow more and cross his fingers and hope for the best, or no different to the current lot, in putting up taxes that he hopes people won't notice, but not by enough to get anything useful done.
Id question why anyone would be responding Lib Dem to a poll or in a voting booth right now but they are and more power to them for their choice
Plenty of things that could be cut, but if you're not willing to cut anything then don't expect to be able to afford to spend what you want either.
If everything is a priority, then nothing is.
The building of 500,000 new low cost homes by 2030
Thats actually Labour manifesto objective.
He does well in Britain's 9th largest City with a chunk of outlying towns added on.
He's found his niche as I say.
Frankly I thought Andy Street a far more effective Mayor of Britain's 2nd City despite our political differences.
And I have no idea what you mean in your first sentence
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd95572xpeo
Though hasn't she actually worked in the trade when younger ?
Bangor students refuse to host Sarah Pochin despite campus free speech law" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/09/university-debating-society-bans-reform-mp-talk/
Labour Governments Build
Common thread
Should be Plaid vs Ref but a couple of indies to add confusion and you could just about make a case for Lab or Con as only those two ran last time and this is a fairly small electorate
LD gain then
Take the blinkers off
I used to have a boss who liked to say "smite" or "smote" just for the sound of the thing.
To the point that the government was talking of removing the obligation to build x% of “affordable housing” to get things moving.
And where does the £5bn come from, less than three months after the budget?
What is needed is a leader who can lead better than Starmer can, who can make a case that "these are my priorities" which means that other things will have to change as 'hard choices' to fund those priorities.
Starmer has never set out any priorities. He has failed, so he has not been able to carry the room.
That does not mean its not possible for a better leader than Starmer to actually lead.
And labour supporters on here dismiss him when he is the answer
https://www.trafford.gov.uk/news/2026/old-trafford-regeneration-mayoral-development-corporation-officially-launched
Unfortunately, the SEN debate has become poisoned by those who assert a lot of the referrals are unnecessary and parents are "playing the system". I'm sure that's true in some instances but not widely - the surge in referrals has many causes which we can all list but this has left gaps in qualified teachers and specialist teaching accommodation.
The Schools White Paper wll be the next key document in ascertaining where Government policy is going on this and you'd better believe it will be as eagerly read in Finance departments as Education departments in most councils.
I think it is highly unlikely Labour come back from this. They are just not appearing as competent.