Breaking Shadow Cabinet reshuffle news, Stride is off to the Ministry of Silly Walks. More to come.
Kemi now better pray Opinium is wrong and the Tories are second in May because if they are third or worse, having sacked Stride, he will shift firmly to Team Cleverly and she will likely be gone by the end of July
I think it is close enough between Labour and the Tories in the opinion polls that the differential turnout that benefits the opposition and older voters in lower turnout local elections should see the Tories safely ahead of Labour in the projected national share.
The Greens are probably a bit too far behind, and rely too much on younger voters to finish ahead of the Tories, while the Lib Dems tend to overperform in local elections, so I'd guess at the projected national share putting the parties in the order RFM-LDM-CON-GRN-LAB.
Bearing in mind that the Tories were fourth in 2025, I'm not sure why you're so fixated on them needing to come second for Kemi to avoid a leadership challenge? Would you elaborate on your reasoning?
He wants Cleverly to be leader, and works back from that.
Burnham seems far more interested in climbing the greasy pole at any cost. He is not interested in his City, his County, his Party or the Country. Show me a wildly ambitious politician and I will show you an egotistical w*nker!
Unfortunately, wild ambition beats disinterested public service as a means to get to the summit.
Which is why so many of our leaders behave the way they do, both as they climb the greasy pole and when they get to the top.
We've known forever that elected politicians act that way- Burnham is just the latest person who seems happy to crash his party so that he can lead the remains. Boris definitely did, and Brown wasn't that much better. We're now seeing the same behaviour in the civil service; maybe it was always there, but in the past they didn't tell the press about it.
But office politics is like that. Ascending the pecking order is as much about desire as ability. At an individual level, high pay goes to those who are driven by money as much as those whose talents really merit it.
Breaking Shadow Cabinet reshuffle news, Stride is off to the Ministry of Silly Walks. More to come.
Kemi now better pray Opinium is wrong and the Tories are second in May because if they are third or worse, having sacked Stride, he will shift firmly to Team Cleverly and she will likely be gone by the end of July
You have to admit that Stride and Philp were utterly abject and wooden. Good move from Badenoch.
A potential checkmate own goal for her. Stride will shift to Cleverly and Philp was one of her main backers in 2024, if both are sacked they will be her enemies on the backbenches and a VONC in her leadership becomes likely if the May results are poor for the Tories
Good morning
Kemi is not going to do a reshuffle before May's elections
Stride is personable but Philp is poor
If the rumours are true then I have no doubt she will not face a vonc despite your constant assertions that Cleverly is some Prince over the water
The key word is rumours. Most rumours in the press are tosh, because there are pages to be filled. It's just that we all tend to believe rumours that we want to be true and ignore ones that we don't.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Breaking Shadow Cabinet reshuffle news, Stride is off to the Ministry of Silly Walks. More to come.
Kemi now better pray Opinium is wrong and the Tories are second in May because if they are third or worse, having sacked Stride, he will shift firmly to Team Cleverly and she will likely be gone by the end of July
I think it is close enough between Labour and the Tories in the opinion polls that the differential turnout that benefits the opposition and older voters in lower turnout local elections should see the Tories safely ahead of Labour in the projected national share.
The Greens are probably a bit too far behind, and rely too much on younger voters to finish ahead of the Tories, while the Lib Dems tend to overperform in local elections, so I'd guess at the projected national share putting the parties in the order RFM-LDM-CON-GRN-LAB.
Bearing in mind that the Tories were fourth in 2025, I'm not sure why you're so fixated on them needing to come second for Kemi to avoid a leadership challenge? Would you elaborate on your reasoning?
He wants Cleverly to be leader, and works back from that.
There may be some truth to the rumours about a reshuffle, but surely not until after the carnage of the Welsh, Scottish and English local elections.
The problem is that Badenoch is basing it on her doomscrolling Social Media habit rather than a coherent narrative.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
🔷Nigel Farage records worst approval rating of this parliament at net -21. 🔴Keir Starmer is at -39. One of his best scores since last summer. 🔵The gap between Badenoch (-11) and Farage (-21) is at its widest since she became leader.
This is presumably polling done before the latest Lord Yummygate shenanigans?
Opinium conducted a nationally and politically representative survey of 2,014 UK adults between 15th and 17th April 2026.
So Wed to Fri, so two thirds of the fieldwork would have covered the latest Mandy revelations.
There's the time for it to sink in, I suppose.
But I guess the bigger questions are:
1 How much has this moved people from pro- to anti-Starmer? My take on what's been said here is that it's affected intensity of opinions, but not the opinions themselves.
2 How much of this has made the "two minutes and you're up to date on no-longer-local FM, weather and travel next" news bulletins that most normal people have the good sense to rely on? If we get to a point where SKS has to go, that will be different, but probably not in a way that is to the advantage of rival parties.
Back in the day, Sir Robert Worcester said it used to take around 10 to 14 days for a story/event to show an impact in the polls.
Mandelson is a complete non event or issue to 98% of the population
It's simply a non issue outside of Westminster
I am curious whether we have any polling on whether the issue has cut through with the public?
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
I think the obscene wealth of a handful of people is very much the reason for justified anger and the fact they seem to be increasingly devoid of any decency, just the pursuit of billions, even trillions, of dollars with no way of reigning them in
Indeed the way Trump's announcements has seen unacceptable insider trading just adds to this
I do not know the answer but I can completely understand the public view against this unacceptable wealth
If Kemi thinks Stride and Philp are her weak links then delusion has set in.
Stride is competent, Philp is poor
Adequate words to describe how utterly useless Whateley, Trott, Burquart, Atkins, Holden are would be too full of expletives to avoid a life ban, especially Holden and Whateley.
Everything about the timing, the targets and the replacements suggests panic and shoring up desperately to avoid a VONC.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Though a lot of those benefits have a different property; it's much harder to do the exponentially bigger thing with them that you can do with money.
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
A Labour backbencher has called for the pension triple lock to be reformed to help fund a rise in defence spending
@GraemeDownieMP wrote in The House this weekend that the government should be brave enough to ask older people who "benefited financially from peace" to make a greater contribution to future national security
If Kemi thinks Stride and Philp are her weak links then delusion has set in.
Stride is competent, Philp is poor
Adequate words to describe how utterly useless Whateley, Trott, Burquart, Atkins, Holden are would be too full of expletives to avoid a life ban, especially Holden and Whateley.
Everything about the timing, the targets and the replacements suggests panic and shoring up desperately to avoid a VONC.
Why rock the boat otherwise?
We get it
You do not like Kemi or any conservative women but then you are not, nor ever will be, her target audience
🔷Nigel Farage records worst approval rating of this parliament at net -21. 🔴Keir Starmer is at -39. One of his best scores since last summer. 🔵The gap between Badenoch (-11) and Farage (-21) is at its widest since she became leader.
This is presumably polling done before the latest Lord Yummygate shenanigans?
Opinium conducted a nationally and politically representative survey of 2,014 UK adults between 15th and 17th April 2026.
So Wed to Fri, so two thirds of the fieldwork would have covered the latest Mandy revelations.
There's the time for it to sink in, I suppose.
But I guess the bigger questions are:
1 How much has this moved people from pro- to anti-Starmer? My take on what's been said here is that it's affected intensity of opinions, but not the opinions themselves.
2 How much of this has made the "two minutes and you're up to date on no-longer-local FM, weather and travel next" news bulletins that most normal people have the good sense to rely on? If we get to a point where SKS has to go, that will be different, but probably not in a way that is to the advantage of rival parties.
Back in the day, Sir Robert Worcester said it used to take around 10 to 14 days for a story/event to show an impact in the polls.
Mandelson is a complete non event or issue to 98% of the population
It's simply a non issue outside of Westminster
I am curious whether we have any polling on whether the issue has cut through with the public?
53% of the public think Starmer has not been honest v 16% who do
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
There has been a big shift since the 1970s and quibbling the exact numbers isn’t going to help when the revolution comes!
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
🔷Nigel Farage records worst approval rating of this parliament at net -21. 🔴Keir Starmer is at -39. One of his best scores since last summer. 🔵The gap between Badenoch (-11) and Farage (-21) is at its widest since she became leader.
This is presumably polling done before the latest Lord Yummygate shenanigans?
Opinium conducted a nationally and politically representative survey of 2,014 UK adults between 15th and 17th April 2026.
So Wed to Fri, so two thirds of the fieldwork would have covered the latest Mandy revelations.
Well, when you have a poll collected over 3 days, typically most of the responses are collected on the first day and not many on the third.
🔷Nigel Farage records worst approval rating of this parliament at net -21. 🔴Keir Starmer is at -39. One of his best scores since last summer. 🔵The gap between Badenoch (-11) and Farage (-21) is at its widest since she became leader.
This is presumably polling done before the latest Lord Yummygate shenanigans?
Opinium conducted a nationally and politically representative survey of 2,014 UK adults between 15th and 17th April 2026.
So Wed to Fri, so two thirds of the fieldwork would have covered the latest Mandy revelations.
There's the time for it to sink in, I suppose.
But I guess the bigger questions are:
1 How much has this moved people from pro- to anti-Starmer? My take on what's been said here is that it's affected intensity of opinions, but not the opinions themselves.
2 How much of this has made the "two minutes and you're up to date on no-longer-local FM, weather and travel next" news bulletins that most normal people have the good sense to rely on? If we get to a point where SKS has to go, that will be different, but probably not in a way that is to the advantage of rival parties.
Back in the day, Sir Robert Worcester said it used to take around 10 to 14 days for a story/event to show an impact in the polls.
Mandelson is a complete non event or issue to 98% of the population
It's simply a non issue outside of Westminster
I am curious whether we have any polling on whether the issue has cut through with the public?
53% of the public think Starmer has not been honest v 16% who do
53% is lower than I'd have expected, especially given the ratio amongst Reform voters. That looks survivable for now; this fiasco is more like a cat or a video game avatar losing a life than a human doing so.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
A Labour backbencher has called for the pension triple lock to be reformed to help fund a rise in defence spending
@GraemeDownieMP wrote in The House this weekend that the government should be brave enough to ask older people who "benefited financially from peace" to make a greater contribution to future national security
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
But it was a secret. No one knew but poor old Olly and he didn't even tell the PM. Honest.
Shades of Boris' birthday cake. Reported in The Times and no one cared. Until they cared...
I know why they wouldn't have, but I said at the time they should have made No.10 an exception to the various restrictions in the first place, given they coordinate running the country from there.
100%
The fact that they were all in a workplace together while the rest of us were locked up indoors surely meant the rules were different for them.
Except the government banned other places from having the same privileges.
Several hospitals asked if the medical staff could have a Christmas day meal/lunch and were told no by the government.
I think people are missing the point - these were the folk locking people up for months on end. Taking a zealous and pious approach was absolutely necessary to retain credibility. Imagine if it had all come out at the time (maybe there was a D notice on it?)
The people I was most disappointed with were the civil servants. The whole point of being someone in public service is to take a kind of masochist pleasure in an emergency, laying down you life for your country, get Holst/Elgar on spotify on etc etc. Your whole career has been leading to this moment and you've instead behaved like children.
“Civil servant” is a very diverse group. Those involved in Partygate were mostly Johnson appointees, weren’t they, rather than career civil servants?
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
🔷Nigel Farage records worst approval rating of this parliament at net -21. 🔴Keir Starmer is at -39. One of his best scores since last summer. 🔵The gap between Badenoch (-11) and Farage (-21) is at its widest since she became leader.
This is presumably polling done before the latest Lord Yummygate shenanigans?
Opinium conducted a nationally and politically representative survey of 2,014 UK adults between 15th and 17th April 2026.
So Wed to Fri, so two thirds of the fieldwork would have covered the latest Mandy revelations.
There's the time for it to sink in, I suppose.
But I guess the bigger questions are:
1 How much has this moved people from pro- to anti-Starmer? My take on what's been said here is that it's affected intensity of opinions, but not the opinions themselves.
2 How much of this has made the "two minutes and you're up to date on no-longer-local FM, weather and travel next" news bulletins that most normal people have the good sense to rely on? If we get to a point where SKS has to go, that will be different, but probably not in a way that is to the advantage of rival parties.
Back in the day, Sir Robert Worcester said it used to take around 10 to 14 days for a story/event to show an impact in the polls.
Mandelson is a complete non event or issue to 98% of the population
It's simply a non issue outside of Westminster
I am curious whether we have any polling on whether the issue has cut through with the public?
53% of the public think Starmer has not been honest v 16% who do
53% is lower than I'd have expected, especially given the ratio amongst Reform voters. That looks survivable for now; this fiasco is more like a cat or a video game avatar losing a life than a human doing so.
Starmer's legacy will forever be Mandelson and the consquences of his ill judged rush to appoint him as UK ambassador to US will sooner or later see the end of his Premiership
He will join Johnson and Truss as a PM not suited to the office
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
The current Iranian leadership will not give up uranium enrichment, its missile program, support for its regional network of proxies, or its strategic influence over the Strait of Hormuz.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
That is true, one must be suitably attired in the mosque, although when I last went there they would lend you clothes if required. They do only have so many though, and too many people turn up looking like they walked straight off the beach at their hotel, men and women.
If ever you come back, shout me up if you want a tour guide!
Not going to the mosque today though, instead will enjoy the pool and the grounds of this seriously impressive palace.
The hotel is Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi. Booked a couple of weeks ago when bombs were still flying around, for the grand total of £150 a night. Usually you’d be not getting much change from £700, it’s the most expensive hotel in the city! I’ve paid more for a Travelodge in the UK.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Though a lot of those benefits have a different property; it's much harder to do the exponentially bigger thing with them that you can do with money.
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
Once upon a time these individuals built museums, parks, monuments.
I think earnings is a bit of a red herring. It’s inter generational wealth, particularly property, that’s the much bigger problem. It extends beyond the top 1%.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
They can stick it and their morality police where the sun don't shine. I would not go to these countries if you paid me.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Breaking Shadow Cabinet reshuffle news, Stride is off to the Ministry of Silly Walks. More to come.
Kemi now better pray Opinium is wrong and the Tories are second in May because if they are third or worse, having sacked Stride, he will shift firmly to Team Cleverly and she will likely be gone by the end of July
I think it is close enough between Labour and the Tories in the opinion polls that the differential turnout that benefits the opposition and older voters in lower turnout local elections should see the Tories safely ahead of Labour in the projected national share.
The Greens are probably a bit too far behind, and rely too much on younger voters to finish ahead of the Tories, while the Lib Dems tend to overperform in local elections, so I'd guess at the projected national share putting the parties in the order RFM-LDM-CON-GRN-LAB.
Bearing in mind that the Tories were fourth in 2025, I'm not sure why you're so fixated on them needing to come second for Kemi to avoid a leadership challenge? Would you elaborate on your reasoning?
He wants Cleverly to be leader, and works back from that.
But only because he’s an Essex MP. It’s pure nationalism nothing else
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Close to,the Zayed Mosque, a place I want to visit.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Son works for a package holiday company. Might suggest a niche for cheap, luxury holidays. No travel insurance but helmet and flack jacket provided. Used to work for Emirates in Dubai and loved it.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
They can stick it and their morality police where the sun don't shine. I would not go to these countries if you paid me.
There’s no ‘morality police’ in the UAE, apart from a dress code at the mosque. It’s not Iran or Afghanistan.
If you’re going to a mosque, please cover your shoulders, knees, and ladies your hair.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
The symmetry is certainly not impacted by vehicles.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
That is true, one must be suitably attired in the mosque, although when I last went there they would lend you clothes if required. They do only have so many though, and too many people turn up looking like they walked straight off the beach at their hotel, men and women.
If ever you come back, shout me up if you want a tour guide!
Not going to the mosque today though, instead will enjoy the pool and the grounds of this seriously impressive palace.
The hotel is Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi. Booked a couple of weeks ago when bombs were still flying around, for the grand total of £150 a night. Usually you’d be not getting much change from £700, it’s the most expensive hotel in the city! I’ve paid more for a Travelodge in the UK.
Yebbut, the marble and chandaliers in that Travelodge....
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
The symmetry is certainly not impacted by vehicles.
Or visitors.
Wes Anderson would love it though.
Had to stand there for several minutes to get a photo with no-one else in it! Occupancy looks to be around 30% tops this weekend though, not busy at all, although such a massive building can look pretty empty even when there’s a couple of thousand people in it.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
No cycle storage listed. That’s why I stick to Premier Inns.
‘The Mail on Sunday can reveal today that Keir Starmer's team received a briefing from security sources in 2023 about Peter Mandelson that included:
* The revelation his friendship with Epstein dated back to 2006 * The pair were being monitored by Russian intelligence, who viewed their relationship as "close" * Soviet intelligence began targeting Mandelson as far back as the late 1980's * British and EU intelligence officials were so concerned about his business links with Putin ally Oleg Deripaska they advised him to cut off links. Including ending his use of Deripaska's private jet’
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Though a lot of those benefits have a different property; it's much harder to do the exponentially bigger thing with them that you can do with money.
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
Once upon a time these individuals built museums, parks, monuments.
I think earnings is a bit of a red herring. It’s inter generational wealth, particularly property, that’s the much bigger problem. It extends beyond the top 1%.
I think you are unfair to most wealthy people. There are some very high profile examples of greedy people (especially among techbros) but ‘twas ever thus. A lot of other families quietly make massively generous donations - most often to local causes. One Westminster based family I’ve come across in the past, for example, is the largest single donor to the university of Westminster, Chelsea & Westminster hospital and Westminster Abbey. You might not make the same choices they do (and I probably wouldn’t) but it’s hard to deny their generosity (they donate about 12.5% of their pre-tax income annually)
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
No cycle storage listed. That’s why I stick to Premier Inns.
Even better, they have dozens of bikes in the resort that you can borrow to get around. Much more exercise than being driven around in a golf buggy! One lap of the grounds of this place is pretty close to your daily 10,000 steps if you’re walking.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Stangely, I might even have been there. My brother was based in Abu Dhabi for some years and I visited a couple of times. The Corniche was a pleasant enough place for a stroll in the evening with its cafes and hookah bars, and there was a small local historical museum that was worth a look.
My brother took me on a bit of a tour and I think we popped into this place that had just opened. It reminded me of the "dictator chic" that we saw in Saddam or Ceaucescus palaces, the sort of thing that Trump is now doing to the White House.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Though a lot of those benefits have a different property; it's much harder to do the exponentially bigger thing with them that you can do with money.
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
Once upon a time these individuals built museums, parks, monuments.
I think earnings is a bit of a red herring. It’s inter generational wealth, particularly property, that’s the much bigger problem. It extends beyond the top 1%.
I think you are unfair to most wealthy people. There are some very high profile examples of greedy people (especially among techbros) but ‘twas ever thus. A lot of other families quietly make massively generous donations - most often to local causes. One Westminster based family I’ve come across in the past, for example, is the largest single donor to the university of Westminster, Chelsea & Westminster hospital and Westminster Abbey. You might not make the same choices they do (and I probably wouldn’t) but it’s hard to deny their generosity (they donate about 12.5% of their pre-tax income annually)
But the politicians don’t want the wealthy making their own charitable donations, they want to control the flow of money themselves, to their own favoured NGOs which donate back to their campaigns and employ people from the party.
Green clearly up, Reform clearly down. Con/Lab/LD slightly down
I suspect there has been some direct switching from Ref to Green actually. Ref were the outsider party and then they took a bunch of prominent ex-Tories and now Green are the new outsiders.
I don't think that's it - I think it's actually the social acceptability of the Greens that is helping them. They have a bit of edge, but at the end of the day they will not cause a disgusted reaction at parties. As a people, we have a powerful instinct to conform and herd.
The Greens offer rebellion but in a way that is acceptable to the right sort of people. By contrast, Reform have faced a greater level of attacks than before, with a sustained attempt by the Government to portray them as the unacceptable face of right wing politics.
That last paragraph is the point I was trying to clumsily make yesterday.
The Greens are a bit like the Lib Dem’s in that respect
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
No cycle storage listed. That’s why I stick to Premier Inns.
I am quite a Premier Inn fan. The beds are always comfortable and the rooms well soundproofed.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Stangely, I might even have been there. My brother was based in Abu Dhabi for some years and I visited a couple of times. The Corniche was a pleasant enough place for a stroll in the evening with its cafes and hookah bars, and there was a small local historical museum that was worth a look.
My brother took me on a bit of a tour and I think we popped into this place that had just opened. It reminded me of the "dictator chic" that we saw in Saddam or Ceaucescus palaces, the sort of thing that Trump is now doing to the White House.
Doubt Trump/Dictator would come up with something like this. Reminded me of some of the Moorish influenced buildings in Seville, Cordoba and Granada. Reminds me to book another holiday.
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Though a lot of those benefits have a different property; it's much harder to do the exponentially bigger thing with them that you can do with money.
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
Once upon a time these individuals built museums, parks, monuments.
I think earnings is a bit of a red herring. It’s inter generational wealth, particularly property, that’s the much bigger problem. It extends beyond the top 1%.
I think you are unfair to most wealthy people. There are some very high profile examples of greedy people (especially among techbros) but ‘twas ever thus. A lot of other families quietly make massively generous donations - most often to local causes. One Westminster based family I’ve come across in the past, for example, is the largest single donor to the university of Westminster, Chelsea & Westminster hospital and Westminster Abbey. You might not make the same choices they do (and I probably wouldn’t) but it’s hard to deny their generosity (they donate about 12.5% of their pre-tax income annually)
Yes, very much the Charles Dickens solution to poverty, with kind hearted Gentlemen helping out the poor, particularly poor Gentlefolk, rather than real proletarians.
It is better than being an unreformed Scrooge I suppose.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
No cycle storage listed. That’s why I stick to Premier Inns.
I am quite a Premier Inn fan. The beds are always comfortable and the rooms well soundproofed.
Yes, from my road warrior days in the UK, Premier Inn was always a good call in a strange town. The McDonald’s of hotels, no frills but you know what you’re getting and it’s not going to kill you.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
Almost every five star hotel is devoid of soul, which is why I tend to prefer three star places. When my sister in law had her cancer diagnosis, we decided life is too short, five star from now on. We booked into an exceptional hotel half way up the Matterhorn. Every detail was perfect, but we liked better the ramshackle chalet we stayed at previously, listing over a 2000 metre precipice and run by an old woman with her pots of jam.
The building in the photo does look beautiful though
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Stangely, I might even have been there. My brother was based in Abu Dhabi for some years and I visited a couple of times. The Corniche was a pleasant enough place for a stroll in the evening with its cafes and hookah bars, and there was a small local historical museum that was worth a look.
My brother took me on a bit of a tour and I think we popped into this place that had just opened. It reminded me of the "dictator chic" that we saw in Saddam or Ceaucescus palaces, the sort of thing that Trump is now doing to the White House.
Doubt Trump/Dictator would come up with something like this. Reminded me of some of the Moorish influenced buildings in Seville, Cordoba and Granada. Reminds me to book another holiday.
I suppose every treasured monument on the world heritage list was a garish bit of wealth display at some point in history, but I prefer places softened by the patina of time and use.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds like they gpt Donald Trump and a group of gangster rappers in to advise them on how to maximise tastelessness per square foot.
A Labour backbencher has called for the pension triple lock to be reformed to help fund a rise in defence spending
@GraemeDownieMP wrote in The House this weekend that the government should be brave enough to ask older people who "benefited financially from peace" to make a greater contribution to future national security
Policies like capping the highest wages versus the lowest wages wouldn’t work, but they’re very popular because something has gone wrong with how capitalism works. We’ve gone from an average ratio of 2.5:1 in the 1970s to 200:1 today. Democracy is the counterbalance to the ever more efficient extraction of wealth.
Well, we were at 2.5:1* because marginal tax rates were so high, and therefore companies rewarded bosses with a bunch of benefits that were not taxed highly - like share options, country club memberships, company cars and free petrol and the like.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Though a lot of those benefits have a different property; it's much harder to do the exponentially bigger thing with them that you can do with money.
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
Once upon a time these individuals built museums, parks, monuments.
I think earnings is a bit of a red herring. It’s inter generational wealth, particularly property, that’s the much bigger problem. It extends beyond the top 1%.
I think you are unfair to most wealthy people. There are some very high profile examples of greedy people (especially among techbros) but ‘twas ever thus. A lot of other families quietly make massively generous donations - most often to local causes. One Westminster based family I’ve come across in the past, for example, is the largest single donor to the university of Westminster, Chelsea & Westminster hospital and Westminster Abbey. You might not make the same choices they do (and I probably wouldn’t) but it’s hard to deny their generosity (they donate about 12.5% of their pre-tax income annually)
Part agree, but there's another factor that has gone missing.
It used to be accepted that to die rich was to die disgraced. Generate and accumulate wealth, sure. But there was an imperfect recognition that having so much money was only a means to an end, and that it generated obligations. And many people of very comfortable means still recognise that and try to live by those standards.
What's overtaken us all is a very small number of people for whom net worth seems to be a number, a score. To die rich is to have won the game. And those people are more effective at accumulating currency, because that's all they are trying to do.
That tendency has always been there- there was that Palestinian preacher who told a story about the folly of building bigger barns, and that was 2000 years ago. But this feels like a time when that tendency is being indulged more, and that feeds through to other problems.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
They can stick it and their morality police where the sun don't shine. I would not go to these countries if you paid me.
There’s no ‘morality police’ in the UAE, apart from a dress code at the mosque. It’s not Iran or Afghanistan.
If you’re going to a mosque, please cover your shoulders, knees, and ladies your hair.
Just a Stasi who lock folk up for photographing bomb damage.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Going to see the Grand Mosque?
Yes that’s about 10 miles away.
Was there this time last year. If you have a female companion with you the morality police will check on 'suitable' attire. Fortunately there are a number of shops offering overpriced clothing in the underground mall that links to the entrance.
They can stick it and their morality police where the sun don't shine. I would not go to these countries if you paid me.
There’s no ‘morality police’ in the UAE, apart from a dress code at the mosque. It’s not Iran or Afghanistan.
If you’re going to a mosque, please cover your shoulders, knees, and ladies your hair.
Just a Stasi who lock folk up for photographing bomb damage.
How do you think we would have behaved in WW2 if people were posting images of doodlbug damage? Letting your enemy know if their missiles have been successful in their targeting - especially if not - required a huge element of deception about the V1 campaign. We posted that they had fallen long in NW London, so that the Germans recalibrated - and ended up sending them short of SE London.
No sympathy for those "photographing bomb damage". They should be locked up just for their innate stupidity.
‘The Mail on Sunday can reveal today that Keir Starmer's team received a briefing from security sources in 2023 about Peter Mandelson that included:
* The revelation his friendship with Epstein dated back to 2006 * The pair were being monitored by Russian intelligence, who viewed their relationship as "close" * Soviet intelligence began targeting Mandelson as far back as the late 1980's * British and EU intelligence officials were so concerned about his business links with Putin ally Oleg Deripaska they advised him to cut off links. Including ending his use of Deripaska's private jet’
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
No cycle storage listed. That’s why I stick to Premier Inns.
I am quite a Premier Inn fan. The beds are always comfortable and the rooms well soundproofed.
I have never been a comfortable temperature in a Premier Inn room, but my experience of hotels in SW London was so unspeakably dire that they still ended up the best of the bunch.
‘The Mail on Sunday can reveal today that Keir Starmer's team received a briefing from security sources in 2023 about Peter Mandelson that included:
* The revelation his friendship with Epstein dated back to 2006 * The pair were being monitored by Russian intelligence, who viewed their relationship as "close" * Soviet intelligence began targeting Mandelson as far back as the late 1980's * British and EU intelligence officials were so concerned about his business links with Putin ally Oleg Deripaska they advised him to cut off links. Including ending his use of Deripaska's private jet’
2023 seriously??...Starmer forsaw being PM and Trump winning presidency and deciding to make Mandelson Ambasaddor in 2023...
Can he tip us the winner of the 2026 Flat Classics...
Typical Hodges BULLCRAP!
Of course Hodges and his Tory mates know all about Deripaska and the KGB and UK politics....they own Farage and owned Boris!
We know that Mandelson was deeply involved in Starmer's team king before Starmer became PM, because we know he was choosing Labour candidates for the 2024 GE.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Sounds pretty bleak and souless to me!
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
No cycle storage listed. That’s why I stick to Premier Inns.
I am quite a Premier Inn fan. The beds are always comfortable and the rooms well soundproofed.
Good morning PB, from what’s possibly the fanciest hotel in which I’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
It looks very bleak and soulless. Why on earth would you want to stay there?
Breaking Shadow Cabinet reshuffle news, Stride is off to the Ministry of Silly Walks. More to come.
Kemi now better pray Opinium is wrong and the Tories are second in May because if they are third or worse, having sacked Stride, he will shift firmly to Team Cleverly and she will likely be gone by the end of July
I think it is close enough between Labour and the Tories in the opinion polls that the differential turnout that benefits the opposition and older voters in lower turnout local elections should see the Tories safely ahead of Labour in the projected national share.
The Greens are probably a bit too far behind, and rely too much on younger voters to finish ahead of the Tories, while the Lib Dems tend to overperform in local elections, so I'd guess at the projected national share putting the parties in the order RFM-LDM-CON-GRN-LAB.
Bearing in mind that the Tories were fourth in 2025, I'm not sure why you're so fixated on them needing to come second for Kemi to avoid a leadership challenge? Would you elaborate on your reasoning?
If she does sack Stride and Philp and can't even beat one of the most unpopular parties of government of modern times in a local election she is gone, they will manoeuvre to replace her with Cleverly. She needs the Tories to be at least a clear second to Reform
I’m intrigued by your strong support for cleverly as I don’t see what he has, has done or can do. He messed up his own leadership campaign by all accounts which doesn’t suggest he is safer hands. Kemi needs to chill and hopefully another few years of LotO will do that but I don’t see what magic cleverly has that you see.
Well for starters he can win over more tactical voters from Labour and the LDs in Tory held seats if the Tories are third in May.
As I said if that occurs and she has sacked Stride and Philp there will be a VONC and Kemi will likely be gone
That seems to be for starters and also for finishers. You have never presented any other reason why he is fit to lead the party or the country.
Stood first for parliament in 1997, then 2001 & 2015, before winning in 2024. Gumption or delusion, one of the two. But also:
"In January 2025, she said that Butlin's was 'partly' to blame for the low social mobility in her constituency by offering employment that does not require qualifications.[11]
On 18 March 2025, the BBC reported that during Gilmour's visit to Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station in her constituency, she was abusive to a security guard after he had pointed out that her driving licence was expired and that he had informed the police. Witnesses stated that she described a film presented by site workers with further abusive language. She denied the allegations.[12]
On 18 July 2025, the Daily Telegraph reported that Gilmour had submitted an expenses claim for £11.81 in December 2024 for a pub meal, which included chips, a halloumi wrap, a hot drink, and a half-pint of cider. The claim was subsequently rejected."
Dreadful Telegraph reporting to say 'a half-pint' not 'half a pint'.
Breaking Shadow Cabinet reshuffle news, Stride is off to the Ministry of Silly Walks. More to come.
Kemi now better pray Opinium is wrong and the Tories are second in May because if they are third or worse, having sacked Stride, he will shift firmly to Team Cleverly and she will likely be gone by the end of July
You have to admit that Stride and Philp were utterly abject and wooden. Good move from Badenoch.
A potential checkmate own goal for her. Stride will shift to Cleverly and Philp was one of her main backers in 2024, if both are sacked they will be her enemies on the backbenches and a VONC in her leadership becomes likely if the May results are poor for the Tories
Good morning
Kemi is not going to do a reshuffle before May's elections
Stride is personable but Philp is poor
If the rumours are true then I have no doubt she will not face a vonc despite your constant assertions that Cleverly is some Prince over the water
Stride is personable but ineffectual. He spends way too much time defending the last Government, and has shot himself in the foot several times.
I think both Stride and Philp still deserve a place in the Shadow team, but demotion seems likely.
If I may be permitted, a moan. Running a business is a pain in the arse. I now run 3 businesses. Part of the pain is the idiot red tape, such as the new Director ID verification codes. Have got said code. Have submitted said code in the window required. Code accepted. Filed a Confirmation Statement confirming we are Directors and PSCs. Requiring our codes to submit. All accepted.
Away last week. back into the office today to do some urgent work. Shouty letters (1 each for me and wifey) saying we are OVERDUE submitting identity. Nope. So I go onto CH and check. Confirmation Statement accepted. IDs verified. So I follow the link on the letter to see WTF they're on about. PSC identity not verified. But it is verified - that's what the Confirmation Statement with the verified IDs has done.
Nope. It appears that when you file a Confirmation Statement to verify you are a Director and a PSC, and you submit your ID code to confirm you are a director and PSC, and they accept that ID and your Confirmation Statement submission that you are a Director and PSC, you're not actually doing the PS bit. Despite the CS legally confirming it. Instead you have to go online in a set 14 day window - a *different* 14 day window - and submit your ID as a Confirmation Statement no longer Confirms your Statement.
Following me? And who brought in this red tape nightmare? Yep, the TORIES.
WTAFFF were they thinking?
And that's for ONE business. Have the next 2 to look forward to. Oh, and if the system drops a middle name on one business, or registers you repeatedly with the same details as different registered directors / PSCs etc it shouts at you complaining your details do not match.
Its like they don't want people to go and make money for the economy. Cockwombles!
I think some of the media coverage is a bit away with the fairies in all honesty.
Reform will do very well in the local elections, Labour are going to do very badly. Ditto the Tories.
But Reform aren't achieving anything like the leads of oppositions that are destined for government. I know polls are just a snapshot but being between 4 and 7 points ahead doesn't really scream "it's over" to me? Would we be saying Labour was guaranteed to be re-elected if they were only 4 and 7 points ahead, I don't think we would. Same for the Tories, they are only marginally behind but apparently the party ended in 2024.
Maybe Reform will suddenly achieve 20 point leads consistently - but for right now the rhetoric doesn't really seem to match the polling.
If I may be permitted, a moan. Running a business is a pain in the arse. I now run 3 businesses. Part of the pain is the idiot red tape, such as the new Director ID verification codes. Have got said code. Have submitted said code in the window required. Code accepted. Filed a Confirmation Statement confirming we are Directors and PSCs. Requiring our codes to submit. All accepted.
Away last week. back into the office today to do some urgent work. Shouty letters (1 each for me and wifey) saying we are OVERDUE submitting identity. Nope. So I go onto CH and check. Confirmation Statement accepted. IDs verified. So I follow the link on the letter to see WTF they're on about. PSC identity not verified. But it is verified - that's what the Confirmation Statement with the verified IDs has done.
Nope. It appears that when you file a Confirmation Statement to verify you are a Director and a PSC, and you submit your ID code to confirm you are a director and PSC, and they accept that ID and your Confirmation Statement submission that you are a Director and PSC, you're not actually doing the PS bit. Despite the CS legally confirming it. Instead you have to go online in a set 14 day window - a *different* 14 day window - and submit your ID as a Confirmation Statement no longer Confirms your Statement.
Following me? And who brought in this red tape nightmare? Yep, the TORIES.
WTAFFF were they thinking?
And that's for ONE business. Have the next 2 to look forward to. Oh, and if the system drops a middle name on one business, or registers you repeatedly with the same details as different registered directors / PSCs etc it shouts at you complaining your details do not match.
Its like they don't want people to go and make money for the economy. Cockwombles!
Why Director ID is needed is beyond my paygrade, but I can fairly easily imagine the abuses that it's meant to deal with.
But to do that, there is clearly some admin that needs to be done. As a nation, we either do that by having civil servants in offices doing stuff (which has direct costs) or by having directors doing stuff (which appears to be free). Same as everything else- we go for self-"service" because it seems cheaper even if it's worse value because it ignores the value of people's time. I suspect digital tax is the same thought process- it's a very Osborne-Hammond-Sunak worldview.
Besides, there's also an observation that I saw and I wish I could take the credit for. One of Britain's self-understandings is that it isn't a "papers please" society. The reality is that there are very many instances where we are, with the twist that the government requires papers to be shown without providing reliable papers to show.
Comments
Which is why so many of our leaders behave the way they do, both as they climb the greasy pole and when they get to the top.
We've known forever that elected politicians act that way- Burnham is just the latest person who seems happy to crash his party so that he can lead the remains. Boris definitely did, and Brown wasn't that much better. We're now seeing the same behaviour in the civil service; maybe it was always there, but in the past they didn't tell the press about it.
But office politics is like that. Ascending the pecking order is as much about desire as ability. At an individual level, high pay goes to those who are driven by money as much as those whose talents really merit it.
Which kinda goes back to the header.
The problem is that Badenoch is basing it on her doomscrolling Social Media habit rather than a coherent narrative.
* Actually, I doubt it ever got quite so low
Thanks to the mad mullahs lobbing bombs around, and Foreign Office travel guidance, you too can stay in some very nice places right now at a small fraction of the usual cost.
Anyone want to guess where?
Indeed the way Trump's announcements has seen unacceptable insider trading just adds to this
I do not know the answer but I can completely understand the public view against this unacceptable wealth
Stride is competent, Philp is poor
Adequate words to describe how utterly useless Whateley, Trott, Burquart, Atkins, Holden are would be too full of expletives to avoid a life ban, especially Holden and Whateley.
Everything about the timing, the targets and the replacements suggests panic and shoring up desperately to avoid a VONC.
Why rock the boat otherwise?
If a boss is given a country club membership, they are unlikely to want nine more. The amount of petrol an individual can use is finite. And so on.
But if an executive is paid a million pounds, the only question a keen executive will ask is "why not ten million?" And because that money tends to accumulate, it's probably less useful to the wider economy.
All is vanity, says the preacher. The art of government is to arrange things so that that vanity does some good on the way. Modern society doesn't do that well.
You do not like Kemi or any conservative women but then you are not, nor ever will be, her target audience
https://x.com/i/status/2045163998887186491
He will join Johnson and Truss as a PM not suited to the office
https://www.stayforlong.co.uk/hotel/ae/emirates-palace-mandarin-oriental-abu-dhabi_abu-dhabi?
Let’s be honest… would you had over your uranium without getting the money in advance?
If ever you come back, shout me up if you want a tour guide!
Not going to the mosque today though, instead will enjoy the pool and the grounds of this seriously impressive palace.
The hotel is Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi. Booked a couple of weeks ago when bombs were still flying around, for the grand total of £150 a night. Usually you’d be not getting much change from £700, it’s the most expensive hotel in the city! I’ve paid more for a Travelodge in the UK.
I think earnings is a bit of a red herring. It’s inter generational wealth, particularly property, that’s the much bigger problem. It extends beyond the top 1%.
Definitely not bleak and soul-less, more like very grand and ornate. Every wall is covered in marble, every light is a chandelier, ceilings are 10m high and there’s a massive atrium six floors high in the centre. A seriously impressive building.
Good morning / evening
Any thoughts on this one?
BBC News - Three sentenced for 'man in bear suit' insurance scam
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxrq7rx9lqo
If you’re going to a mosque, please cover your shoulders, knees, and ladies your hair.
Or visitors.
Wes Anderson would love it though.
Enjoy your stay. Not my cup of tea at all.
* The revelation his friendship with Epstein dated back to 2006
* The pair were being monitored by Russian intelligence, who viewed their relationship as "close"
* Soviet intelligence began targeting Mandelson as far back as the late 1980's
* British and EU intelligence officials were so concerned about his business links with Putin ally Oleg Deripaska they advised him to cut off links. Including ending his use of Deripaska's private jet’
Via Hodge
https://xcancel.com/DPJHodges/status/2045755577859498375#m
My brother took me on a bit of a tour and I think we popped into this place that had just opened. It reminded me of the "dictator chic" that we saw in Saddam or Ceaucescus palaces, the sort of thing that Trump is now doing to the White House.
The Greens are a bit like the Lib Dem’s in that respect
It is better than being an unreformed Scrooge I suppose.
The building in the photo does look beautiful though
NEW THREAD
It used to be accepted that to die rich was to die disgraced. Generate and accumulate wealth, sure. But there was an imperfect recognition that having so much money was only a means to an end, and that it generated obligations. And many people of very comfortable means still recognise that and try to live by those standards.
What's overtaken us all is a very small number of people for whom net worth seems to be a number, a score. To die rich is to have won the game. And those people are more effective at accumulating currency, because that's all they are trying to do.
That tendency has always been there- there was that Palestinian preacher who told a story about the folly of building bigger barns, and that was 2000 years ago. But this feels like a time when that tendency is being indulged more, and that feeds through to other problems.
Trump would appreciate it.
No sympathy for those "photographing bomb damage". They should be locked up just for their innate stupidity.
2023 seriously??...Starmer forsaw being PM and Trump winning presidency and deciding to make Mandelson Ambasaddor in 2023...
Can he tip us the winner of the 2026 Flat Classics...
Typical Hodges BULLCRAP!
Of course Hodges and his Tory mates know all about Deripaska and the KGB and UK politics....they own Farage and owned Boris!
I think both Stride and Philp still deserve a place in the Shadow team, but demotion seems likely.
Away last week. back into the office today to do some urgent work. Shouty letters (1 each for me and wifey) saying we are OVERDUE submitting identity. Nope. So I go onto CH and check. Confirmation Statement accepted. IDs verified. So I follow the link on the letter to see WTF they're on about. PSC identity not verified. But it is verified - that's what the Confirmation Statement with the verified IDs has done.
Nope. It appears that when you file a Confirmation Statement to verify you are a Director and a PSC, and you submit your ID code to confirm you are a director and PSC, and they accept that ID and your Confirmation Statement submission that you are a Director and PSC, you're not actually doing the PS bit. Despite the CS legally confirming it. Instead you have to go online in a set 14 day window - a *different* 14 day window - and submit your ID as a Confirmation Statement no longer Confirms your Statement.
Following me? And who brought in this red tape nightmare? Yep, the TORIES.
WTAFFF were they thinking?
And that's for ONE business. Have the next 2 to look forward to. Oh, and if the system drops a middle name on one business, or registers you repeatedly with the same details as different registered directors / PSCs etc it shouts at you complaining your details do not match.
Its like they don't want people to go and make money for the economy. Cockwombles!
Reform will do very well in the local elections, Labour are going to do very badly. Ditto the Tories.
But Reform aren't achieving anything like the leads of oppositions that are destined for government. I know polls are just a snapshot but being between 4 and 7 points ahead doesn't really scream "it's over" to me? Would we be saying Labour was guaranteed to be re-elected if they were only 4 and 7 points ahead, I don't think we would. Same for the Tories, they are only marginally behind but apparently the party ended in 2024.
Maybe Reform will suddenly achieve 20 point leads consistently - but for right now the rhetoric doesn't really seem to match the polling.
But to do that, there is clearly some admin that needs to be done. As a nation, we either do that by having civil servants in offices doing stuff (which has direct costs) or by having directors doing stuff (which appears to be free). Same as everything else- we go for self-"service" because it seems cheaper even if it's worse value because it ignores the value of people's time. I suspect digital tax is the same thought process- it's a very Osborne-Hammond-Sunak worldview.
Besides, there's also an observation that I saw and I wish I could take the credit for. One of Britain's self-understandings is that it isn't a "papers please" society. The reality is that there are very many instances where we are, with the twist that the government requires papers to be shown without providing reliable papers to show.