In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Not quite @BlancheLivermore ... because some of us don't live in the UK at all.
In addition, I do not think PB regulars are randomly distributed accross Constituencies.
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
Worth noting that in many of the worlds poorest countries with the highest poverty rates the economic system is pretty pure capitalism.
Although we moan and disagree, and accepting there are several countries that we could emulate, we are lucky here, whether under Labour, the Tories, the SNP, Plaid or the Lib Dems, to have a political and economic system better than most.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Hmmm. Approximately 31 PB posters live in the same bedsit in Camden.
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
Worth noting that in many of the worlds poorest countries with the highest poverty rates the economic system is pretty pure capitalism.
Not that I can think of. Corrupt nations without the rule of law are not capitalist.
So you are saying that regulation to prevent excesses and corruption is essential for capitalism to work?
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Hmmm. Approximately 31 PB posters live in the same bedsit in Camden.
There must be something about Camden that causes so many of them to fall foul of the ban hammer.
Burnham clearly outpolls other senior Labour figures so I can't see him being replaced before the next general election. Even his extra spending plans are likely to be matched with tax rises to try and fund them, they may be unpopular with the right but will go down well with the left and Labour core vote. Truss' problem was she cut tax but not spending to fund it
He's had a terrible start as PM on here 24 hours before he starts as PM. Not much of a honeymoon.
I’m in France again at the moment, and just had lunch in Toulouse. For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, France seems in the grip of a period of Anglophilia. Not just the friendly vibes in the playoff last night, or Macron’s award of the Legion D’Honneur to Starmer, but I’m sensing it in everyday interactions, at restaurants and shops, and very notably on social media. That’s certainly not been the case forever. The AUKUS deal was not that long ago (although they did tend to blame Australia more for that).
There’s a generally mild Francophilia in the other direction, but not so marked or recent. So what’s going on? Why the noticeable entente cordiale?
My theory is it’s the conjunction of a few political trends. Both countries find themselves dealing with a disengaged and at times actively hostile USA, and unlike in the past the UK doesn’t now look like a back door route to American influence. Both now have centre-ish governments, but the RN opposition for all its Jean D’Arc imagery is at worst ambivalent about Anglo Saxon culture. Melenchon’s wing has always been Anglophobic but it’s not an huge bloc. And perhaps too the unifying idea of the Middle Powers forging a new way with the semi-fluent French speaker Mark Carney providing a link point.
We both share the problems of a stagnating economy and rising public debt, but under the surface we do have some quite different challenges. The French public realm, infrastructure and built environment remain way better than ours. No contest. Regional inequality is visibly much less marked than ours. Compare Toulouse with its similar sized peers in Britain. But they have more social tension, a bigger public debt (though lower interest costs) and a bigger pension timebomb.
Anyway, very interesting to note the love-in, and long may it continue.
I'm in France too atm, and noticing it too. Especially if I'm able to get a word of French in.
It was very odd watching the football semi final in a French bar, with almost everyone supporting England!
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
LIES ^^
Provide your evidence.
my evidence is my memory of being sat in a hotel lobby waiting for a taxi to airport watching the GBP exchange rate plummet against all currencies
Apart from a little meaningless anecdote of few hours or one day thing on money markets, where’s your actual evidence of an economy crashed and broken?
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Hmmm. Approximately 31 PB posters live in the same bedsit in Camden.
Burnham running with Mo Farah...isn't he one of those that buggered off to Dubai for lower taxes and safer living for his kids that lots in Labour and Greens bang on about as very bad people and made all sorts of comments when the missiles were flying?
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Hmmm. Approximately 31 PB posters live in the same bedsit in Camden.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
LIES ^^
Provide your evidence.
my evidence is my memory of being sat in a hotel lobby waiting for a taxi to airport watching the GBP exchange rate plummet against all currencies
Apart from a little meaningless anecdote of few hours or one day thing on money markets, where’s your actual evidence of an economy crashed and broken?
seein as you like to ignore actual market movements im unclear what kind of evidence you'd ever accept
If Burnham really is going to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea, it's the best news we've had for a very long time in my opinion. He deserves to go ahead in the polls for a while at least.
No he doesn't. He's a Johnsonian populist w@nker*.
* I would still vote to keep our right wing Governments, but Burnham is not my cup of tea.
Is "Burnham" an aptonym for someone whose environmental policies cause wildfires in Scotland and forest fires in Spain and America?
"Burnham" = burn 'em? Oh forget it.
How does extracting gas and burning it differ from buying the same gas extracted from the same field, from Norway?
Apart from the U.K. profits and resultant tax revenue?
I am not a big one for tagging, but perhaps @Mexicanpete could actually answer this one - especially considering it is not just Norwegian imports that the extra from the North Sea will displace, but Saudi, Qatari and US imports - and fecking Russian imports via India, that need to be liquified down and sent halfway across the world, with the requisite emissions?
Why is it so important to you that you actively prefer MORE emissions, just for the sake of making a twunt out of our country?
That same question can go to the rest of you too. Especially the ones who whine on and on about Norway's 'sovereign wealth fund' - how do you propose we get a sovereign wealth fund without generating some sovereign wealth?
I’ll have a go, Lucky. I can give you answers that are likely true, though neither of us - being Thatcherite’s - will like the sound of all the answers.
First of all, UK does have a sovereign wealth fund. It’s just a bit naff compared to Norways and the Saudi’s. So to be able to do anything about that now, we get in a Time Machine, lock Lady Thatcher in a wardrobe so Jim Callaghan wins in 1979, ensure Tony Benns Labour Leadership 1980 coup, for a decade of socialism, that doesn’t sell off the North Sea instead copies Norway by setting up a 70% government owned company for extracting the gas and oil with most the profits go in a sovereign wealth fund - I understand it as a big hedge fund thing that sustains itself with investments all over the world. Thatcherism didn’t get everything right. Sovereign wealth fund would have been better than sell off the oil and gas. That is saying it in hindsight though, as knowing afterwards many investors carpet bagged the sell offs, and mass share ownership and benefiting from dividends didn’t really happen on popular capitalism critical mass as hoped.
The Green Party noisy today about rumours of more North Sea drilling under Labour devastating the earths climate - but note the UK Net Zero target was not created and honed by Red Ed or Green Party and other climate Zealots, but by the Conservative Party. Created on the basis the choice isn’t fossil or green, the only right answer is both. It comes down to a question of pace of conversion, how much hair shirt to wear is the only argument here, because all nations of the world should be working on conversion from fossil fuels to green - even Trumps America - because the impact and injury from climate change, rising sea levels and population are not just global, but very localised at home too. And if you want to change the world you set it an example and give leadership - and it’s working brilliantly because dozens of countries contacted UK for the wording to make into their own laws and identical long term planning committees with businesses. Massive success story for the Conservatives from their 13 years in power.
Let’s do this the Yorkshire way Lucky, cut to the bottom line. The reason I am on board is - in the bigger picture, the long run in contrast where politics is so short termist focus on the next voting day - I fully believe fighting climate change now will be cheaper costs than not fighting it in the long run. Much much cheaper. So I am on board for it being not a climate argument, but an economic one. Whilst you are not on board for this reason?
You must see, and I imagine you do see, that what you've written is a complete pile of bullshit - if you had a half-decent argument you would not have beaten about the bush for three long paragraphs.
The sovereign wealth fund was a throwaway line. It did not require a lengthy response, and presumably you gave one because it was the only area where you had something approaching an argument, though I'm damned if I can decipher it.
You completely failed to address the point about us feeding the oil and gas economies of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and America. You completely failed to address the point about imported oil and gas causing MORE emissions - utterly indefensible on your own terms. Yet you have the gall to preach to me about 'fighting climate change' - your chosen hydrocarbon source is ADDING TO THE EARTH'S CO2 EMISSIONS. You are the one not fighting climate change, not me.
The only argument that can possibly made in favour of this economical and environmental vandalism that you favour is this fantasyland stuff about other countries clamouring to copy our example. Really? Which countries with an equivalent hydrocarbon resource are deciding to leave it in the ground? Which countries have decided it would be a good idea if their industrial energy costs what ours costs? The answer is none by the way, we have the highest industrial energy costs in the world - 36-46 above the IEA median.
What you don't seem to realise is that actually, by doing this so badly, we are damaging the cause of Net Zero globally. Doing what we are doing is worse than not doing it at all.
I would like to apologise for this response - not because it's particularly offensive, but because I thought this was a Mexicanpete response (for some reason) now that I realise it's a Moonrabbit response, the length and the style is far more understandable. I am sorry MoonRabbit.
Mexicant hasn't got a vocabulary that could generate that many paragraphs.
P.S. Have you mistaken Liz Truss for Amber Rudd further up this thread?
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
Burnham running with Mo Farah...isn't he one of those that buggered off to Dubai for lower taxes and safer living for his kids that lots in Labour and Greens bang on about as very bad people and made all sorts of comments when the missiles were flying?
Technically, isn't it there is a smaller proportion of people living in poverty today than at any time in recorded history?
The reduction in the poverty rate has outpaced the growth in population, so it’s an absolute number falling over the past few decades.
Has most of the reduction been in liberal, capitalist democracies? Or has a lot of it been in countries with planned economies and/or dictatorships? That seems like a key point.
Worth noting that in many of the worlds poorest countries with the highest poverty rates the economic system is pretty pure capitalism.
Not that I can think of. Corrupt nations without the rule of law are not capitalist.
So you are saying that regulation to prevent excesses and corruption is essential for capitalism to work?
Capitalism requires the rule of law. If you can't own what you are producing as the corrupt can steal it, then society is not capitalist. Capitalism evolved out of law abiding nations.
Name any capitalist country that is amongst the world's poorest with the highest poverty rates.
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The story that they have wound up in a spot of bother in Miami and for why the Old Bill have an interest has been widely reported in the media.
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
Theirs is an opposing view - that the names of those arrested by the state should be openly published and reported. And that this doesn’t prejudice any trial.
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
Theirs is an opposing view - that the names of those arrested by the state should be openly published and reported. And that this doesn’t prejudice any trial.
It is interesting that the media knew the name of the person arrested for Widdecombe murder but it seems like the Mail went out on a limb compared to the others to name, then the rest followed. Quite a lot of chatter about if this was rash thing to do etc. This isn't a right / left comment just a observation of what a mess this seems to be. Some European countries have very strict laws on this the public are only ever allowed to know its Dave P. that has been arrested.
Interesting, that Lee Rigby killers, their names and previous backstory were actually provided to the Guardian by somebody in the security services / police on the evening and they ran the story saying who they were, their background etc.
Has the law changed, the advice, I don't know. But there didn't seem to be any concerns over giving a big in depth stories in that case, now media see touchy about naming a person they definitely know has been arrested. And politicians seem all over the place, they rush in on some things, not on others.
"Burnham’s best hope of success is a snap election Calling an early national vote would not be without risk, but Labour’s new leader would do well to learn from Gordon Brown’s mistake James Frayne"
"Burnham’s best hope of success is a snap election Calling an early national vote would not be without risk, but Labour’s new leader would do well to learn from Gordon Brown’s mistake James Frayne"
Having done the outdoor chores for Mrs Stodge, I have a moment to reflect on some of the responses to my contribution this morning.
First, thanks to those who took the time to respond constructively and eloquently even if most of you didn't agree.
@Richard_Tyndall - I think we were at cross purposes. In terms of speech, the "what" is very important and opens a whole other can of worms. We've debated on here the right to offend and the right to be offended. For me, one of the big political, fault lines around Freedom is not the concept itself but whether the emphasis should be on Freedom TO or Freedom FROM.
The two aren't mutually exclusive - I would prefer the emphasis to be on Freedom FROM such as ignorance, fear, want etc, etc. Others stress the Freedom TO, for example, live your life without Government interference and within that is the Freedom TO express oneself.
You might be surprised to hear I'm probably nearer your viewpoint than you think. There's an irony when we post on a site which is overwhelmingly pale, male and stale dominated by a clique or cabal of 15-20 posters who post every day. That's not aypical of forums like this.
It's beyond regrettable we don't have a more diverse and plural posting population (I go by posts, not posters as I'm aware there are lurkers who contribute rarely) and the notion anyone feels they have been "chased off" this site is appalling if true. All are welcome and should be made welcome within the rules of the site even if they post things with which the majority doesn't agree.
As far as content, and allowing for the fact personal insults and jibes are part of the bearpit, we get the notion of offence to ethnic groups and faiths. Now, there are those who are uncomfortable with criticism of religion - I'm not one of them. Where my hackles get elevated is where dislike of and for a faith or creed is extrapolated into a general notion - "London is an Islamic city under Sadiq Khan where Sharia Law operates" for example.
@algarkirk - it is partly about the right to be heard but the notion everyone has a voice because of the Internet is absurd. First, there remain a significant minority who do not have the Internet or use it. The mother-in-law is 91 and simply cannot use technology. She prefers telephone calls and face-to-face interaction at banks, post offices and the supermarket and I suspect she's not alone. There are many other groups whose voices are not heard because, I'd argue, antisocial media is the preserve of those with the money and the time.
When I was in local Government,there was a push to put all services online ostensibly to save money (rather than because it would lead to a better service). It was pointed out (and this was in the 2000s) 15-20% of the population didn't have access to or use the Internet.
In a plural democracy, all voices should be heard, not just those who can voice an opinion into the ether. Yes, most opinions are irrelevant and we do fortunately have elections where more people can express a view but as others have agreed, it comes back to the advantage of wealth which has always existed in power and political discourse.
It's perfectly possible to argue money buys elections as much now as it once did - it's more covert than when voters were given money to vote one way - and parties with big budgets generally do well (not always).
It's a debate and discussion which I hope we will continue to have.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Burnham running with Mo Farah...isn't he one of those that buggered off to Dubai for lower taxes and safer living for his kids that lots in Labour and Greens bang on about as very bad people and made all sorts of comments when the missiles were flying?
I wish Burnham well but really his speeches have been a re-hash of predictable tropes we often hear wheeled out.
People want better public services and more money in their pocket , that’s it . They don’t need all the claptrap about trickle down economics , and alleged 40 years where apparently it was all done wrong .
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence. And this in turn has made the Kemi regime unnecessarily right wing to distract from impression of incompetence.
Fifthly, we now know the Energy Bill giveaway - which yourself TSE wrote into a PB header that summer when Labour ran with the idea “Starmer has just shot the Tory Fox” eventually cost Britain £90B only a small % of which was funded by the Windfall taxes, the rest is borrowing both the Sunak Hunt and Starmer Reeves governments have had to live with in their government departmental spending rounds.
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
I don't think it can be sub judice until charges have been laid, up to that point there is no trial to prejudice
Lucy Powell: we've had an economic model that puts "private interests above every day interests"
What on earth does this even mean?
I have 'every day interests' You have 'your interests' Those capitalists have 'private interests'
The fact the capitalism pays for everything is clearly lost in the grey matter of Lucy Powell....
Capitalism isn't the problem, it's the grifting and fraud that goes with it, eh Mortimer?
Capitalism is not any sort of problem.
The only system that has ever effectively lifted people out of poverty at scale.
Simples.
What is China?
There’s only one Asya and only one Chyna
Are you talking OnlyFans or Fansly?
WCW and WWF
World Wildlife Fund?
There’s only one eli_sun - and it gives us a tingling heat that builds and builds, eventually washing over the whole body like a wave of electricity, leaving a thoughtless bliss, all stress and tension of the day just melted away… 🌞
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
remind us whose idea it was not to properly analyze the truss budget in advance again?
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
27% frothier for Reform than other pollsters. Their number of seats should start tumbling.
27% for Reform would not surprise me. 27% and almost 300 seats would.
I suspect tactical voting would see Reform nearer 200 than 300 under those vote shares.
I think I would have to work through most (all) consistencies individually to work out a forecast for a GE tomorrow, based on a mix of local factors, demographics, local MP, tactical factors and national mood.
I expect it to be more like 650 simultaneous by-elections.
In a birthday problem spinoff, I’ve calculated that PB would need just 31 posters for it to be more likely than not that two of them live in the same constituency
Hmmm. Approximately 31 PB posters live in the same bedsit in Camden.
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
Theirs is an opposing view - that the names of those arrested by the state should be openly published and reported. And that this doesn’t prejudice any trial.
It is interesting that the media knew the name of the person arrested for Widdecombe murder but it seems like the Mail went out on a limb compared to the others to name, then the rest followed. Quite a lot of chatter about if this was rash thing to do etc. This isn't a right / left comment just a observation of what a mess this seems to be. Some European countries have very strict laws on this the public are only ever allowed to know its Dave P. that has been arrested.
Interesting, that Lee Rigby killers, their names and previous backstory were actually provided to the Guardian by somebody in the security services / police on the evening and they ran the story saying who they were, their background etc.
Has the law changed, the advice, I don't know. But there didn't seem to be any concerns over giving a big in depth stories in that case, now media see touchy about naming a person they definitely know has been arrested. And politicians seem all over the place, they rush in on some things, not on others.
This is a very deep issue and one I think we get wrong at the moment.
The fundamental aspect of Habeas Corpus is that anyone held by the state will be allowed his appearance in court and an explanation of why he is being held. With modern terror laws this is more honoured in the breach than the observance.
Seems to me we all have a right to know who is being held, and why they are being held. And conversely the same is true for those being held.
Subjudice has been warped over time. What was intended as a protection for defendant, complainant and the people as a whole is now exactly the opposite. The doctrine that it is best they be tried by people who are ignorant of any inkling as to why you are being tried is noble but absurd. The result, because there is so much information about is not that you are tried by 12 jurors nobly free from pre-determination but instead by 12 jurors deliberately selected for their obtuse ignorance of day to day events.
Would be much better to let all the information out and argue to case before them in due course with an acceptance that they will know things. Yes, it will affect a juror that a defendant up for theft has 23 previous counts where he has been found guilty. But it is no harder to argue that in this case he isn't than the present situation where most rational jurors will be guessing that is so in any case
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
I don't think it can be sub judice until charges have been laid, up to that point there is no trial to prejudice
The first story I heard this morning was that the CPS have charged them in abstentia and were trying to find them. They were arrested by US Marshals, rather than regular cops in Miami.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
Very triggering. A better date for the foundation of the English monarchy is 12th July 927 (anniversary next year) with the treaty of Eamont Bridge (just south of Penrith) establishing the authority of King Athelstan.
I wish Burnham well but really his speeches have been a re-hash of predictable tropes we often hear wheeled out.
People want better public services and more money in their pocket , that’s it . They don’t need all the claptrap about trickle down economics , and alleged 40 years where apparently it was all done wrong .
I think politicians need an ideological framework. Some idea of why things aren't working well and the decisions that put us here. Without it they seem to flap around, incoherently twiddling knobs and believing that this will take them to a generalised goal such as growing the economy or improving health. IMO the best politicians use something like constructive interference with each policy somewhat supporting the next, hard to do if all you want is a button to improve something.
Its why I dislike the 2000s centrist-style iterative improvement some on here prefer. I Imagine it works well for the individual but not so much for a dynamic society.
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
Yes, very patchy. Switzerland was one of the early implementers and I was in a queue for 2 hours at the airport as a result. Missed a meeting. But my family were first exposed to EES last week at Santander port and it was, if not exactly rapid, a pretty efficient operation.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
Yes, very patchy. Switzerland was one of the early implementers and I was in a queue for 2 hours at the airport as a result. Missed a meeting. But my family were first exposed to EES last week at Santander port and it was, if not exactly rapid, a pretty efficient operation.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
Queues at the Suffolk border are reportedly 'normal for Norfolk'
I am now in a rented Buron on the top of the Aubrac plateau. Very wildly beautiful. Just the sound of cattle bells, crickets and wind. Like renting a highland Croft, but on Dartmoor. After another 3 decades of global warming.
I seem to recall a former poster here waxing lyrical about a stint among the Burons up here.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
The worst place is Mexico, where all the signs advertise that the e-Gates are for Mexican citizen, US Citizens, EEA and UK. And then you discover that the signs are wrong, and they don't actually support the UK yet, but it's coming soon.
Only now the queue for the sole immigration officer is two hours long.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
The worst place is Mexico, where all the signs advertise that the e-Gates are for Mexican citizen, US Citizens, EEA and UK. And then you discover that the signs are wrong, and they don't actually support the UK yet, but it's coming soon.
Only now the queue for the sole immigration officer is two hours long.
'Donald Trump has claimed that Andy Burnham “will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil” and move the “horrible looking windmills”.
The celebratory post on TruthSocial claimed that the people of Scotland were “dancing in the streets” over the incumbent prime minister’s alleged position change on the North Sea, yet to be confirmed in policy'
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
Yes, very patchy. Switzerland was one of the early implementers and I was in a queue for 2 hours at the airport as a result. Missed a meeting. But my family were first exposed to EES last week at Santander port and it was, if not exactly rapid, a pretty efficient operation.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
I had a similar experience transferring in Sweden to go to Denmark a couple of years ago. Long story, plane rerouted, landed in Sweden, then had to get another plane to Denmark. So 100+ people were in the have UK passport queue where we were literally going from one gate to another to catch this Sweden to Denmark plane. There was one official for non-EU and they insisted on doing the full dance, how long are you staying in Sweden (as long as it takes to walk to the other gate), what are the reasons for your visit (I didn't choose to come here), to every single one of the 100+ people... with 4-5 other officials in the EU boxes sitting scrolling on their phones.
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
Hashtag PBHijack... but I'm intrigued.
Mine was based on the parable of wheat and tares being the gospel, and the idea that uprooting bad stuff prematurely causes more harm than good.
And yes, that leaves the question of "what counts as premature?" unanswered, because God isn't going to tell us. But it feels a bit relevant for our politics.
Oh, and then we decorated some pictures with some stickers of bees that have been cluttering the Sunday School cupboard for months.
'Donald Trump has claimed that Andy Burnham “will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil” and move the “horrible looking windmills”.
The celebratory post on TruthSocial claimed that the people of Scotland were “dancing in the streets” over the incumbent prime minister’s alleged position change on the North Sea, yet to be confirmed in policy'
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
But all this occurred via evolution, not "creation".
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
The worst place is Mexico, where all the signs advertise that the e-Gates are for Mexican citizen, US Citizens, EEA and UK. And then you discover that the signs are wrong, and they don't actually support the UK yet, but it's coming soon.
Only now the queue for the sole immigration officer is two hours long.
Did you ask him if he's a Mexican, or a Mexican't?
I just watching Virat Kohli play cricket. One of all time greats and what a character. I suspect that this is the last time in England. A special, special player.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
Yes, very patchy. Switzerland was one of the early implementers and I was in a queue for 2 hours at the airport as a result. Missed a meeting. But my family were first exposed to EES last week at Santander port and it was, if not exactly rapid, a pretty efficient operation.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
I had a similar experience transferring in Sweden to go to Denmark a couple of years ago. Long story, plane rerouted, landed in Sweden, then had to get another plane to Denmark. So 100+ people were in the have UK passport queue where we were literally going from one gate to another to catch this Sweden to Denmark plane. There was one official for non-EU and they insisted on doing the full dance, how long are you staying in Sweden (as long as it takes to walk to the other gate), what are the reasons for your visit (I didn't choose to come here), to every single one of the 100+ people... with 4-5 other officials in the EU boxes sitting scrolling on their phones.
I think we have enough evidence from our own experiences and those repeated in here to conclude on the post-EES system:
- North Europe bad - South Europe good
Actually not a perfect correlation. Switzerland isn’t great but it’s not “North”. Though it generally vibes in quite a Northy manner. But there’s certainly a geographical pattern.
'Donald Trump has claimed that Andy Burnham “will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil” and move the “horrible looking windmills”.
The celebratory post on TruthSocial claimed that the people of Scotland were “dancing in the streets” over the incumbent prime minister’s alleged position change on the North Sea, yet to be confirmed in policy'
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
But all this occurred via evolution, not "creation".
And can you have the former without first the latter?
I never mentioned creation, the way in is how all religion share inter connectivity on these things. Yes, the history of God may had started with Sun God, and fertility playing a key role throughout. But that no organism exists in a vacuum is not a mystery, or indeed, mystical. It’s a consciousness to shape our lives.
'Donald Trump has claimed that Andy Burnham “will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil” and move the “horrible looking windmills”.
The celebratory post on TruthSocial claimed that the people of Scotland were “dancing in the streets” over the incumbent prime minister’s alleged position change on the North Sea, yet to be confirmed in policy'
'Donald Trump has claimed that Andy Burnham “will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil” and move the “horrible looking windmills”.
The celebratory post on TruthSocial claimed that the people of Scotland were “dancing in the streets” over the incumbent prime minister’s alleged position change on the North Sea, yet to be confirmed in policy'
England should have dropped Root down the order. He had a strike rate of near 150 so he very much did his best but even more was required. A few more overs of Buttler or Jack would probably have been worth an additional 30-40 which its starting to look like they needed.
England should have dropped Root down the order. He had a strike rate of near 150 so he very much did his best but even more was required. A few more overs of Buttler or Jack would probably have been worth an additional 30-40 which its starting to look like they needed.
The whole point of picking Jack is he is the pitch hitter. You bring him in and ask him to go hard at everything. Same as the Livingstone role. Having him sitting on his arse for the whole innings is madness. I am not sure actually why he isn't opening and just say go hard, don't worry if you get out. Because if they don't get him out quickly, he will have 50 on the board in no time and even if they do, you send in Bethall or Root.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
Yes, very patchy. Switzerland was one of the early implementers and I was in a queue for 2 hours at the airport as a result. Missed a meeting. But my family were first exposed to EES last week at Santander port and it was, if not exactly rapid, a pretty efficient operation.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
I had a similar experience transferring in Sweden to go to Denmark a couple of years ago. Long story, plane rerouted, landed in Sweden, then had to get another plane to Denmark. So 100+ people were in the have UK passport queue where we were literally going from one gate to another to catch this Sweden to Denmark plane. There was one official for non-EU and they insisted on doing the full dance, how long are you staying in Sweden (as long as it takes to walk to the other gate), what are the reasons for your visit (I didn't choose to come here), to every single one of the 100+ people... with 4-5 other officials in the EU boxes sitting scrolling on their phones.
I think we have enough evidence from our own experiences and those repeated in here to conclude on the post-EES system:
- North Europe bad - South Europe good
Actually not a perfect correlation. Switzerland isn’t great but it’s not “North”. Though it generally vibes in quite a Northy manner. But there’s certainly a geographical pattern.
Is it more Protestant Europe vs Catholic Europe, which sort of becomes North-East of western Europe vs South-West? (Which I've heard mapped onto EFTA vs EEC, though that feels a bit too tidy to be true.)
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
But all this occurred via evolution, not "creation".
And can you have the former without first the latter?
I never mentioned creation, the way in is how all religion share inter connectivity on these things. Yes, the history of God may had started with Sun God, and fertility playing a key role throughout. But that no organism exists in a vacuum is not a mystery, or indeed, mystical. It’s a consciousness to shape our lives.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
It's different in different places because the EU has allowed countries to do it differently.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
Yes, very patchy. Switzerland was one of the early implementers and I was in a queue for 2 hours at the airport as a result. Missed a meeting. But my family were first exposed to EES last week at Santander port and it was, if not exactly rapid, a pretty efficient operation.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
I had a similar experience transferring in Sweden to go to Denmark a couple of years ago. Long story, plane rerouted, landed in Sweden, then had to get another plane to Denmark. So 100+ people were in the have UK passport queue where we were literally going from one gate to another to catch this Sweden to Denmark plane. There was one official for non-EU and they insisted on doing the full dance, how long are you staying in Sweden (as long as it takes to walk to the other gate), what are the reasons for your visit (I didn't choose to come here), to every single one of the 100+ people... with 4-5 other officials in the EU boxes sitting scrolling on their phones.
I think we have enough evidence from our own experiences and those repeated in here to conclude on the post-EES system:
- North Europe bad - South Europe good
Actually not a perfect correlation. Switzerland isn’t great but it’s not “North”. Though it generally vibes in quite a Northy manner. But there’s certainly a geographical pattern.
Tourist economies know which side their bread is buttered. I've never exchanged even a single word with a maltese border guard. On the other hand, had quite the grilling at Stockholm for one week's holdiday.
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
But all this occurred via evolution, not "creation".
And can you have the former without first the latter?
I never mentioned creation, the way in is how all religion share inter connectivity on these things. Yes, the history of God may had started with Sun God, and fertility playing a key role throughout. But that no organism exists in a vacuum is not a mystery, or indeed, mystical. It’s a consciousness to shape our lives.
Yes.
Next question.
Will have to go on praying for you, you poor lost sheep.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
Went into Faro mid-late April. Held back on plane for 1/2 hour for safety reasons due to excessive congestion in airport. Once off, queued for 1/2 hour for the new machines before they all failed and went off-line. Joined the queue of 500+ people crammed in like sardines while one man stamped the passports. After an hour, 3 others came off their lunch break and joined in. 1 1/2 hours to get to the front of the queue. Missed our transfer, still had to pay for it. Got an uber at half the price.
I've been resistant to go back into Europe since, next two holidays are now in the UK. May see later in the year.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
You only had to look at her to know she would blow up. Perfectly obvious to me, at least. I still don't really understand how someone so obviously unfit could have made it to No 10.
Comments
I suspect tactical voting would see Reform nearer 200 than 300 under those vote shares.
It was very odd watching the football semi final in a French bar, with almost everyone supporting England!
The Scouser who invented the bullet proof vest died today...R.I.P Kev lah...
P.S. Have you mistaken Liz Truss for Amber Rudd further up this thread?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/11/mo-farah-interview-qatar/
“ Sir Mo Farah: ‘My children are much safer in Qatar than London’ ”
Name any capitalist country that is amongst the world's poorest with the highest poverty rates.
Surely the big orange lad can intervene.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
Interesting, that Lee Rigby killers, their names and previous backstory were actually provided to the Guardian by somebody in the security services / police on the evening and they ran the story saying who they were, their background etc.
Has the law changed, the advice, I don't know. But there didn't seem to be any concerns over giving a big in depth stories in that case, now media see touchy about naming a person they definitely know has been arrested. And politicians seem all over the place, they rush in on some things, not on others.
Dilemma!
Having done the outdoor chores for Mrs Stodge, I have a moment to reflect on some of the responses to my contribution this morning.
First, thanks to those who took the time to respond constructively and eloquently even if most of you didn't agree.
@Richard_Tyndall - I think we were at cross purposes. In terms of speech, the "what" is very important and opens a whole other can of worms. We've debated on here the right to offend and the right to be offended. For me, one of the big political, fault lines around Freedom is not the concept itself but whether the emphasis should be on Freedom TO or Freedom FROM.
The two aren't mutually exclusive - I would prefer the emphasis to be on Freedom FROM such as ignorance, fear, want etc, etc. Others stress the Freedom TO, for example, live your life without Government interference and within that is the Freedom TO express oneself.
You might be surprised to hear I'm probably nearer your viewpoint than you think. There's an irony when we post on a site which is overwhelmingly pale, male and stale dominated by a clique or cabal of 15-20 posters who post every day. That's not aypical of forums like this.
It's beyond regrettable we don't have a more diverse and plural posting population (I go by posts, not posters as I'm aware there are lurkers who contribute rarely) and the notion anyone feels they have been "chased off" this site is appalling if true. All are welcome and should be made welcome within the rules of the site even if they post things with which the majority doesn't agree.
As far as content, and allowing for the fact personal insults and jibes are part of the bearpit, we get the notion of offence to ethnic groups and faiths. Now, there are those who are uncomfortable with criticism of religion - I'm not one of them. Where my hackles get elevated is where dislike of and for a faith or creed is extrapolated into a general notion - "London is an Islamic city under Sadiq Khan where Sharia Law operates" for example.
When I was in local Government,there was a push to put all services online ostensibly to save money (rather than because it would lead to a better service). It was pointed out (and this was in the 2000s) 15-20% of the population didn't have access to or use the Internet.
In a plural democracy, all voices should be heard, not just those who can voice an opinion into the ether. Yes, most opinions are irrelevant and we do fortunately have elections where more people can express a view but as others have agreed, it comes back to the advantage of wealth which has always existed in power and political discourse.
It's perfectly possible to argue money buys elections as much now as it once did - it's more covert than when voters were given money to vote one way - and parties with big budgets generally do well (not always).
It's a debate and discussion which I hope we will continue to have.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
People want better public services and more money in their pocket , that’s it . They don’t need all the claptrap about trickle down economics , and alleged 40 years where apparently it was all done wrong .
There’s only one eli_sun - and it gives us a tingling heat that builds and builds, eventually washing over the whole body like a wave of electricity, leaving a thoughtless bliss, all stress and tension of the day just melted away… 🌞
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
I expect it to be more like 650 simultaneous by-elections.
He will regenerate again soon.
The fundamental aspect of Habeas Corpus is that anyone held by the state will be allowed his appearance in court and an explanation of why he is being held. With modern terror laws this is more honoured in the breach than the observance.
Seems to me we all have a right to know who is being held, and why they are being held. And conversely the same is true for those being held.
Subjudice has been warped over time. What was intended as a protection for defendant, complainant and the people as a whole is now exactly the opposite. The doctrine that it is best they be tried by people who are ignorant of any inkling as to why you are being tried is noble but absurd. The result, because there is so much information about is not that you are tried by 12 jurors nobly free from pre-determination but instead by 12 jurors deliberately selected for their obtuse ignorance of day to day events.
Would be much better to let all the information out and argue to case before them in due course with an acceptance that they will know things. Yes, it will affect a juror that a defendant up for theft has 23 previous counts where he has been found guilty. But it is no harder to argue that in this case he isn't than the present situation where most rational jurors will be guessing that is so in any case
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/07/19/andrew-tristan-tate-arrested-miami/
Its why I dislike the 2000s centrist-style iterative improvement some on here prefer. I Imagine it works well for the individual but not so much for a dynamic society.
To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history.
Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
Poland was abysmal when I went through there in November - Warsaw Airport was doing the registration on the way out of the Schengen zone, not into it. And I'd left a long connection on the inbound flight but a relatively tight connection on the outbound.
Estonia isn't allowing use of e-gates, which wouldn't have been so bad except they had a trainee/new guy on who needed help with everything, and the airport hadn't figured out that you can have one queuing system for multiple desks. No problems at all on the way out though.
I'll pass. Did read the first para though.
Turns out he's glommed onto AI just like he glommed on to the other things. Shameless.
Denmark is a nightmare. Barely moving queues. But it’s been pretty bad ever since Brexit: they do things “properly” so you get really quite aggressive immigration questions. Last time I was there the middle aged woman in front of me was in tears (leaving Denmark) as they demanded to see her inbound boarding card. Who keeps their inbound boarding cards?
I seem to recall a former poster here waxing lyrical about a stint among the Burons up here.
Only now the queue for the sole immigration officer is two hours long.
Only now the queue for the sole immigration officer is two hours long.
The celebratory post on TruthSocial claimed that the people of Scotland were “dancing in the streets” over the incumbent prime minister’s alleged position change on the North Sea, yet to be confirmed in policy'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andy-burnham-trump-north-sea-oil-live-updates-b3017708.html
Mine was based on the parable of wheat and tares being the gospel, and the idea that uprooting bad stuff prematurely causes more harm than good.
And yes, that leaves the question of "what counts as premature?" unanswered, because God isn't going to tell us. But it feels a bit relevant for our politics.
Oh, and then we decorated some pictures with some stickers of bees that have been cluttering the Sunday School cupboard for months.
Senile old fool.
- North Europe bad
- South Europe good
Actually not a perfect correlation. Switzerland isn’t great but it’s not “North”. Though it generally vibes in quite a Northy manner. But there’s certainly a geographical pattern.
Standard T20 chase.
I never mentioned creation, the way in is how all religion share inter connectivity on these things. Yes, the history of God may had started with Sun God, and fertility playing a key role throughout. But that no organism exists in a vacuum is not a mystery, or indeed, mystical. It’s a consciousness to shape our lives.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
Next question.
It's a tough one.
https://spectator.com/article/the-sheer-awfulness-of-cpac-gb/
319 out of 500 delegates picked
🟦Troy Jackson: 289
🟦Nirav Shah: 5
🟦Shenna Bellows: 2
🟦Jordan Wood: 2
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2078649791941120245
I've been resistant to go back into Europe since, next two holidays are now in the UK. May see later in the year.
England to win the cricket. Spain to win the WC.