Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
On the Shipman critique of Starmer as "having no philosophy", that's an Eric Morecambe piece - all his normal points at slightly greater length in a slightly different order with the philosophy point as a go faster stripe. There is no demonstration that Starmer's questions are anything more than a not-political-enough technocrat trying gradually to sort out the pile of rubble he inherited.
I wonder if we asked ChatGPT for a summary of his previous 48 columns, how much of the content would be overlap?
Has Shipman identified the "philosophy" of any of our previous say 5 or 6 Prime Ministers, that made them successes? What is it?
Given that Shippers is the Political Editor of the Spectator, that's probably to be expected.
On philosophy, yes one is always necessary otherwise their can only be drift but it needs to be developed into a set of policies for, and to be applied in, the context.
One current Conservative problem is that they have no real philosophy to develop into policy, so all they have is tactical reactionism.
I am annoyed he lifted one of my lines.
Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it has gone it is close to impossible to regain
Surely virginity isn't "close to" impossible to regain?
Well some parts of the world perform hymen reconstruction surgery.
That doesn't make you a virgin, just a liar.
Its an unfair pressure on women. There is no such pressure on men.
I've never slept with a virgin and I don't know why you'd want to. Wanting to sleep with a virgin has always struck me as a bit of a red flag in terms of male personality types, it reeks of someone who'd exhibit controlling behaviour.
Weird, surely between the ages of say 16 and 20 you would have done? The first four women I slept with were but we were teenagers so not surprising. Absolutely no desire to these days, or for a long time, all my partners over the last 20 odd years have been a few years older and I would infinitely rather be with a woman who knows who they are and what they enjoy. The chances of sleeping with a virgin now are distasteful to say the least or you have met someone older who has come out of a nunnery which would at least be interesting.
NICOLA Sturgeon’s estranged hubby stands accused of embezzling £460,000 of SNP funds over the course of more than a decade, bombshell court papers reveal.
Peter Murrell, 61, is alleged to have used the cash to buy items including cars, a motorhome, luxury goods, shoes, cosmetics and jewellery over a twelve-and-a-half year period.
EXCL: We have seen the 2600-word charge sheet detailing alleged embezzlement of £459,046 of SNP funds by Nicola Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell. It covers alleged crimes spanning 12 years & 5 months between 2010 & 2023, including falsifying documents.
EXCL: Peter Murrell ‘falsified docs to buy £125k motorhome using SNP funds'. Indictment alleges the vehicle was bought for 'personal use'
It's a really really odd story (I don't think they even used the motorhome?). After taking so long to even bring a charge and go to trial I'm not very confident of a conviction.
Not sure why they need to tell us how many words there are in the charge sheet. Is that a lot?
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
EXCL: We have seen the 2600-word charge sheet detailing alleged embezzlement of £459,046 of SNP funds by Nicola Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell. It covers alleged crimes spanning 12 years & 5 months between 2010 & 2023, including falsifying documents.
EXCL: Peter Murrell ‘falsified docs to buy £125k motorhome using SNP funds'. Indictment alleges the vehicle was bought for 'personal use'
It's a really really odd story (I don't think they even used the motorhome?). After taking so long to even bring a charge and go to trial I'm not very confident of a conviction.
Not sure why they need to tell us how many words there are in the charge sheet. Is that a lot?
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
On the Shipman critique of Starmer as "having no philosophy", that's an Eric Morecambe piece - all his normal points at slightly greater length in a slightly different order with the philosophy point as a go faster stripe. There is no demonstration that Starmer's questions are anything more than a not-political-enough technocrat trying gradually to sort out the pile of rubble he inherited.
I wonder if we asked ChatGPT for a summary of his previous 48 columns, how much of the content would be overlap?
Has Shipman identified the "philosophy" of any of our previous say 5 or 6 Prime Ministers, that made them successes? What is it?
Given that Shippers is the Political Editor of the Spectator, that's probably to be expected.
On philosophy, yes one is always necessary otherwise their can only be drift but it needs to be developed into a set of policies for, and to be applied in, the context.
One current Conservative problem is that they have no real philosophy to develop into policy, so all they have is tactical reactionism.
I am annoyed he lifted one of my lines.
Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it has gone it is close to impossible to regain
Surely virginity isn't "close to" impossible to regain?
Well some parts of the world perform hymen reconstruction surgery.
That doesn't make you a virgin, just a liar.
Its an unfair pressure on women. There is no such pressure on men.
I've never slept with a virgin and I don't know why you'd want to. Wanting to sleep with a virgin has always struck me as a bit of a red flag in terms of male personality types, it reeks of someone who'd exhibit controlling behaviour.
Weird, surely between the ages of say 16 and 20 you would have done? The first four women I slept with were but we were teenagers so not surprising. Absolutely no desire to these days, or for a long time, all my partners over the last 20 odd years have been a few years older and I would infinitely rather be with a woman who knows who they are and what they enjoy. The chances of sleeping with a virgin now are distasteful to say the least or you have met someone older who has come out of a nunnery which would at least be interesting.
I believe Ann Widdecombe is available. Or not as the case may be.
NICOLA Sturgeon’s estranged hubby stands accused of embezzling £460,000 of SNP funds over the course of more than a decade, bombshell court papers reveal.
Peter Murrell, 61, is alleged to have used the cash to buy items including cars, a motorhome, luxury goods, shoes, cosmetics and jewellery over a twelve-and-a-half year period.
On the Shipman critique of Starmer as "having no philosophy", that's an Eric Morecambe piece - all his normal points at slightly greater length in a slightly different order with the philosophy point as a go faster stripe. There is no demonstration that Starmer's questions are anything more than a not-political-enough technocrat trying gradually to sort out the pile of rubble he inherited.
I wonder if we asked ChatGPT for a summary of his previous 48 columns, how much of the content would be overlap?
Has Shipman identified the "philosophy" of any of our previous say 5 or 6 Prime Ministers, that made them successes? What is it?
Given that Shippers is the Political Editor of the Spectator, that's probably to be expected.
On philosophy, yes one is always necessary otherwise their can only be drift but it needs to be developed into a set of policies for, and to be applied in, the context.
One current Conservative problem is that they have no real philosophy to develop into policy, so all they have is tactical reactionism.
I am annoyed he lifted one of my lines.
Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it has gone it is close to impossible to regain
Surely virginity isn't "close to" impossible to regain?
Well some parts of the world perform hymen reconstruction surgery.
That doesn't make you a virgin, just a liar.
Its an unfair pressure on women. There is no such pressure on men.
I've never slept with a virgin and I don't know why you'd want to. Wanting to sleep with a virgin has always struck me as a bit of a red flag in terms of male personality types, it reeks of someone who'd exhibit controlling behaviour.
Weird, surely between the ages of say 16 and 20 you would have done? The first four women I slept with were but we were teenagers so not surprising. Absolutely no desire to these days, or for a long time, all my partners over the last 20 odd years have been a few years older and I would infinitely rather be with a woman who knows who they are and what they enjoy. The chances of sleeping with a virgin now are distasteful to say the least or you have met someone older who has come out of a nunnery which would at least be interesting.
I believe Ann Widdecombe is available. Or not as the case may be.
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
I'm sure useful things have already come from it, but some of the big companies are pretty incompetent in deciding where and when to bring in various AI related things.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
Angus Taylor wins Liberal leadership 34 votes to 17 for Ley.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
The Telegraph has revealed that children, including ones with learning difficulties, have been promised up to £500 in vouchers, which can be redeemed at retailers like XBOX & Uber Eats, if they take part in an NHS 'transgender' trial to block their puberty
Not necessarily. Actually *reading* the article it says...
It can now be revealed that the children taking part in the trial will be incentivised with the promise of up to £500 in vouchers for completing psychometric tests. These will measure the effect of the puberty blockers on their brains, including effects on impulse control and memory...Participants, aged under 16, will receive £30 vouchers for each of the 15 cognitive assessments they complete, as well as £15 vouchers for each of the three MRI scans they undertake, over the two years of the trial...Children in another arm of the trial, not taking the drugs, will be given £15 vouchers for each bone density scan and blood test they have.
Points to note
The children are already in the trial and have been randomised into one of the two arms, so they've already been consented.
Those in the intervention arm (on the drugs) are paid a nominal amount (£15 or £30) for each of the tests (cogntive assessments or MRI scans) they undertake
Those in the control arm (not on the drugs) are paid a nominal amount (£15) for each of the tests (bone density scan and blood test) they undertake
In short the participants are paid nominal sums to take part in tests they have already agreed to prior to assignment, and that this is an incentive to complete the trial, not an incentive to take part in the trial. Since a criticism of many studies in the trans sphere is dropout rate, this is a good idea.
There's a concept in RCT called "equipoise". The surgeons/doctors in a study must be genuinely undecided/unbiased as to which of the two arms is better, and the patients must be equally noncommittal: this enables randomisation to take place believably. In trans studies this is difficult since if the patients believe the study is biased or bent towards one outcome they will refuse to take part or simply bugger off to Europe and get the treatment they want there (Baroness Cass pointed this out as a reason to undertake the PATHWAY studies). The PATHWAY designers seem to have created a study that enables equipoise. The fact that these sums are paid to make sure they stay in the study prevents dropout
(Incidentally @isam, you said last night you wanted to know how tests of drugs in humans take place. You might want to google the term "CTIMP")
Why are people dropping out? If there is a good reason why they are, the trial should be reporting that as part of the data.
They should not be remaining in a trial they would otherwise drop out of, solely due to fiscal considerations.
Dropout rates Many studies (most?) have dropout rates. Yes, dropouts are reported. Sample size calculations often incorporate a 10% or even 20% dropout rate to ensure the end amount are still big enough to provide sufficient statistical power to assess the (usually) two arms.
(Google "dropout rate" if you don't believe me).
Safety Studies are often monitored by one or more external committees, which may combine safety and procedural issues into one committee or separate them into two or more. Those external committees (ie from outside the University or organisation doing the study) will meet at least once a year and often more frequently. If the study is going seriously wrong or not recruiting fast enough then those committees may recommend that the study be terminated, and the people funding the study will also monitor it and may also recommend termination under certain circumstances.
(Google "adverse events" (AEs) and "serious adverse events" (SAEs) if you don't believe me. )
Why do people drop out? People move house, emigrate, simply want to stop, may develop conditions that prevent them from continuing, or simply die by accident or pre-existing conditions or (God forbid) from the intervention or control. They are there voluntarily, not by force.
Endpiece You seem to think that people are forced to take place in studies and studies are just thrown together by amateurs. This is Britain in the 2020s, and studies involving human subjects are regulated, registered and reported. They will be conducted and monitored by extremely skilled individuals and reported in a serious manner.
(Google "CTIMP" if you don't believe me, and that's just one example)
You have misunderstood.
I never said it is thrown together or anything like that, like ChatGPT you have hallucinated that.
However you said (previously) that payments were a good idea to prevent drop outs and I responded to say no, it is not, if people wish to drop out they should. They should not remain in the study due to financial payments.
Ethics committees will reject proposals with unduly large financial payments for exactly those reasons. However, if you are asking people to spend time coming in on multiple occasions for lengthy tests, then some financial compensation is considered appropriate. It would be unethical to exclude people from a study because they couldn't afford to take part.
A bone density scan can take half an hour. Factor in some waiting time and travel time and that's an hour and a half out of someone's day. The £15 payment is thus below minimum wage. That sort of rate is considered ethical: you are providing some compensation, but not so much that the person is only participating in the research for the money.
It sounds as though the deal doesn't include expenses. Can that be right?
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
EXCL: We have seen the 2600-word charge sheet detailing alleged embezzlement of £459,046 of SNP funds by Nicola Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell. It covers alleged crimes spanning 12 years & 5 months between 2010 & 2023, including falsifying documents.
EXCL: Peter Murrell ‘falsified docs to buy £125k motorhome using SNP funds'. Indictment alleges the vehicle was bought for 'personal use'
It's a really really odd story (I don't think they even used the motorhome?). After taking so long to even bring a charge and go to trial I'm not very confident of a conviction.
Not sure why they need to tell us how many words there are in the charge sheet. Is that a lot?
I expect the trial to take place just before the Holyrood election. An anti SNP story that can legally fill the media in the run up to the election.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
On the Shipman critique of Starmer as "having no philosophy", that's an Eric Morecambe piece - all his normal points at slightly greater length in a slightly different order with the philosophy point as a go faster stripe. There is no demonstration that Starmer's questions are anything more than a not-political-enough technocrat trying gradually to sort out the pile of rubble he inherited.
I wonder if we asked ChatGPT for a summary of his previous 48 columns, how much of the content would be overlap?
Has Shipman identified the "philosophy" of any of our previous say 5 or 6 Prime Ministers, that made them successes? What is it?
Given that Shippers is the Political Editor of the Spectator, that's probably to be expected.
On philosophy, yes one is always necessary otherwise their can only be drift but it needs to be developed into a set of policies for, and to be applied in, the context.
One current Conservative problem is that they have no real philosophy to develop into policy, so all they have is tactical reactionism.
I am annoyed he lifted one of my lines.
Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it has gone it is close to impossible to regain
Surely virginity isn't "close to" impossible to regain?
Well some parts of the world perform hymen reconstruction surgery.
That doesn't make you a virgin, just a liar.
Its an unfair pressure on women. There is no such pressure on men.
I've never slept with a virgin and I don't know why you'd want to. Wanting to sleep with a virgin has always struck me as a bit of a red flag in terms of male personality types, it reeks of someone who'd exhibit controlling behaviour.
Weird, surely between the ages of say 16 and 20 you would have done? The first four women I slept with were but we were teenagers so not surprising. Absolutely no desire to these days, or for a long time, all my partners over the last 20 odd years have been a few years older and I would infinitely rather be with a woman who knows who they are and what they enjoy. The chances of sleeping with a virgin now are distasteful to say the least or you have met someone older who has come out of a nunnery which would at least be interesting.
I'm with OLB here. I've never actually had a serious girlfriend younger than me, which might be part of it.
The Telegraph has revealed that children, including ones with learning difficulties, have been promised up to £500 in vouchers, which can be redeemed at retailers like XBOX & Uber Eats, if they take part in an NHS 'transgender' trial to block their puberty
Not necessarily. Actually *reading* the article it says...
It can now be revealed that the children taking part in the trial will be incentivised with the promise of up to £500 in vouchers for completing psychometric tests. These will measure the effect of the puberty blockers on their brains, including effects on impulse control and memory...Participants, aged under 16, will receive £30 vouchers for each of the 15 cognitive assessments they complete, as well as £15 vouchers for each of the three MRI scans they undertake, over the two years of the trial...Children in another arm of the trial, not taking the drugs, will be given £15 vouchers for each bone density scan and blood test they have.
Points to note
The children are already in the trial and have been randomised into one of the two arms, so they've already been consented.
Those in the intervention arm (on the drugs) are paid a nominal amount (£15 or £30) for each of the tests (cogntive assessments or MRI scans) they undertake
Those in the control arm (not on the drugs) are paid a nominal amount (£15) for each of the tests (bone density scan and blood test) they undertake
In short the participants are paid nominal sums to take part in tests they have already agreed to prior to assignment, and that this is an incentive to complete the trial, not an incentive to take part in the trial. Since a criticism of many studies in the trans sphere is dropout rate, this is a good idea.
There's a concept in RCT called "equipoise". The surgeons/doctors in a study must be genuinely undecided/unbiased as to which of the two arms is better, and the patients must be equally noncommittal: this enables randomisation to take place believably. In trans studies this is difficult since if the patients believe the study is biased or bent towards one outcome they will refuse to take part or simply bugger off to Europe and get the treatment they want there (Baroness Cass pointed this out as a reason to undertake the PATHWAY studies). The PATHWAY designers seem to have created a study that enables equipoise. The fact that these sums are paid to make sure they stay in the study prevents dropout
(Incidentally @isam, you said last night you wanted to know how tests of drugs in humans take place. You might want to google the term "CTIMP")
Why are people dropping out? If there is a good reason why they are, the trial should be reporting that as part of the data.
They should not be remaining in a trial they would otherwise drop out of, solely due to fiscal considerations.
Dropout rates Many studies (most?) have dropout rates. Yes, dropouts are reported. Sample size calculations often incorporate a 10% or even 20% dropout rate to ensure the end amount are still big enough to provide sufficient statistical power to assess the (usually) two arms.
(Google "dropout rate" if you don't believe me).
Safety Studies are often monitored by one or more external committees, which may combine safety and procedural issues into one committee or separate them into two or more. Those external committees (ie from outside the University or organisation doing the study) will meet at least once a year and often more frequently. If the study is going seriously wrong or not recruiting fast enough then those committees may recommend that the study be terminated, and the people funding the study will also monitor it and may also recommend termination under certain circumstances.
(Google "adverse events" (AEs) and "serious adverse events" (SAEs) if you don't believe me. )
Why do people drop out? People move house, emigrate, simply want to stop, may develop conditions that prevent them from continuing, or simply die by accident or pre-existing conditions or (God forbid) from the intervention or control. They are there voluntarily, not by force.
Endpiece You seem to think that people are forced to take place in studies and studies are just thrown together by amateurs. This is Britain in the 2020s, and studies involving human subjects are regulated, registered and reported. They will be conducted and monitored by extremely skilled individuals and reported in a serious manner.
(Google "CTIMP" if you don't believe me, and that's just one example)
You have misunderstood.
I never said it is thrown together or anything like that, like ChatGPT you have hallucinated that.
However you said (previously) that payments were a good idea to prevent drop outs and I responded to say no, it is not, if people wish to drop out they should. They should not remain in the study due to financial payments.
Ethics committees will reject proposals with unduly large financial payments for exactly those reasons. However, if you are asking people to spend time coming in on multiple occasions for lengthy tests, then some financial compensation is considered appropriate. It would be unethical to exclude people from a study because they couldn't afford to take part.
A bone density scan can take half an hour. Factor in some waiting time and travel time and that's an hour and a half out of someone's day. The £15 payment is thus below minimum wage. That sort of rate is considered ethical: you are providing some compensation, but not so much that the person is only participating in the research for the money.
It sounds as though the deal doesn't include expenses. Can that be right?
I haven’t seen the details. They might be paying separately for transport costs, or they might not. Sometimes we would consider the honorarium sufficient to cover transport costs.
Angus Taylor wins Liberal leadership 34 votes to 17 for Ley.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
I'm pretty sure he just misspoke and didn't catch it at the time. He doesn't really think that all that migration was compressed into the last 5 years. In fact he said similar things in 2024 when he endorsed Starmer in the election.
Angus Taylor wins Liberal leadership 34 votes to 17 for Ley.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
Completely o/t if anyone wants to watch something funny but frankly lovely I can recommend “Small Prophets” on the Beeb.
Really quite wonderful. Some laugh out loud lines, bathos, magic and whimsy. Very original too.
I loved Detectorists. I'm really looking forward to this. The sitcom is the greatest art on television, and good ones are to be cherished.
It has the gentleness (for want of a better word, maybe softness?) of the detectorists but also weirder edges and I found some laugh out loud lines, I was pissed watching the first two episodes though as a caveat. Wonderful seeing Michael Palin on top form in it.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Angus Taylor wins Liberal leadership 34 votes to 17 for Ley.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
Indeed.
And the left are not making the point that " 'only' 3 million immigrants arrived in the last 5 years" as claimed up thread.
If there are points to be made it's that: 1. Only 200,000 arrived in the year to June 2025 and the figure for 2026 may well be lower. That's 1 million in 5 years if sustained. Not 3 million. Not 12 million (the figure Ratcliffe used). and 2. With the birth rate at a record low of 1.4 the ageing of the UK's population is accelerating ever more rapidly, the consequences of which would be even more worrying in the absence of any immigration.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
I'm pretty sure he just misspoke and didn't catch it at the time. He doesn't really think that all that migration was compressed into the last 5 years. In fact he said similar things in 2024 when he endorsed Starmer in the election.
I expect the Greens to win Gorton and Denton. But if by any chance it's close, Labour's organisation on the ground combined with the influence of Labour's Manchester mafia (Burnham, Powell, Rayner etc.) in getting out the vote may make it interesting. I think Labour's odds are generous at the moment - I'd have them at around 4/1 rather than 10/1.
Angus Taylor wins Liberal leadership 34 votes to 17 for Ley.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
The Telegraph has revealed that children, including ones with learning difficulties, have been promised up to £500 in vouchers, which can be redeemed at retailers like XBOX & Uber Eats, if they take part in an NHS 'transgender' trial to block their puberty
Not necessarily. Actually *reading* the article it says...
It can now be revealed that the children taking part in the trial will be incentivised with the promise of up to £500 in vouchers for completing psychometric tests. These will measure the effect of the puberty blockers on their brains, including effects on impulse control and memory...Participants, aged under 16, will receive £30 vouchers for each of the 15 cognitive assessments they complete, as well as £15 vouchers for each of the three MRI scans they undertake, over the two years of the trial...Children in another arm of the trial, not taking the drugs, will be given £15 vouchers for each bone density scan and blood test they have.
Points to note
The children are already in the trial and have been randomised into one of the two arms, so they've already been consented.
Those in the intervention arm (on the drugs) are paid a nominal amount (£15 or £30) for each of the tests (cogntive assessments or MRI scans) they undertake
Those in the control arm (not on the drugs) are paid a nominal amount (£15) for each of the tests (bone density scan and blood test) they undertake
In short the participants are paid nominal sums to take part in tests they have already agreed to prior to assignment, and that this is an incentive to complete the trial, not an incentive to take part in the trial. Since a criticism of many studies in the trans sphere is dropout rate, this is a good idea.
There's a concept in RCT called "equipoise". The surgeons/doctors in a study must be genuinely undecided/unbiased as to which of the two arms is better, and the patients must be equally noncommittal: this enables randomisation to take place believably. In trans studies this is difficult since if the patients believe the study is biased or bent towards one outcome they will refuse to take part or simply bugger off to Europe and get the treatment they want there (Baroness Cass pointed this out as a reason to undertake the PATHWAY studies). The PATHWAY designers seem to have created a study that enables equipoise. The fact that these sums are paid to make sure they stay in the study prevents dropout
(Incidentally @isam, you said last night you wanted to know how tests of drugs in humans take place. You might want to google the term "CTIMP")
Why are people dropping out? If there is a good reason why they are, the trial should be reporting that as part of the data.
They should not be remaining in a trial they would otherwise drop out of, solely due to fiscal considerations.
Dropout rates Many studies (most?) have dropout rates. Yes, dropouts are reported. Sample size calculations often incorporate a 10% or even 20% dropout rate to ensure the end amount are still big enough to provide sufficient statistical power to assess the (usually) two arms.
(Google "dropout rate" if you don't believe me).
Safety Studies are often monitored by one or more external committees, which may combine safety and procedural issues into one committee or separate them into two or more. Those external committees (ie from outside the University or organisation doing the study) will meet at least once a year and often more frequently. If the study is going seriously wrong or not recruiting fast enough then those committees may recommend that the study be terminated, and the people funding the study will also monitor it and may also recommend termination under certain circumstances.
(Google "adverse events" (AEs) and "serious adverse events" (SAEs) if you don't believe me. )
Why do people drop out? People move house, emigrate, simply want to stop, may develop conditions that prevent them from continuing, or simply die by accident or pre-existing conditions or (God forbid) from the intervention or control. They are there voluntarily, not by force.
Endpiece You seem to think that people are forced to take place in studies and studies are just thrown together by amateurs. This is Britain in the 2020s, and studies involving human subjects are regulated, registered and reported. They will be conducted and monitored by extremely skilled individuals and reported in a serious manner.
(Google "CTIMP" if you don't believe me, and that's just one example)
You have misunderstood.
I never said it is thrown together or anything like that, like ChatGPT you have hallucinated that.
However you said (previously) that payments were a good idea to prevent drop outs and I responded to say no, it is not, if people wish to drop out they should. They should not remain in the study due to financial payments.
Ethics committees will reject proposals with unduly large financial payments for exactly those reasons. However, if you are asking people to spend time coming in on multiple occasions for lengthy tests, then some financial compensation is considered appropriate. It would be unethical to exclude people from a study because they couldn't afford to take part.
A bone density scan can take half an hour. Factor in some waiting time and travel time and that's an hour and a half out of someone's day. The £15 payment is thus below minimum wage. That sort of rate is considered ethical: you are providing some compensation, but not so much that the person is only participating in the research for the money.
It sounds as though the deal doesn't include expenses. Can that be right?
I haven’t seen the details. They might be paying separately for transport costs, or they might not. Sometimes we would consider the honorarium sufficient to cover transport costs.
If these people are minors, they would mostly need to be accompanied, so it isn't just one person's expenses to be covered.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
Clearly he's got good enough PR advisors to go with the non-apology apology rather than "I misspoke I meant to say the UK had been colonised by 12 million immigrants over the last 25 years not 5 years"
Completely o/t if anyone wants to watch something funny but frankly lovely I can recommend “Small Prophets” on the Beeb.
Really quite wonderful. Some laugh out loud lines, bathos, magic and whimsy. Very original too.
I loved Detectorists. I'm really looking forward to this. The sitcom is the greatest art on television, and good ones are to be cherished.
I’ve watched the first couple of episodes and can agree with the recommendation. Brilliant piece of work - akin to the Dectorists (which isn’t too surprising given the overlap of writer / cast) but with a lot more whimsy. On a similar note (and also because filmed in the NW) i noticed Early Doors is on a bit of a tear on iPlayer. Another wonderful sitcom - and only 12 or so episodes. I appreciate it is because I am British but I don’t think anyone does sitcoms better than the Brits (honourable mention to the Irish).
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
I'm pretty sure he just misspoke and didn't catch it at the time. He doesn't really think that all that migration was compressed into the last 5 years. In fact he said similar things in 2024 when he endorsed Starmer in the election.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
The main problem was "colonised" imo. Nobody would say that unless they instinctively view immigrants as hostile aliens.
Angus Taylor wins Liberal leadership 34 votes to 17 for Ley.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
If Taylor doesn't swiftly win back Coalition voters lost to One Nation, indeed
As it stands, I don’t see how he can win them back. The Nationals have been quite assertive of late and I don’t expect them to become shrinking violets now that Taylor has won. On the basis of recent/current polling, One Nation have become a genuine force within Australian politics having chipped away at the Liberal-National coalition over the years.
I really don’t see where they can go at the moment. The centre ground is occupied or shared by Labor and the Teal independents. They can’t go to the right as Pauline Hanson has claimed that ground and the Nationals are jockeying to share it. If the Liberals are to regain power, they need to head off the Teal independents and win over those individuals who switched to Labor at the last election.
Completely o/t if anyone wants to watch something funny but frankly lovely I can recommend “Small Prophets” on the Beeb.
Really quite wonderful. Some laugh out loud lines, bathos, magic and whimsy. Very original too.
I loved Detectorists. I'm really looking forward to this. The sitcom is the greatest art on television, and good ones are to be cherished.
I’ve watched the first couple of episodes and can agree with the recommendation. Brilliant piece of work - akin to the Dectorists (which isn’t too surprising given the overlap of writer / cast) but with a lot more whimsy. On a similar note (and also because filmed in the NW) i noticed Early Doors is on a bit of a tear on iPlayer. Another wonderful sitcom - and only 12 or so episodes. I appreciate it is because I am British but I don’t think anyone does sitcoms better than the Brits (honourable mention to the Irish).
In addition when watching it my partner observed “that’s the PC from the latest Wallace and Gromit.” Naturally I said “They’ve put a lot of make up on her to hide all the plasticine.” Not impressed.
Three British men have been charged with gang-raping a woman at their hotel in Croatia.
Ami Arifi, 30, Gezhim Xhafa, 29, and Sohqib Shakibi, 25, allegedly raped the 28-year-old local woman over a two hour period in their hotel room in Split on the morning of July 22 last year.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
Oh, I think people would be disappointed by him as Leader, but I can understand why with the passage of time many people think he would be a decent one. A dash of "He's grown since then", a dollop of "he has been vindicated with time", and a dose of "it was all down to the media being unfair anyway" adds up to an attractive option amongst those who would make the decision,
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
What has changed is the calibre of the competition.
"HomeSec has outlined fundamental reforms to fix broken immig system, ensuring people who come here contribute+give more than they take."
And that's what makes Mahmood unpopular with the hand-wringing virtue-signallers who populate the party.
Wringing your hands and signaling simultaneously sounds potentially dangerous, the kind of thing you'd have failed your driving test for in the old days.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
The main problem was "colonised" imo. Nobody would say that unless they instinctively view immigrants as hostile aliens.
Many of them coming from countries that we actually colonised, ironically.
On the Shipman critique of Starmer as "having no philosophy", that's an Eric Morecambe piece - all his normal points at slightly greater length in a slightly different order with the philosophy point as a go faster stripe. There is no demonstration that Starmer's questions are anything more than a not-political-enough technocrat trying gradually to sort out the pile of rubble he inherited.
I wonder if we asked ChatGPT for a summary of his previous 48 columns, how much of the content would be overlap?
Has Shipman identified the "philosophy" of any of our previous say 5 or 6 Prime Ministers, that made them successes? What is it?
Given that Shippers is the Political Editor of the Spectator, that's probably to be expected.
On philosophy, yes one is always necessary otherwise their can only be drift but it needs to be developed into a set of policies for, and to be applied in, the context.
One current Conservative problem is that they have no real philosophy to develop into policy, so all they have is tactical reactionism.
I am annoyed he lifted one of my lines.
Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it has gone it is close to impossible to regain
Surely virginity isn't "close to" impossible to regain?
Well some parts of the world perform hymen reconstruction surgery.
That doesn't make you a virgin, just a liar.
Its an unfair pressure on women. There is no such pressure on men.
I've never slept with a virgin and I don't know why you'd want to. Wanting to sleep with a virgin has always struck me as a bit of a red flag in terms of male personality types, it reeks of someone who'd exhibit controlling behaviour.
Weird, surely between the ages of say 16 and 20 you would have done? The first four women I slept with were but we were teenagers so not surprising. Absolutely no desire to these days, or for a long time, all my partners over the last 20 odd years have been a few years older and I would infinitely rather be with a woman who knows who they are and what they enjoy. The chances of sleeping with a virgin now are distasteful to say the least or you have met someone older who has come out of a nunnery which would at least be interesting.
I'm with OLB here. I've never actually had a serious girlfriend younger than me, which might be part of it.
Every woman I have slept with has been two months older than me.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
The Tories have changed.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
The Tories have changed.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
Also, at the next general election he contests, PM Miliband would be able to stand on his actual record of running the country for 3 years. Instead of being judged on well crafted scare stories about the terrible things that he would do, he would be judged on what he had actually done.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
And most of the "Boriswave" cabinet are now in Reform, but somehow it's all Labour's fault and Reform are going to fix it. Make it make sense.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
The Tories have changed.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
Also, at the next general election he contests, PM Miliband would be able to stand on his actual record of running the country for 3 years. Instead of being judged on well crafted scare stories about the terrible things that he would do, he would be judged on what he had actually done.
I'm not convinced that every Labour member who thinks Miliband is doing a good job in his current job think it's a good idea to make him PM. Two different questions don't necessarily have the same answer.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
The main problem was "colonised" imo. Nobody would say that unless they instinctively view immigrants as hostile aliens.
Many of them coming from countries that we actually colonised, ironically.
Obviously the only immigrants that are not welcome are Jews going to live in Israel. Amiright.
Very out of politics atm. Rupert Lowe seems to be making a noise with his enquiry (is it "official")? Was speaking to a mate of his last night (I've met him also - RL - but only socially, not politically, if that makes sense) and he said that Jess Phillips was binned off it (the enquiry). Is this so?
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
The Tories have changed.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
Also, at the next general election he contests, PM Miliband would be able to stand on his actual record of running the country for 3 years. Instead of being judged on well crafted scare stories about the terrible things that he would do, he would be judged on what he had actually done.
I'm not convinced that every Labour member who thinks Miliband is doing a good job in his current job think it's a good idea to make him PM. Two different questions don't necessarily have the same answer.
Nor am I. Certainly not "every" Labour member, obviously. Clearly the questions are different. But the fact that Miliband is leaps ahead in favourability compared to Streeting will still count for quite a bit if it comes to a head to head between the two.
And I wasn't implying either that he should be favourite in the betting markets at this stage. You can get him at 8/1 currently which I think are still reasonably attractive odds considering he'll almost certainly be the standard bearer of the soft left if Rayner doesn't run. They are not as good as the 20/1 he was when I wrote a thread recommending backing him the week before last. And certainly not as good as the 100/1 odds which TSE backed him at (as he keeps reminding us.)
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
The Tories have changed.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
Plus he doesn't have to win a GE to become PM this time and when he does he'll be up against Badenoch / Farage not the smooth talking old Etonian "fuck it all up and run away to play candy crush in my shepherd's hut" Cameron.
Further update from Down Under. The new Deputy leader of the Liberals is Jane Hume, a Senator who was fired by Ley last year and acknowledged that she was out for revenge.
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has managed to find a camera and very reluctantly shared his views (shocked, I tell you). He said that Liberals should get behind Angus Taylor as he “wants to protect our way of life”. He also said it’s time that the party pushed for immigration numbers to come down.
This is the same Tony Abbott who wrestled for the leadership of the party with Malcolm Turnbull, who only got behind the party leadership when he had finished stabbing them in the front in order to carry on stabbing them from behind, and who conveniently forgets that he himself is an immigrant.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
The main problem was "colonised" imo. Nobody would say that unless they instinctively view immigrants as hostile aliens.
Many of them coming from countries that we actually colonised, ironically.
Obviously the only immigrants that are not welcome are Jews going to live in Israel. Amiright.
Its when they go and live in the Occupied Territories that objections arise. There they are very much colonisers.
Very out of politics atm. Rupert Lowe seems to be making a noise with his enquiry (is it "official")? Was speaking to a mate of his last night (I've met him also - RL - but only socially, not politically, if that makes sense) and he said that Jess Phillips was binned off it (the enquiry). Is this so?
I have also heard of Lowe's enquiry but it definitely isn't official, and I'd be extremely surprised if Phillips had had any involvement.
Updated Labour List net favourability ratings of Cabinet members amongst self-declared Labour members.
Taking those featuring in the next PM market: Streeting + 22 Miliband +70 Mahmood +3 Cooper +29 Healey +45 Lammy +12 Benn +51
Starmer +5
Rayner, Powell and Burnham excluded as not in Cabinet.
"Survation surveyed 1,264 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between February 5 and 6. Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age group, sex, region and 2025 deputy leadership vote. "
This is why Ed Miliband is going to succeed Sir Keir if Sir Keir falls soon.
20+ years experience as an MP, a taste of ministerial experience before having extended experience of opposition including at the highest level, leadership of a major department, displays a sense of purpose and vision (albeit one plenty don't like), popular with party members, has a ruthless streak.
On paper he's not a terrible candidate.
But it's not on paper. The actuality is he is a terrible candidate. Nothing has changed since he was a terrible candidate who lost last time out.
The Tories have changed.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
Also, at the next general election he contests, PM Miliband would be able to stand on his actual record of running the country for 3 years. Instead of being judged on well crafted scare stories about the terrible things that he would do, he would be judged on what he had actually done.
just as well we avoided Ed Miliband's Coalition of Chaos in 2015 and wound up with a strong and stable decade of sound government.
In a possible early dress rehearsal for Gorton, the Fletton by election in Peterborough is rumoured to be very close between Green and Reform Result imminent
Very out of politics atm. Rupert Lowe seems to be making a noise with his enquiry (is it "official")? Was speaking to a mate of his last night (I've met him also - RL - but only socially, not politically, if that makes sense) and he said that Jess Phillips was binned off it (the enquiry). Is this so?
sounds plausible, given Lowe's track record of not being able to play nicely with the other children
On the subject of the self-serving bigoted tax-avoiding exile whose political consistency seems only to extend to wanting to ingratiate himself with whoever is favourite to win a future general election......
Might Ratcliffe's volte face from backing Labour have something to do with his expectation that the funding that the government will be putting into the Trafford Park development would help fund the development of a new £2 billion Man United stadium. And specifically that such expectations were recently reported to have been dashed by the Treasury?
NICOLA Sturgeon’s estranged hubby stands accused of embezzling £460,000 of SNP funds over the course of more than a decade, bombshell court papers reveal.
Peter Murrell, 61, is alleged to have used the cash to buy items including cars, a motorhome, luxury goods, shoes, cosmetics and jewellery over a twelve-and-a-half year period.
OpenAI warned lawmakers in a memo sent today to the House Select Committee on China that DeepSeek is using “new, obfuscated methods” to continue to distill its AI models, as well as those of other US frontier AI labs
In a possible early dress rehearsal for Gorton, the Fletton by election in Peterborough is rumoured to be very close between Green and Reform Result imminent
“McSweeney was learning how to do government on the job. Within a fortnight of taking over, he was telling colleagues that Dominic Cummings’s analysis of what was wrong with Whitehall was right – the civil service was no Rolls-Royce, unelected quangos spent their time using taxpayers’ money to lobby against their own government and judicial review made it impossible to do anything quickly.”
In a possible early dress rehearsal for Gorton, the Fletton by election in Peterborough is rumoured to be very close between Green and Reform Result imminent
There's a local reporter at the count. He's unofficially saying Refirm look to have taken it but waiting in declaration. I must be bored, it's the only result tonight
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
The main problem was "colonised" imo. Nobody would say that unless they instinctively view immigrants as hostile aliens.
Many of them coming from countries that we actually colonised, ironically.
Obviously the only immigrants that are not welcome are Jews going to live in Israel. Amiright.
Its when they go and live in the Occupied Territories that objections arise. There they are very much colonisers.
Of course. They go and live where others are living. Send them home.
OpenAI warned lawmakers in a memo sent today to the House Select Committee on China that DeepSeek is using “new, obfuscated methods” to continue to distill its AI models, as well as those of other US frontier AI labs
"Private capital is not enough, you will need to be willing to step up and help us unless you want the AI overlords to speak Mandarin".
In a possible early dress rehearsal for Gorton, the Fletton by election in Peterborough is rumoured to be very close between Green and Reform Result imminent
There's a local reporter at the count. He's unofficially saying Refirm look to have taken it but waiting in declaration. I must be bored, it's the only result tonight
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
Getting a date wrong by 20 years is a pretty big mistake, and one he’s still not even acknowledged he made.
The main problem was "colonised" imo. Nobody would say that unless they instinctively view immigrants as hostile aliens.
Many of them coming from countries that we actually colonised, ironically.
Obviously the only immigrants that are not welcome are Jews going to live in Israel. Amiright.
Its when they go and live in the Occupied Territories that objections arise. There they are very much colonisers.
""You know, it's ironic that the people who whinge loudest about Israel "colonising" Palestine are the same ones busy "colonising" the UK."
A joint statement by 16 U.S. Ambassadors to NATO and Supreme Allied Commanders, arguing "NATO is not an act of American generosity. It is a strategic bargain that ensures the United States remains the world’s most powerful and economically secure nation at a fraction of the cost of going it alone." https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/nato-vital-us-national-security
Bottom line of their detailed argument; NATO is not an act of American generosity. It is a strategic bargain that ensures the United States remains the world’s most powerful and economically secure nation at a fraction of the cost of going it alone. America’s allies are its single greatest geo-strategic advantage. Russia and China, despite their efforts to align with other nations like North Korea and Iran, simply have nothing to compare.
Incredible that somebody has to spell this out.
It seems bloody obvious the US gets tremendous advantages from the arrangement, plus they successfully got them to increase spending anyway.
All undone by militarily threatening allies over an island they could do whatever they wanted with anyway. NATO is a zombie organisation now, since everyone knows the US would never come to the aid of the others, and in fact regards them as rivals at best and enemies at worst.
It will take a long time and won't be easy, but it's not going to be worth retaining in the long run.
I don't know that it's completely irreparable. But it would certainly require a lot more, and a lot longer than a single Democratic administration to repair the trust.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
Labour sliding to fourth in a ward they held since 2020 is not a good sign. Tories will be a bit disappointed, Greens strong performance in a ward theyd achieved 400 votes in a couple elections ago. Reform win but rather a tight squeeze and well below their current GE estimate here
CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman joins FT editor Roula Khalaf to explain why most of the tasks accountants, lawyers and other professionals currently undertake will be fully automated by AI within the next 12 to 18 months
The Windows 11 Notepad app, recently upgraded with AI features, now carries a high-severity flaw that exposes users to dangerous attacks.
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
Comments
Peter Murrell, 61, is alleged to have used the cash to buy items including cars, a motorhome, luxury goods, shoes, cosmetics and jewellery over a twelve-and-a-half year period.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/15918177/nicola-sturgeon-peter-murrell-court-charges-embezzlement/
If found guilty then there's going to be one hell of a POCA.
Not sure why they need to tell us how many words there are in the charge sheet. Is that a lot?
Hackers can simply send boobytrapped text files and remotely compromise users with a single click.
A newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Microsoft’s recent expansion into AI-powered and online features.
“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.
https://cybernews.com/security/windows-notepad-vulnerable-to-remote-attacks-feature-creep-blamed/
Or not as the case may be.
True love is being partners in crime, as well as law.
Really quite wonderful. Some laugh out loud lines, bathos, magic and whimsy. Very original too.
So the Liberals first female leader and a moderate lasts barely longer than Liz Truss and the National Right faction is back in charge of the party for the first time since Dutton resigned after leading them to landslide defeat in the Federal election last year
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-13/federal-politics-live-blog-liberal-spill/106339480
The sitcom is the greatest art on television, and good ones are to be cherished.
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-jim-ratcliffe-scolds-tories-over-handling-of-economy-and-immigration-after-brexit-13139088
"The country was designed for 55 or 60 million people and we've got 70 million people and all the services break down as a consequence."
"HomeSec has outlined fundamental reforms to fix broken immig system, ensuring people who come here contribute+give more than they take."
And that's what makes Mahmood unpopular with the hand-wringing virtue-signallers who populate the party.
And the left are not making the point that " 'only' 3 million immigrants arrived in the last 5 years" as claimed up thread.
If there are points to be made it's that:
1. Only 200,000 arrived in the year to June 2025 and the figure for 2026 may well be lower. That's 1 million in 5 years if sustained. Not 3 million. Not 12 million (the figure Ratcliffe used).
and
2. With the birth rate at a record low of 1.4 the ageing of the UK's population is accelerating ever more rapidly, the consequences of which would be even more worrying in the absence of any immigration.
I really don’t see where they can go at the moment. The centre ground is occupied or shared by Labor and the Teal independents. They can’t go to the right as Pauline Hanson has claimed that ground and the Nationals are jockeying to share it. If the Liberals are to regain power, they need to head off the Teal independents and win over those individuals who switched to Labor at the last election.
Ami Arifi, 30, Gezhim Xhafa, 29, and Sohqib Shakibi, 25, allegedly raped the 28-year-old local woman over a two hour period in their hotel room in Split on the morning of July 22 last year.
https://x.com/dailymail/status/2021927535244673045?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
https://x.com/rpsagainsttrump/status/2022034923876757940?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
#ITVYouthTracker leader favourability among 16-25 year olds 🗳️
Net Favourability:
🟢Polanski: 1%
🔶Davey: -4%
🌳Badenoch: -10%
➡️Farage: -26%
🌹Starmer: -29%
@Savanta_UK
for ITV Youth Tracker, Sample Size: 1,040 UK based 16-25 year-olds, Fieldwork 4-9 February 2026.
Then they were led by Cameron at his prime. Now ... ?
The good news is they do have a level they won't go for, and it is Matt Gaetz.
CON: 19% (+1)
GRN: 18% (=)
LAB: 16% (=)
LDM: 11% (=)
SNP: 3% (+1)
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/2021918065102049336?s=20
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3dzez1g451o
Instead of being judged on well crafted scare stories about the terrible things that he would do, he would be judged on what he had actually done.
Talking of which I've just seen a likable Tory on Newsnight. I thought Kemi was par for the course.
I give you.....Amber Rudd
And I wasn't implying either that he should be favourite in the betting markets at this stage. You can get him at 8/1 currently which I think are still reasonably attractive odds considering he'll almost certainly be the standard bearer of the soft left if Rayner doesn't run. They are not as good as the 20/1 he was when I wrote a thread recommending backing him the week before last. And certainly not as good as the 100/1 odds which TSE backed him at (as he keeps reminding us.)
Cameron in his prime https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/oct/08/steve-bell-cameron-legacy-dave-who-put-his-cock-in-a-pig-video
The lectern molesting is a long running theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdlsLpxd-8o
Sadly for once Steve Bell is wrong, if only Cameron's legacy was "Dave who put his cock in a pig" rather than Dave who lost the Brexit vote
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has managed to find a camera and very reluctantly shared his views (shocked, I tell you). He said that Liberals should get behind Angus Taylor as he “wants to protect our way of life”. He also said it’s time that the party pushed for immigration numbers to come down.
This is the same Tony Abbott who wrestled for the leadership of the party with Malcolm Turnbull, who only got behind the party leadership when he had finished stabbing them in the front in order to carry on stabbing them from behind, and who conveniently forgets that he himself is an immigrant.
Humility, thy name is Tony!
Result imminent
Might Ratcliffe's volte face from backing Labour have something to do with his expectation that the funding that the government will be putting into the Trafford Park development would help fund the development of a new £2 billion Man United stadium. And specifically that such expectations were recently reported to have been dashed by the Treasury?
https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/man-utd-stadium-delay-funding-blow-4026035
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/man-utd-stadium-old-trafford-36207987
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/19852/local-council-elections-10th-february?page=2
I must be bored, it's the only result tonight
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
Reform UK 565
Green 529
Conservative 419
Labour 323
Lib Dem 84
Turnout 25.2%
Competitive ward!
But it would certainly require a lot more, and a lot longer than a single Democratic administration to repair the trust.
Coming soon to the rest of the country unless we sort our electoral system out.
Edit. On a 25% turnout.
So effectively fewer than 7.5% of the electorate.
Less than 1 in 13.
Notepad rather than Notepad++deserves all they get anyway.Fixed.
However scant solace for the Kemigasm.
Third in a ward they won in 2016, 2019 and 2021.