Sturgeon - "I don't have any conscious memory of seeing that motorhome"
Lawyer approved....
She said it wasn't on the drive of her in-law's place; in other words at the front of the property, but away to the side, to that she 'might' not have seen it. Or if she did, that she thought it was the neighbours. Could someone please produce a ground plan of the place so we can test the likelihood of her statement?
Surely the best way of testing the likelihood of that statement is to ask a jury to give an opinion
They got away with stitching up Salmond , just made the damning stuff unadmissable and ignored the witnesses for the accused so not make chance of that.
The evidence against erstwhile Russia Today presenter Eck, seemed quite compelling. Would he have been in greater jeopardy outside Scotland?
Sad old Pete, he would have been not guilty outside Scotland and your pathetic jibe about his independent TV show is typical leftie arse stuff.
He was far more of a leftie than I ever was. Didn't he start life as a revolutionary communist?
"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.
From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.
Was she ever driven in it? Not exacty like a Lada inside, is it? Might suggest it cost a few bob, Peter...
Yes, but she was first minister and he a high ranking SNP officer so you might expect a decent salary and thus a decent car.
This data implies that MAGA has not weakened very much as a political force, but even if actually true, to then say that MAGA is therefore immortal is not justified by this polling. First of all, as we know, polls are often lagging indicators, but even if they were not, it is quite a stretch to say "MAGA is not dead yet, therefore it will survive indefinitely".
There is increasing evidence that MAGA is becoming profoundly unpopular, even with erstwhile Republicans, and the size of the Republican vote is falling accordingly- vide current Paxton v Talerico where Texas has gone from likely Republican to lean Republican in the course of a week, and that is TEXAS!
So putting money down that MAGA and Tump will retain seats on this basis is a pretty shoogly peg to rest your cash on.
When combined with the Dem lead on polling, my interpretation of the data in the header is that we are seeing the decline of non-MAGA Republicans. If MAGA is around a quarter of the US electorate, then it won't be winning that many seats when it drives out the RINO's.
MAGA may well be here to stay, but the Democrats have done their bit to help. Since 2020 they’ve managed the rare feat of combining an unpopular candidate, poor messaging and policies that many voters simply didn’t want. Parties usually only need one of those to lose an election.
The more interesting question isn’t whether MAGA survives Trump, but whether the Democrats can rediscover the political centre before the Republicans rediscover theirs.
Harris, Biden and Clinton were all pretty centrist, and much more so than Trump. Biden, of course, won. Clinton won the popular vote. Harris was close on the popular vote, but sunk by post-COVID inflation.
The key argument is not that Clinton, Biden or Harris were hard-left. They plainly weren’t. It’s that a significant chunk of the electorate associated the Democratic Party with cultural liberalism, progressive activists and elite institutions. Once that perception takes hold, having a relatively centrist candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t necessarily solve the problem
And does that perception come from the reality of what most Democratic politicians were proposing, or from Fox News and a right-wing social media bubble? I would suggest the latter.
If so, it's not about the Democrats rediscovering a political centre they never really left. Rather, it's about how do they cut through what Republicans make up about them?
We see this with Talarico in Texas. A white male eighth generation Texan, who is a theology seminarian, loves BBQ and has a hot fiancee. Hard to come up with a more Texan Texan, and it seems his politics are firmly centrist.
Yet this is how Stephen Miller depicts him in MAGA media:
"It's very bold that Democrats would choose Texas to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who's transitioning into a female. When Talarico goes in for a blood test, blood doesn't come out, instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett."
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
MAGA may well be here to stay, but the Democrats have done their bit to help. Since 2020 they’ve managed the rare feat of combining an unpopular candidate, poor messaging and policies that many voters simply didn’t want. Parties usually only need one of those to lose an election.
The more interesting question isn’t whether MAGA survives Trump, but whether the Democrats can rediscover the political centre before the Republicans rediscover theirs.
Harris, Biden and Clinton were all pretty centrist, and much more so than Trump. Biden, of course, won. Clinton won the popular vote. Harris was close on the popular vote, but sunk by post-COVID inflation.
The key argument is not that Clinton, Biden or Harris were hard-left. They plainly weren’t. It’s that a significant chunk of the electorate associated the Democratic Party with cultural liberalism, progressive activists and elite institutions. Once that perception takes hold, having a relatively centrist candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t necessarily solve the problem
And does that perception come from the reality of what most Democratic politicians were proposing, or from Fox News and a right-wing social media bubble? I would suggest the latter.
If so, it's not about the Democrats rediscovering a political centre they never really left. Rather, it's about how do they cut through what Republicans make up about them?
We see this with Talarico in Texas. A white male eighth generation Texan, who is a theology seminarian, loves BBQ and has a hot fiancee. Hard to come up with a more Texan Texan, and it seems his politics are firmly centrist.
Yet this is how Stephen Miller depicts him in MAGA media:
"It's very bold that Democrats would choose Texas to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who's transitioning into a female. When Talarico goes in for a blood test, blood doesn't come out, instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett."
MAGA may well be here to stay, but the Democrats have done their bit to help. Since 2020 they’ve managed the rare feat of combining an unpopular candidate, poor messaging and policies that many voters simply didn’t want. Parties usually only need one of those to lose an election.
The more interesting question isn’t whether MAGA survives Trump, but whether the Democrats can rediscover the political centre before the Republicans rediscover theirs.
Harris, Biden and Clinton were all pretty centrist, and much more so than Trump. Biden, of course, won. Clinton won the popular vote. Harris was close on the popular vote, but sunk by post-COVID inflation.
The key argument is not that Clinton, Biden or Harris were hard-left. They plainly weren’t. It’s that a significant chunk of the electorate associated the Democratic Party with cultural liberalism, progressive activists and elite institutions. Once that perception takes hold, having a relatively centrist candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t necessarily solve the problem
And does that perception come from the reality of what most Democratic politicians were proposing, or from Fox News and a right-wing social media bubble? I would suggest the latter.
If so, it's not about the Democrats rediscovering a political centre they never really left. Rather, it's about how do they cut through what Republicans make up about them?
We see this with Talarico in Texas. A white male eighth generation Texan, who is a theology seminarian, loves BBQ and has a hot fiancee. Hard to come up with a more Texan Texan, and it seems his politics are firmly centrist.
Yet this is how Stephen Miller depicts him in MAGA media:
"It's very bold that Democrats would choose Texas to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who's transitioning into a female. When Talarico goes in for a blood test, blood doesn't come out, instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett."
This data implies that MAGA has not weakened very much as a political force, but even if actually true, to then say that MAGA is therefore immortal is not justified by this polling. First of all, as we know, polls are often lagging indicators, but even if they were not, it is quite a stretch to say "MAGA is not dead yet, therefore it will survive indefinitely".
There is increasing evidence that MAGA is becoming profoundly unpopular, even with erstwhile Republicans, and the size of the Republican vote is falling accordingly- vide current Paxton v Talerico where Texas has gone from likely Republican to lean Republican in the course of a week, and that is TEXAS!
So putting money down that MAGA and Tump will retain seats on this basis is a pretty shoogly peg to rest your cash on.
When combined with the Dem lead on polling, my interpretation of the data in the header is that we are seeing the decline of non-MAGA Republicans. If MAGA is around a quarter of the US electorate, then it won't be winning that many seats when it drives out the RINO's.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
Thanks Peter. If Reform haven't done their sums properly, that is of concern and let's hope that now there's a more serious prospect of them taking power, they do them.
However, what you've written does itself appear to be a less than accurate summary of Reform's policy from their manifesto, which is as follows:
The manifesto states:
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects and £6.5bn spent on 132 quangos to fund tax cuts."
It further clarifies the mechanism for the £2 billion income tax cut (aligning Scotland’s six bands with the UK’s three bands and cutting rates by 1p):
"The manifesto estimates that mirroring the rUK system and the first 1p cut would cost £2 billion... Reform UK says this would be funded by the re-allocation of £1 billion currently being spent on Net Zero projects and by (presumably reducing) 132 quangos costing £6.5 billion."
AI
So you have a £2bn tax cut, half funded by Net Zero projects, which there appears to be no reason for at all, given that Net Zero is a non-devolved matter, and the remaining billion by cutting quangos. Presumably (since the administrative costs apparently still don't add up to a billion, and some of those would need to be replicated in-house) their budgets would also need to take a haircut, but I don't see getting a billion out of a £6.5bn spend as a totally implausible goal. It's 15%.
Have Ref UK published a list of these 132 quangos?
Does anyone have a reference?
The best reference I can find is an analysis of the Scottish Ref UK manifesto by the Fraser of Alexander Institute, who aiui are the most authoritative independent analysts in Scotland:
(Reflecting my skepticism around Ref UK I'd suggest that the claims are as fictional as their claims usually are, and that they will struggle to get anywhere near the amount they need to save, and would probably have to - for example - bring Higher Education Fees more into line with England.)
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
MAGA may well be here to stay, but the Democrats have done their bit to help. Since 2020 they’ve managed the rare feat of combining an unpopular candidate, poor messaging and policies that many voters simply didn’t want. Parties usually only need one of those to lose an election.
The more interesting question isn’t whether MAGA survives Trump, but whether the Democrats can rediscover the political centre before the Republicans rediscover theirs.
Harris, Biden and Clinton were all pretty centrist, and much more so than Trump. Biden, of course, won. Clinton won the popular vote. Harris was close on the popular vote, but sunk by post-COVID inflation.
The key argument is not that Clinton, Biden or Harris were hard-left. They plainly weren’t. It’s that a significant chunk of the electorate associated the Democratic Party with cultural liberalism, progressive activists and elite institutions. Once that perception takes hold, having a relatively centrist candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t necessarily solve the problem
And does that perception come from the reality of what most Democratic politicians were proposing, or from Fox News and a right-wing social media bubble? I would suggest the latter.
If so, it's not about the Democrats rediscovering a political centre they never really left. Rather, it's about how do they cut through what Republicans make up about them?
We see this with Talarico in Texas. A white male eighth generation Texan, who is a theology seminarian, loves BBQ and has a hot fiancee. Hard to come up with a more Texan Texan, and it seems his politics are firmly centrist.
Yet this is how Stephen Miller depicts him in MAGA media:
"It's very bold that Democrats would choose Texas to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who's transitioning into a female. When Talarico goes in for a blood test, blood doesn't come out, instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett."
"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.
From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.
Was she ever driven in it? Not exacty like a Lada inside, is it? Might suggest it cost a few bob, Peter...
Yes, but she was first minister and he a high ranking SNP officer so you might expect a decent salary and thus a decent car.
But if she didn't WANT a car........ compare David Attenborough. No driving licence, has never driven.
You can't fully although Apple / XBox already taking a very aggressive approach to complying to existing Online Safety Bill, you have to prove your age for things like Xbox Chat. Apple recent update won't give you full functionality unless you prove your age.
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
Peter.
Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?
There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.
You can't fully although Apple / XBox already taking a very aggressive approach to complying to existing Online Safety Bill, you have to prove your age for things like Xbox Chat. Apple recent update won't give you full functionality unless you prove your age.
My Apple update recently said, effectively, “you must be really old as you’ve been signed up forever with us”, which was good as saved any potential age verification hoops.
You can't fully although Apple / XBox already taking a very aggressive approach to complying to existing Online Safety Bill, you have to prove your age for things like Xbox Chat. Apple recent update won't give you full functionality unless you prove your age.
Thanks; maybe we are getting somewhere. One wonders whether a determined 14+ year old will be able to worm through, although I suppose if they're smart enough to do that they may well be smart enough to spot that the person with whom they are 'chatting' is a wrong'un.
You can't fully although Apple / XBox already taking a very aggressive approach to complying to existing Online Safety Bill, you have to prove your age for things like Xbox Chat. Apple recent update won't give you full functionality unless you prove your age.
Thanks; maybe we are getting somewhere. One wonders whether a determined 14+ year old will be able to worm through, although I suppose if they're smart enough to do that they may well be smart enough to spot that the person with whom they are 'chatting' is a wrong'un.
This is actually a fascinating chart because if you look at it, the share of Republicans who are self-described MAGA has grown fairly consistently. But the proportion of the population who describe themselves as MAGA has remained stuck at just below that 18% level for almost a year and a half, which tells you that one of the key trends is that people are ceasing to identify as Republican due to the influence of MAGA.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
Same for the ‘immigrants built Britain/London/Birmingham/rNHS’ or whatever else is fashion du jour.
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
Peter.
Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?
There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.
That is a different issue, though I'm sure Reform has very strong views on the relationship on the broader push toward Net Zero and jobs.
This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.
Guardian in Makerfield. Actually in Hindley, too. The Bickershaw industrial scale fly tipping would have been a national scandal had it happened anywhere near a media person's home.
Taxpayers to fund clear-up of huge illegal waste dumps https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2expk404vo Three of the worst illegal rubbish dumps in England are set to be cleaned up at the taxpayers' expense as part of a national waste crime action plan launched by the government. Huge tips in Wigan, Sheffield and Lancashire - together containing 48,000 tonnes of waste - have been earmarked for clearance by the Environment Agency. A 20,000-tonne site in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, is already being cleared at a cost of more than £9m. Normally, the cost of clearing illegal sites on private land is met by the landowner. The plan has been welcomed by locals near the tips but villagers near one of the so-called supersites uncovered by a recent BBC investigation are angry that site is not being cleared. 'Forgotten about' The three sites identified for clearance include a notorious dump in Bickershaw, near Wigan, which caught fire last summer, forcing schools nearby to close..
Given how long such things take, if Burnham does become PM, he will probably get the opportunity to take credit for clearing it up.
The "private land" has an exemption in Bickershaw. It's about one third owned by the Duchy of Lancaster. The Royals have no duty to clean up, and from all evidence, aren't in the slightest bit interested in so doing.
Why is the Duchy exempt from cleaning it up?
Is there an exception in EPA 1990 or something?
This must be seriously obscure.
"The land was transferred to the Duchy under the ancient "bona vacantia" legal principle which states that if a landowner goes into liquidation or dies without a will within the Duchy's juristiction, ownership defaults to the Duchy.
However, the estate does not have to inherit any liabilities associated with the property."
Source BBC.
Duchy tried to gift the land to the Council but it isn't worth the c.£5m cost.
I think that in due course that will not stick.
Eventually the Duchy will take on the liability under some sort of self-justifying "by HMK's grace" narrative.
That’s a little harsh on the duchy though - and it creates a loophole whereby you can utterly trash land and then transfer it together with the liability to the Duchy who then have an obligation to clean it up
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
Peter.
Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?
There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.
That is a different issue, though I'm sure Reform has very strong views on the relationship on the broader push toward Net Zero and jobs.
This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.
It may be a different issue, but it is a very relevant one.
Renewable enegy supports a lot of highly skilled and paid employment, particularly along the East Coast, but also in places like the Isle of Wight, with 300 jobs at Vestas there producing blades for onshore wind.
Reform/Restore voters in these places are turkeys voting for Christmas. Indeed much like all those Brexit voters in our automotive industry supply chains.
"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.
From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.
This is nonsense. Why would Sturgeon as part of a couple both earning very good salaries, modest house, no children and oodles of discretionary income, be suspicious of her husband being able to afford an £80K car, when she is in a 24/7 job, away a lot, and has no interest in cars anyway?
The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.
This is actually a fascinating chart because if you look at it, the share of Republicans who are self-described MAGA has grown fairly consistently. But the proportion of the population who describe themselves as MAGA has remained stuck at just below that 18% level for almost a year and a half, which tells you that one of the key trends is that people are ceasing to identify as Republican due to the influence of MAGA.
All together: "an increasing share of a falling market". It's the buggy-whip problem.
I don’t think the thread header is correct in extrapolating permanence from that data. Yeah, it’s resilient, more resilient than anticipated, but polling is often a lagging indicator, and nothing lasts forever.
Sturgeon - "I don't have any conscious memory of seeing that motorhome"
Lawyer approved....
She said it wasn't on the drive of her in-law's place; in other words at the front of the property, but away to the side, to that she 'might' not have seen it. Or if she did, that she thought it was the neighbours. Could someone please produce a ground plan of the place so we can test the likelihood of her statement?
Surely the best way of testing the likelihood of that statement is to ask a jury to give an opinion
They got away with stitching up Salmond , just made the damning stuff unadmissable and ignored the witnesses for the accused so not make chance of that.
The evidence against erstwhile Russia Today presenter Eck, seemed quite compelling. Would he have been in greater jeopardy outside Scotland?
Sad old Pete, he would have been not guilty outside Scotland and your pathetic jibe about his independent TV show is typical leftie arse stuff.
He was far more of a leftie than I ever was. Didn't he start life as a revolutionary communist?
The evisceration of the reputations of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon - both utterly dominant and untouchable in the Scottish political space during their respective primes - is quite extraordinary. Of course they still have their adherents and loyalists, but most people just shudder when they are mentioned. Quite a thing.
The only living ex-First Minister with a reasonably intact reputation is probably Jack McConnell. The other two, Humza, and McLeish, ended up as rather pitiful short-lived figures.
"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.
From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.
This is nonsense. Why would Sturgeon as part of a couple both earning very good salaries, modest house, no children and oodles of discretionary income, be suspicious of her husband being able to afford an £80K car, when she is in a 24/7 job, away a lot, and has no interest in cars anyway?
The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.
It wasn't one car though, it was 3 vehicles, plus the 87 kettles, 43 coffee machines, pens, watches, etc etc etc. And at no point went Pete, love, are you sure we can afford all this stuff.
If I buy even one of those kind of toys Mrs U is straight on to me about how much, did I really need it etc. Mrs U is absolutely not interested in cars in the slightest, you can be absolutely certain she wants to know to the penny how any new motor cost.
This high salary thing, £100k a year is high, but its not footballer money. In todays day and age, it is not the sort of salary where you are just buring £20's for the LOLs.
"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.
From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.
This is nonsense. Why would Sturgeon as part of a couple both earning very good salaries, modest house, no children and oodles of discretionary income, be suspicious of her husband being able to afford an £80K car, when she is in a 24/7 job, away a lot, and has no interest in cars anyway?
The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.
It wasn't one car though, it was 3 vehicles, plus the 87 kettles, 43 coffee machines, pens, watches, etc etc etc.
If I buy even one of those kind of toys Mrs U is straight on to me about how much, did I really need it etc.
"Fit wid you buy wi’ £400 thoosand? Being honest, I’d probably ging big on booze, Haribo and fags, but it turns oot if yer nae honest, like ex-SNP supremo Peter Murrell, the answer is cars, a campervan, funcy watches, space pens, coffee machines, a 1K telescope, video game consoles and some Loctite Superglue. At’s the weirdest Generation Game conveyor belt iver, is it?
"He spent o’er twa thoosand on salt & pepper grinders. Fit the hell? At’s jist unasseptable, ‘at. Fit are they, like? Robot eens fit walk on to yer plate and perfectly season yer food files singing ‘Food Glorious Food’? Nae just ‘at, he spent mair than a thoosand on a coffee machine and mair than three thousand on an emergency backup coffee machine. He’ll hiv been up a’ night drinking ‘at much coffee, fit explains the eight thoosand Amazon purchases. I da even think he used half the stuff. Foo mony Nintendos and Dyson hairdryers dis a baldie mannie in his 50s really need?"
"I didn't drive and I had no interest in cars," says Nicola Sturgeon when asked why she never discussed Peter Murrell's purchase of a Jaguar worth £80,000.
From the "I don't sweat" box of excuses.
This is nonsense. Why would Sturgeon as part of a couple both earning very good salaries, modest house, no children and oodles of discretionary income, be suspicious of her husband being able to afford an £80K car, when she is in a 24/7 job, away a lot, and has no interest in cars anyway?
The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.
It wasn't one car though, it was 3 vehicles, plus the 87 kettles, 43 coffee machines, pens, watches, etc etc etc. And at no point went Pete, love, are you sure we can afford all this stuff.
If I buy even one of those kind of toys Mrs U is straight on to me about how much, did I really need it etc. Mrs U is absolutely not interested in cars in the slightest, you can be absolutely certain she wants to know to the penny how any new motor cost.
This high salary thing, £100k a year is high, but its not footballer money. In todays day and age, it is not the sort of salary where you are just buring £20's for the LOLs.
People who earn the same money live very different lifestyles.
For a couple earning £150-200k between them, some will spend £50k a year, others £100k, and some will spend it all plus any debt they are allowed to on top.
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
Peter.
Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?
There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.
That is a different issue, though I'm sure Reform has very strong views on the relationship on the broader push toward Net Zero and jobs.
This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.
A large part of net zero spending covers things like Social Housing which Reform wants to expand. The problem with just tagging it as "Crazy Net Zero Policies!" is that a lot of things like better insulation are actually good investnents that pay for themselves and can also to a lesser degree create jobs.
Like Solzhenitsyn it's ideology. Reform have portrayed those pursuing Net Zero as ideologies while being ones' themselves.
It's what populists do. Characture their opponents and respnd with characature policies.
£400m is only an insane amount of money if you think spending just over 0.5% of the annual budget on a range of environmental policies across the whole of government can't be justified. I think if you broke it down you'd find some to object too ,but many that would probably be spent anyway in some other form.
This is actually a fascinating chart because if you look at it, the share of Republicans who are self-described MAGA has grown fairly consistently. But the proportion of the population who describe themselves as MAGA has remained stuck at just below that 18% level for almost a year and a half, which tells you that one of the key trends is that people are ceasing to identify as Republican due to the influence of MAGA.
If you stretch out the purple line, the peaks and troughs pretty much match the red line, so I think that might be more of an optical illusion that any kind of trend.
There also doesn't seem to have been a huge change in % of registered republicans over the time of the graph (at least not one that would account for the big increase in MAGA), so it looks like Republicans on the whole are becoming more MAGA.
"Re-allocate £1bn currently spent on net zero projects!"
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
Peter.
Also, does the economic analysis done by Reform include the impact of abandoning Net Zero on the 105 000 mostly skilled and engineering jobs comprising 4.9% of Scotlands economy?
There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.
That is a different issue, though I'm sure Reform has very strong views on the relationship on the broader push toward Net Zero and jobs.
This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.
It may be a different issue, but it is a very relevant one.
Renewable enegy supports a lot of highly skilled and paid employment, particularly along the East Coast, but also in places like the Isle of Wight, with 300 jobs at Vestas there producing blades for onshore wind.
Reform/Restore voters in these places are turkeys voting for Christmas. Indeed much like all those Brexit voters in our automotive industry supply chains.
Like the Trump family, I imagine some prominent people in Reform will do rather nicely out of all those new oil and gas licenses. Enriching yourself at the expense of your WWC voters, and distracting them with bread and circuses and performative cruelty against the libs, seems to be a theme amongst the populist right.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
You can add other lazy reductive platitudes to the list. 'Right Wing Press', 'Mainstream Media', 'The Blob', 'Ruling Class'. And some really stupid ones like 'Caliphate', 'Notting Hill set' and whathaveyou.
It's convenient for everyone to have some kind of bogeyman establishment to rail against, exaggerating their power, influence and wickedness and uselessness or whatever.
Such entities aren't entirely imaginary, but their prevalence is invariably overstated and their characteristics exaggerated, depending on ones personal politics and current grievances.
And the actual authorities that matter are not necessarily the same for every individual. They coexist and indeed compete with one another. Life feels different depending who makes the decisions that actually impact on you.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
You can add other lazy reductive platitudes to the list. 'Right Wing Press', 'Mainstream Media', 'The Blob', 'Ruling Class'. And some really stupid ones like 'Caliphate', 'Notting Hill set' and whathaveyou.
It's convenient for everyone to have some kind of bogeyman establishment to rail against, exaggerating their power, influence and wickedness and uselessness or whatever.
Such entities aren't entirely imaginary, but their prevalence is invariably overstated and their characteristics exaggerated, depending on ones personal politics and current grievances.
And the actual authorities that matter are not necessarily the same for every individual. They coexist and indeed compete with one another. Life feels different depending who makes the decisions that actually impact on you.
I sometimes think it's a form of Anthropomorphism where we, feel a need to or comfort in, giving things human properties.
Civil Servants struggling to impliment policies the way politicains want canrt just be individuals trying their hardest in difficult circumstances, we need them to be "the Deep State!"
The can't be just headless chickens they need to be "ORGANISED!"
Why does energy policy have to be a zero-sum game, it is so frustrating.
I believe strongly in a massive expansion in renewables and nuclear, we need huge investments (from government and privately) and a long-term plan.
But we also need to use fossil fuels and to use our own supplies.
Why can't parties just support both?
Some of it is about energy being a proxy for other stuff. So a lot of the opposition to renewable energy is good old-fashioned NIMBYism. That has always started with the visceral bit (I don't want to see it from my window) and worked back to more rational arguments against.
Some of it is good old-fashined vested interests. Shrewder petrostates know that the oil age might not end due to lack of oil, but it's tempting to keep the party going for one more song. The difference between North Sea production as planned and with "drill baby drill" is pretty tiny, and has been hyped out of all proportion on a national scale, but it does put off the death of some inevitably dying industries for a bit longer.
Some of it- on both sides- is about not wanting to update mental maps. That renewable+battery is a workable solution for 90-95% of the problem is mind-blowing, really. So we shield our minds from being blown. (I think that means that SMRs aren't the answer, unless you tie them to specific users who want their own 24/7/365 supply. Most of the time, they cost more and you can't switch them off.)
And some of it is that our system is terrible at making huge long-term investments. And when we do have a long-term plan, the tendency is to keep quibbling, filddling and trimming, even if the effect is nearly always to increase cost and reduce effectiveness. Look at HS2.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
That may well be useful research for someone running a business, but the government is not the national HR department.
Attempting to apply it to politics brings to mind Bertolt Brecht: "Would it not in that case be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
MAGA was never about winning wars in the middle east. So no reason to think a calamity in Iran will change much.
MAGA is me. Trump has said this and all indications are that he's correct. It's a personality cult in other words. And he does, tbf, have a strong personality. I find it utterly repellent, he has none of the traits I like or admire in a human being and just about all the ones I can't stand, but the cult members love him to bits. It's an unconditional and enduring love, a love that lasts forever, a love that has no past (preceding him). Can't say I understand it. Can't say I want to.
I hope it dies without him, but it's consequences will be felt for a long time. They might break up a little to compete to see who is the Trumpiest, for a start.
I do wonder if the Trump kids will try to 'lead' it after he eventually dies, but none of them have his level of horrible charisma.
This data implies that MAGA has not weakened very much as a political force, but even if actually true, to then say that MAGA is therefore immortal is not justified by this polling. First of all, as we know, polls are often lagging indicators, but even if they were not, it is quite a stretch to say "MAGA is not dead yet, therefore it will survive indefinitely".
There is increasing evidence that MAGA is becoming profoundly unpopular, even with erstwhile Republicans, and the size of the Republican vote is falling accordingly- vide current Paxton v Talerico where Texas has gone from likely Republican to lean Republican in the course of a week, and that is TEXAS!
So putting money down that MAGA and Tump will retain seats on this basis is a pretty shoogly peg to rest your cash on.
When combined with the Dem lead on polling, my interpretation of the data in the header is that we are seeing the decline of non-MAGA Republicans. If MAGA is around a quarter of the US electorate, then it won't be winning that many seats when it drives out the RINO's.
This Financial Times article (bought by the Irish Times to republish) is interesting. Suggests there are some in Moscow hoping for an end to the war on the current front lines.
Last year Ukraine would certainly have accepted, but by the time Putin decides to do so, might Ukraine decide they sufficiently have the upper hand that they might be able to push Russia out?
They should demand return to original borders including Crimea. Bomb the crap out of Russia.
How about the original original borders? Ukraine used to reach to the Caspian Sea...
Lightweight Irredentism
The Ukraine/Republic of China border. Can’t miss it, big graveyard there.
MAGA was never about winning wars in the middle east. So no reason to think a calamity in Iran will change much.
MAGA is me. Trump has said this and all indications are that he's correct. It's a personality cult in other words. And he does, tbf, have a strong personality. I find it utterly repellent, he has none of the traits I like or admire in a human being and just about all the ones I can't stand, but the cult members love him to bits. It's an unconditional and enduring love, a love that lasts forever, a love that has no past (preceding him). Can't say I understand it. Can't say I want to.
I hope it dies without him, but it's consequences will be felt for a long time. They might break up a little to compete to see who is the Trumpiest, for a start.
I do wonder if the Trump kids will try to 'lead' it after he eventually dies, but none of them have his level of horrible charisma.
Going to “do a Leon”. Currently in Wroclaw, Poland on my way home from Budapest. An absolute gem of a place. Not heard one English voice since I left the airport. Well worth a visit:
You can't fully although Apple / XBox already taking a very aggressive approach to complying to existing Online Safety Bill, you have to prove your age for things like Xbox Chat. Apple recent update won't give you full functionality unless you prove your age.
The trouble is that in order to block children from talking to strangers, you need to check everyone's age, not just the children's. There may be lots of people who want the one thing but object to its corollaries. We see something broadly similar in all the AML/KYC/affordability checks in the betting sphere.
Going to “do a Leon”. Currently in Wroclaw, Poland on my way home from Budapest. An absolute gem of a place. Not heard one English voice since I left the airport. Well worth a visit:
Going to “do a Leon”. Currently in Wroclaw, Poland on my way home from Budapest. An absolute gem of a place. Not heard one English voice since I left the airport. Well worth a visit:
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
You can add other lazy reductive platitudes to the list. 'Right Wing Press', 'Mainstream Media', 'The Blob', 'Ruling Class'. And some really stupid ones like 'Caliphate', 'Notting Hill set' and whathaveyou.
It's convenient for everyone to have some kind of bogeyman establishment to rail against, exaggerating their power, influence and wickedness and uselessness or whatever.
Such entities aren't entirely imaginary, but their prevalence is invariably overstated and their characteristics exaggerated, depending on ones personal politics and current grievances.
And the actual authorities that matter are not necessarily the same for every individual. They coexist and indeed compete with one another. Life feels different depending who makes the decisions that actually impact on you.
I sometimes think it's a form of Anthropomorphism where we, feel a need to or comfort in, giving things human properties.
Civil Servants struggling to impliment policies the way politicains want canrt just be individuals trying their hardest in difficult circumstances, we need them to be "the Deep State!"
The can't be just headless chickens they need to be "ORGANISED!"
Peter.
It's the old adage about stupidity rather than malice, but less about intellect than institutional inertia and poor leadership.
This is actually a fascinating chart because if you look at it, the share of Republicans who are self-described MAGA has grown fairly consistently. But the proportion of the population who describe themselves as MAGA has remained stuck at just below that 18% level for almost a year and a half, which tells you that one of the key trends is that people are ceasing to identify as Republican due to the influence of MAGA.
Republican is MAGA, so that would make sense. The number of representatives who could credibly argue not to be full MAGA was already reduced to a bare handful, and has been reducing all the time as Trump gets them successfully primaried.
Heck, even some who are full on MAGA get that treatment.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
You can add other lazy reductive platitudes to the list. 'Right Wing Press', 'Mainstream Media', 'The Blob', 'Ruling Class'. And some really stupid ones like 'Caliphate', 'Notting Hill set' and whathaveyou.
It's convenient for everyone to have some kind of bogeyman establishment to rail against, exaggerating their power, influence and wickedness and uselessness or whatever.
Such entities aren't entirely imaginary, but their prevalence is invariably overstated and their characteristics exaggerated, depending on ones personal politics and current grievances.
And the actual authorities that matter are not necessarily the same for every individual. They coexist and indeed compete with one another. Life feels different depending who makes the decisions that actually impact on you.
I sometimes think it's a form of Anthropomorphism where we, feel a need to or comfort in, giving things human properties.
Civil Servants struggling to impliment policies the way politicains want canrt just be individuals trying their hardest in difficult circumstances, we need them to be "the Deep State!"
The can't be just headless chickens they need to be "ORGANISED!"
Peter.
It's the old adage about stupidity rather than malice, but less about intellect than institutional inertia and poor leadership.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
These terms can be useful up to a point, they just cannot be entirely rigid and precisely definable, so cannot be treated as easily separable as if they were groups or parties that people could formally join to be part of.
Strangely, the BBC 7 o'clock news is leading on a French team winning a European sporting competition. The Arsenal parade is second, I would have thought it is newsworthy but a bit further down "Premier League winning side has a parade" is not really that unexpected
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
That may well be useful research for someone running a business, but the government is not the national HR department.
Attempting to apply it to politics brings to mind Bertolt Brecht: "Would it not in that case be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
I thought the Right was always telling us that government should learn from business?
And your Brecht quote makes no sense here. That’s a desperate attempt to shoehorn it in.
Strangely, the BBC 7 o'clock news is leading on a French team winning a European sporting competition. The Arsenal parade is second, I would have thought it is newsworthy but a bit further down "Premier League winning side has a parade" is not really that unexpected
Strangely, the BBC 7 o'clock news is leading on a French team winning a European sporting competition. The Arsenal parade is second, I would have thought it is newsworthy but a bit further down "Premier League winning side has a parade" is not really that unexpected
"Losers in Champions League Final having a parade" is perhaps more newsworthy.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
The difference may be whether, although the leader may come from the traditional Establishment, do they intend to lead genuine disruption of the system.
With Reform they talk up that game, but in action they are busy rebranding into the 'Conservative Party, but done right this time', mostly seeking the same things but saying they will do it better and with a few catchy policy differences.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
Well yes. Farage isn't the first charlatan and won't be the last. He's good at what he does, I give him that.
The first round of the Colombian Presidential election is today. The left candidate Cepeda will win the first round, but the right has fielded two candidates so its all about whether the margin is enough once the votes transfer in the second.round. The mainstream right candidate Paloma Valencia has run a lamentable campaign and the populist far right candidate De la Espriella looks set for second place. The Trump administration is supporting De La Espriella which as elsewhere is likely to be counterproductive. Personally I think if one can lay the misogynist at 1.5 , or bsck Cepeda at 3 or better then it is a very good value bet. Results come in surprisingly quickly after the polls close at 4pm UK time. I am looking for Cepeda to lead by about 8-10% in the furst round.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
The difference may be whether, although the leader may come from the traditional Establishment, do they intend to lead genuine disruption of the system.
With Reform they talk up that game, but in action they are busy rebranding into the 'Conservative Party, but done right this time', mostly seeking the same things but saying they will do it better and with a few catchy policy differences.
I don’t doubt that Farage, if elevated to power, will disrupt the system. He’ll disrupt it in the same way as his hero, Donald Trump has.
The first round of the Colombian Presidential election is today. The left candidate Cepeda will win the first round, but the right has fielded two candidates so its all about whether the margin is enough once the votes transfer in the second.round. The mainstream right candidate Paloma Valencia has run a lamentable campaign and the populist far right candidate De la Espriella looks set for second place. The Trump administration is supporting De La Espriella which as elsewhere is likely to be counterproductive. Personally I think if one can lay the misogynist at 1.5 , or bsck Cepeda at 3 or better then it is a very good value bet. Results come in surprisingly quickly after the polls close at 4pm UK time. I am looking for Cepeda to lead by about 8-10% in the furst round.
So it all could come down to Trump medellin in the election?
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
Well yes. Farage isn't the first charlatan and won't be the last. He's good at what he does, I give him that.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
Are you trolling or just being overly defensive?
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
That may well be useful research for someone running a business, but the government is not the national HR department.
Attempting to apply it to politics brings to mind Bertolt Brecht: "Would it not in that case be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
I thought the Right was always telling us that government should learn from business?
And your Brecht quote makes no sense here. That’s a desperate attempt to shoehorn it in.
A business can hire and fire people. Do you think a government should relate to its population in the same way?
The first round of the Colombian Presidential election is today. The left candidate Cepeda will win the first round, but the right has fielded two candidates so its all about whether the margin is enough once the votes transfer in the second.round. The mainstream right candidate Paloma Valencia has run a lamentable campaign and the populist far right candidate De la Espriella looks set for second place. The Trump administration is supporting De La Espriella which as elsewhere is likely to be counterproductive. Personally I think if one can lay the misogynist at 1.5 , or bsck Cepeda at 3 or better then it is a very good value bet. Results come in surprisingly quickly after the polls close at 4pm UK time. I am looking for Cepeda to lead by about 8-10% in the furst round.
Sorry I meant 4pm local time - 10pm UK time. I guess the first results about 11pm our time. I will post then.
OT - So since 2024 the MAGA are steady among the general population but going up as a proportion of the GOP. Now students of maths what does that mean is happening to the GOP as a percentage of the total US population?
YouGov don't have a great record polling in the US but that 18% figure is in line with other pollsters. It's a nice start for a campaign but it won't win elections on its own. Which makes Trump's tactics all the more bewildering until you understand he doesn't care about winning elections any more! He'll be dead or in Dubai by then
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
Well yes. Farage isn't the first charlatan and won't be the last. He's good at what he does, I give him that.
Before the 24 election Chef Tom Kerridge signed an open letter endorsing a prospective Labour govt.
Fast forward nearly two years and it’s worlds smallest violin time. He got what he wanted. Surely he can live with it.
‘ Kerridge, whose site, The Hand & Flowers, was the first gastropub in the UK to be awarded two Michelin stars, said most of his businesses were ‘sat still or losing money’ as his margins have been ‘completely eroded’ by Government hikes.’
That suggests that his legal issues don’t just relate to his historical relationship with Epstein.
Who knows? There is a related story that the US government is not cooperating on the release of its Epstein/Mandelson evidence, so whether our police are actively investigating a new lead or have just parked it in case the Americans find something incriminating is hard to say.
Strangely, the BBC 7 o'clock news is leading on a French team winning a European sporting competition. The Arsenal parade is second, I would have thought it is newsworthy but a bit further down "Premier League winning side has a parade" is not really that unexpected
"Losers in Champions League Final having a parade" is perhaps more newsworthy.
Maybe the BBC was hoping for a picture of celebrity Gooners Starmer and Corbyn raising pints to the camera.
Strangely, the BBC 7 o'clock news is leading on a French team winning a European sporting competition. The Arsenal parade is second, I would have thought it is newsworthy but a bit further down "Premier League winning side has a parade" is not really that unexpected
"Losers in Champions League Final having a parade" is perhaps more newsworthy.
Maybe the BBC was hoping for a picture of celebrity Gooners Starmer and Corbyn raising pints to the camera.
What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.
I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.
What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .
It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.
One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.
If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?
I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.
It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.
Peter.
I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.
It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.
Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.
3/10 must try harder.
Peter.
"The Establishment" isn't meaningless. Rather the pretence that The Establishment excludes Nigel Farage is profoundly dishonest.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
All true.
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
Well yes. Farage isn't the first charlatan and won't be the last. He's good at what he does, I give him that.
Before the 24 election Chef Tom Kerridge signed an open letter endorsing a prospective Labour govt.
Fast forward nearly two years and it’s worlds smallest violin time. He got what he wanted. Surely he can live with it.
‘ Kerridge, whose site, The Hand & Flowers, was the first gastropub in the UK to be awarded two Michelin stars, said most of his businesses were ‘sat still or losing money’ as his margins have been ‘completely eroded’ by Government hikes.’
Not sure any of us - even those who didn't vote for Starmer - were aware of just how disastrous his Government was going to be for small and medium businesses. If the Tories had had a crystal ball and had predicted this level of vindictive incompetence we would all have accused them of jumping the shark.
Before the 24 election Chef Tom Kerridge signed an open letter endorsing a prospective Labour govt.
Fast forward nearly two years and it’s worlds smallest violin time. He got what he wanted. Surely he can live with it.
‘ Kerridge, whose site, The Hand & Flowers, was the first gastropub in the UK to be awarded two Michelin stars, said most of his businesses were ‘sat still or losing money’ as his margins have been ‘completely eroded’ by Government hikes.’
Not sure any of us - even those who didn't vote for Starmer - were aware of just how disastrous his Government was going to be for small and medium businesses. If the Tories had had a crystal ball and had predicted this level of vindictive incompetence we would all have accused them of jumping the shark.
It's not vindictiveness. It's the attitude of mind that business should support increased costs and taxes, because that is what the Government wants. As expressed by the supporters of the government - "if they can't survive the costs and taxes, then they are zombie business and not worth saving anyway".
Strangely, the BBC 7 o'clock news is leading on a French team winning a European sporting competition. The Arsenal parade is second, I would have thought it is newsworthy but a bit further down "Premier League winning side has a parade" is not really that unexpected
It's London though innit, so obviously much more important than normal.
Before the 24 election Chef Tom Kerridge signed an open letter endorsing a prospective Labour govt.
Fast forward nearly two years and it’s worlds smallest violin time. He got what he wanted. Surely he can live with it.
‘ Kerridge, whose site, The Hand & Flowers, was the first gastropub in the UK to be awarded two Michelin stars, said most of his businesses were ‘sat still or losing money’ as his margins have been ‘completely eroded’ by Government hikes.’
Not sure any of us - even those who didn't vote for Starmer - were aware of just how disastrous his Government was going to be for small and medium businesses. If the Tories had had a crystal ball and had predicted this level of vindictive incompetence we would all have accused them of jumping the shark.
It's not vindictiveness. It's the attitude of mind that business should support increased costs and taxes, because that is what the Government wants. As expressed by the supporters of the government - "if they can't survive the costs and taxes, then they are zombie business and not worth saving anyway".
Meanwhile youth unemployment goes through the roof !
I know you do not like Ashcroft polls but it is quoted along with all the other polls on wiki as follows
21-26 May - Lord Ashcroft polls - Mail on Sunday - GB 5,263 sample size
Is it recognised by BPC ?
I just see it as one poll and to be fair apart from Reform not far off trend
You've been told this before.
It is not recognised by the BPC.
Lord Ashcroft refuses to tell us which pollsters he uses, he uses different pollsters for his polls, each pollster has a house effect which impacts the fieldwork.
This could be a FindOutNow poll, his last poll he could have used Survation, we simply do not know.
Comparing changes with different pollsters is a huge mistake to make.
Before the 24 election Chef Tom Kerridge signed an open letter endorsing a prospective Labour govt.
Fast forward nearly two years and it’s worlds smallest violin time. He got what he wanted. Surely he can live with it.
‘ Kerridge, whose site, The Hand & Flowers, was the first gastropub in the UK to be awarded two Michelin stars, said most of his businesses were ‘sat still or losing money’ as his margins have been ‘completely eroded’ by Government hikes.’
Not sure any of us - even those who didn't vote for Starmer - were aware of just how disastrous his Government was going to be for small and medium businesses. If the Tories had had a crystal ball and had predicted this level of vindictive incompetence we would all have accused them of jumping the shark.
It's not vindictiveness. It's the attitude of mind that business should support increased costs and taxes, because that is what the Government wants. As expressed by the supporters of the government - "if they can't survive the costs and taxes, then they are zombie business and not worth saving anyway".
Not just what the government wants- it's also what the voters want.
All those cliff edges, stealth rises and so on are horribly distorting and damaging. But the alternatives (broad-based rises in core rates of taxes, or explicit cuts in stuff everyone uses) are anathema.
My wife is a woman of many and extraordinary talents.
However, reeling in a 45m extension cable is so not one of them....
"I can help!"
"NO! Go at least 60m away and let me swear - a lot - as I try to work out what the hell you have done..."
Lol, she might be Mrs P's long lost twin. Not impressed when I pointed out to her that the hose pipe would reel in a lot easier if she took the sprinkler end off first so that the water could drain out.
Comments
Let's take a specific example: the claim that "diversity is our strength" is both highly ideological and officially sanctioned, but it's an emotional rather than a rational claim.
https://fraserofallander.org/2026-scottish-manifesto-analysis-reform-uk/
Interestingly Scottish Labour also talked about 133 'quangos':
https://scottishlabour.org.uk/updates/news/reducing-quangos/
(Reflecting my skepticism around Ref UK I'd suggest that the claims are as fictional as their claims usually are, and that they will struggle to get anywhere near the amount they need to save, and would probably have to - for example - bring Higher Education Fees more into line with England.)
Thanks for that although as stated it still doesn't make the £1bn cut from Qango's feasible.
Looking at net zero within Scottish Government control in terms of actual public money spent the figure I can find is around £400m a year so good luck saving a billion from that!
Peter.
Was thinking more along the lines of an anal polyp.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/social-media-ban-kanishka-narayan-l0brjnvvb
https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/3-000-businesses-now-driving-scotlands-net-zero-economy-analysis
There was an interesting piece on Fridays C4 News where the Reform Mayor of Hull could not answer straight-forward questions on the impact of abandoning Net Zero on Hull's economy whith its strong renewables sector.
Unsubstantiated guff.
This is about the Scottish Government spending an insane amount of money on Net Zero projects (Reform say £1bn, Peter Cairns says £400mn) when Net Zero is not a devolved matter.
Renewable enegy supports a lot of highly skilled and paid employment, particularly along the East Coast, but also in places like the Isle of Wight, with 300 jobs at Vestas there producing blades for onshore wind.
Reform/Restore voters in these places are turkeys voting for Christmas. Indeed much like all those Brexit voters in our automotive industry supply chains.
The only slightly interesting thing about it is the relatively small amounts of money involved.
The only living ex-First Minister with a reasonably intact reputation is probably Jack McConnell. The other two, Humza, and McLeish, ended up as rather pitiful short-lived figures.
The late Donald Dewar towers over all of hem.
If I buy even one of those kind of toys Mrs U is straight on to me about how much, did I really need it etc. Mrs U is absolutely not interested in cars in the slightest, you can be absolutely certain she wants to know to the penny how any new motor cost.
This high salary thing, £100k a year is high, but its not footballer money. In todays day and age, it is not the sort of salary where you are just buring £20's for the LOLs.
Give him a job in Crimewatch. On the ground reporting from @RyanThomas_Q and @ScottishSun
https://x.com/treesey/status/2061089064728527038?s=20
Link here: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-press-and-journal-inverness-highlands-and-islands/20260530/282312506735233
Extract:
"Fit wid you buy wi’ £400 thoosand? Being honest, I’d probably ging big on booze, Haribo and fags, but it turns oot if yer nae honest, like ex-SNP supremo Peter Murrell, the answer is cars, a campervan, funcy watches, space pens, coffee machines, a 1K telescope, video game consoles and some Loctite Superglue. At’s the weirdest Generation Game conveyor belt iver, is it?
"He spent o’er twa thoosand on salt & pepper grinders. Fit the hell? At’s jist unasseptable, ‘at. Fit are they, like? Robot eens fit walk on to yer plate and perfectly season yer food files singing ‘Food Glorious Food’? Nae just ‘at, he spent mair than a thoosand on a coffee machine and mair than three thousand on an emergency backup coffee machine. He’ll hiv been up a’ night drinking ‘at much coffee, fit explains the eight thoosand Amazon purchases. I da even think he used half the stuff. Foo mony Nintendos and Dyson hairdryers dis a baldie mannie in his 50s really need?"
For a couple earning £150-200k between them, some will spend £50k a year, others £100k, and some will spend it all plus any debt they are allowed to on top.
Like Solzhenitsyn it's ideology. Reform have portrayed those pursuing Net Zero as ideologies while being ones' themselves.
It's what populists do. Characture their opponents and respnd with characature policies.
£400m is only an insane amount of money if you think spending just over 0.5% of the annual budget on a range of environmental policies across the whole of government can't be justified. I think if you broke it down you'd find some to object too ,but many that would probably be spent anyway in some other form.
Peter.
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/inspirational-mother-of-ed-and-david-miliband-marion-dies-aged-91/
There also doesn't seem to have been a huge change in % of registered republicans over the time of the graph (at least not one that would account for the big increase in MAGA), so it looks like Republicans on the whole are becoming more MAGA.
It's convenient for everyone to have some kind of bogeyman establishment to rail against, exaggerating their power, influence and wickedness and uselessness or whatever.
Such entities aren't entirely imaginary, but their prevalence is invariably overstated and their characteristics exaggerated, depending on ones personal politics and current grievances.
And the actual authorities that matter are not necessarily the same for every individual. They coexist and indeed compete with one another. Life feels different depending who makes the decisions that actually impact on you.
I believe strongly in a massive expansion in renewables and nuclear, we need huge investments (from government and privately) and a long-term plan.
But we also need to use fossil fuels and to use our own supplies.
Why can't parties just support both?
Civil Servants struggling to impliment policies the way politicains want canrt just be individuals trying their hardest in difficult circumstances, we need them to be "the Deep State!"
The can't be just headless chickens they need to be "ORGANISED!"
Peter.
Some of it is good old-fashined vested interests. Shrewder petrostates know that the oil age might not end due to lack of oil, but it's tempting to keep the party going for one more song. The difference between North Sea production as planned and with "drill baby drill" is pretty tiny, and has been hyped out of all proportion on a national scale, but it does put off the death of some inevitably dying industries for a bit longer.
Some of it- on both sides- is about not wanting to update mental maps. That renewable+battery is a workable solution for 90-95% of the problem is mind-blowing, really. So we shield our minds from being blown. (I think that means that SMRs aren't the answer, unless you tie them to specific users who want their own 24/7/365 supply. Most of the time, they cost more and you can't switch them off.)
And some of it is that our system is terrible at making huge long-term investments. And when we do have a long-term plan, the tendency is to keep quibbling, filddling and trimming, even if the effect is nearly always to increase cost and reduce effectiveness. Look at HS2.
Attempting to apply it to politics brings to mind Bertolt Brecht: "Would it not in that case be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
Heck, even some who are full on MAGA get that treatment.
This man went to an elite private school, had an easy and lucrative career in commodities trading, is an MP, hobnobs with the US president, is well supported by his friends in the national media, banks at Coutts and picks up £5 million "donations" from foreign capitalists
Government under intense pressure to publish documents that Met says could compromise investigation
...
The Telegraph understands this includes the nine-page summary of Lord Mandelson’s security vetting.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/31/dont-release-key-mandelson-files-police-tell-no-10/ (£££)
But many, many anti-establishment leaders, throughout history, come from the establishment.
Nearly no revolutions, in fact come from the excluded.
See the Populares of Rome - latterly led by the richest nobleman in Rome, from on of the oldest families in Rome, who’d climbed every rung of the Cursus Honorum.
And your Brecht quote makes no sense here. That’s a desperate attempt to shoehorn it in.
With Reform they talk up that game, but in action they are busy rebranding into the 'Conservative Party, but done right this time', mostly seeking the same things but saying they will do it better and with a few catchy policy differences.
The mainstream right candidate Paloma Valencia has run a lamentable campaign and the populist far right candidate De la Espriella looks set for second place.
The Trump administration is supporting De La Espriella which as elsewhere is likely to be counterproductive.
Personally I think if one can lay the misogynist at 1.5 , or bsck Cepeda at 3 or better then it is a very good value bet.
Results come in surprisingly quickly after the polls close at 4pm UK time. I am looking for Cepeda to lead by about 8-10% in the furst round.
Also Peron.
Now students of maths what does that mean is happening to the GOP as a percentage of the total US population?
YouGov don't have a great record polling in the US but that 18% figure is in line with other pollsters. It's a nice start for a campaign but it won't win elections on its own. Which makes Trump's tactics all the more bewildering until you understand he doesn't care about winning elections any more! He'll be dead or in Dubai by then
Fast forward nearly two years and it’s worlds smallest violin time. He got what he wanted. Surely he can live with it.
‘ Kerridge, whose site, The Hand & Flowers, was the first gastropub in the UK to be awarded two Michelin stars, said most of his businesses were ‘sat still or losing money’ as his margins have been ‘completely eroded’ by Government hikes.’
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-15858811/Top-chefs-call-VAT-cut-hospitality-industry-battles-survival.html
So now we can just accuse anybody of being a paedophile in public without any evidence.
Social media is the worst invention ever.
Very decent 10K time from Andy
🚨 NEW Westminster Voting Intention
Con: 21% (+1)
Ref: 21% (-)
Lab: 19% (+1)
Grn: 18% (-2)
Lib: 11% (-)
@LordAPolls
21-26 May (+/- vs 27 Apr)
The Government will publish over 1,000 pages of Peter Mandelson's vetting files tomorrow
It will include a series of "embarrassing exchanges" as messages from Ministers are released for the first time
21-26 May - Lord Ashcroft polls - Mail on Sunday - GB 5,263 sample size
Is it recognised by BPC ?
I just see it as one poll and to be fair apart from Reform not far off trend
They use BPC members to do field work etc, but their methodology is their own.
It is not recognised by the BPC.
Lord Ashcroft refuses to tell us which pollsters he uses, he uses different pollsters for his polls, each pollster has a house effect which impacts the fieldwork.
This could be a FindOutNow poll, his last poll he could have used Survation, we simply do not know.
Comparing changes with different pollsters is a huge mistake to make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBPwLFMGWG8
However, reeling in a 45m extension cable is so not one of them....
"I can help!"
"NO! Go at least 60m away and let me swear - a lot - as I try to work out what the hell you have done..."
All those cliff edges, stealth rises and so on are horribly distorting and damaging. But the alternatives (broad-based rises in core rates of taxes, or explicit cuts in stuff everyone uses) are anathema.