Apparently there are suggestions that Sunak's house-purchase scheme applies to all course below the mark, including second homes. And that is getting some people cross.
Johnson is a leader for good times and has difficulty striking the right note in a period of lengthy and intractable difficulty. But to be fair, many people aren't sure what they want from him. If he's ebullient they say he's being frivolous at a time of crisis. If he's not ebullient they say he's not himself, perhaps he's still sick.
Personally I think he'll stay for a good long while. He's always wanted to be PM, and you don't give up a life dream easily.
He wanted to be a good PM, though, and that dream is fast slipping away.
The Peston poll this week had Boris with a bigger lead as preferred PM over Starmer than Rishi Sunak did.
The main reason was Boris was more popular with Tory voters but Sunak was more popular with Labour voters, however while those Labour voters may like Sunak they will still vote for Starmer Labour over a Sunak led Tory Party. However there would be some Tories moving back to the Brexit Party if Boris goes and Sunak replaces him
Apparently there are suggestions that Sunak's house-purchase scheme applies to all course below the mark, including second homes. And that is getting some people cross.
I believe it does. The intention is to support the sector by boosting transaction volumes; it isn't aimed at helping people buy houses per se (in the sense of being aimed at housing need).
non-sequitur references to Cummings may overtake just saying 'Trump' (or worse still, 'Drumpf') in 'statements that aren't really punchlines, chap' stakes.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
What a totally incompetent disaster with the votes not being counted for weeks as they continue to dribble in and everyone becoming increasingly distrusting of the result? Probably.
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?
Both Pensylvania and Michigan went from comfortable but close Trump wins to absolute knife edges once all the votes were counted.
We could absolutely be looking at idiot American News Networks "calling" multiple states for Trump only to see the postal votes flip them weeks later.
Postal votes tend to go Republican e.g. it was the mail in military votes that won Florida for Bush in 2000
Whilst true in the past that has absolutely not been the case in recent elections in America.
Postal ballot request by Dem registered voters has also been surging this year - in Dems have been requesting mail ballots by 2-1 ratios and more.
Trump spending all his time railing against postal voting is suppressing GOP turnout
As for the question in hand, I can see him handing over, on grounds of health, to an appointed successor in time for the next election in 2024. Not sure what I rate the chances of that, though, as it depends on just how bad he is.
The most telling thing about all these Johnson to quit or be deposed stories is that we are getting them less than a year since he became Tory leader and only a few months since the Tories won a huge majority. That shows how deeply unimpressive he has become. Sunak is so popular because he’s presentable, articulate and not Johnson. However, his package of measures this week were less than stellar - the back to work scheme will waste billions, the cuts in stamp duty were a bung and the vouchers scheme was little more than a gimmick. There was some OK stuff in there (the apprenticeship measure was good), but on the whole it was a little fiddle at the edges. In time, he’ll be judged on this rather than what he is not. Just as at some point not being Corbyn will not be enough for Starmer. Politics is going to be very interesting over the coming months and years.
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
Which is why the government had to force it to use outside testing.
The outsourcers and consultants the government likes to hand our money over to are just as much of a blob, just a much better paid and less accountable one.
Its all part of the same blob.
And you can add the big charities and pressure groups as well.
This blob of yours seems to include pretty much everyone. Are you sure it's not just a meaningless phrase deployed against anyone you don't like?
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
Yesterday's job losses are Boots, John Lewis and Burger King closing stores that were never really that profitable.
The geography is interesting, though.
The wider point is that the line above which businesses are profitable has shifted dramatically, certainly temporarily, and possibly for a longer time.
The lockdown has massively shifted the level of online purchasing. For food it has forced people back into the kitchen.
I do not think that it will not go back to where it was. Which in turn, means that another tranch of the high street is no longer viable.
I would also say that this has accelerated a process already in train.
Many of the incumbent retailers never invested in technology, but borrowed to pay their bonuses hoping things would return to normal. The smaller independents focused on 'experiential' retail which relied heavily on face-to-face interactions (e.g. bookshops and cafes). This capability has fallen off a cliff.
Now there is a reckoning, and it will be an extinction-level event sadly. Those retailers that will survive will manage to use technology to service a customer base that is both 'back to normal' and 'staying home' (and they'll need this for subsequent waves and lockdowns). Companies like Boots are making swathes of people redundant to keep afloat while they play catch-up with in-store and online tech roll-outs.
But too many retailers - both large and small - refuse to make changes and adopt technology. They take a 'use us or lose us' stance, and in the current climate, that means they've lost.
I used to play a solid level of non-league up in the North west and we played Leigh once, in 2008, 2009. No doubt about it, it was run down. The centre had as many closed shops as open ones. Without a railway or tram, its proximity to Manchester as much a weakness as a potential strength.
The fact that there is a artisanal pizza place there now speaks volumes. It is local and independent businesses that will help make places like Leigh better and more prosperous. So yeah, fair play to him, and if you find yourself in Leigh, why not check it out?
Well, yeah, every-so-slightly-angry lefty twitter users will not make it that far north, but the rest of us might.
Did the UK government invest in OneWeb last week, because Cummings read in MIT Technology Review that it was one of their top ten technologies of the future in the May edition?
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
I used to play a solid level of non-league up in the North west and we played Leigh once, in 2008, 2009. No doubt about it, it was run down. The centre had as many closed shops as open ones. Without a railway or tram, its proximity to Manchester as much a weakness as a potential strength.
The fact that there is a artisanal pizza place there now speaks volumes. It is local and independent businesses that will help make places like Leigh better and more prosperous. So yeah, fair play to him, and if you find yourself in Leigh, why not check it out?
Well, yeah, every-so-slightly-angry lefty twitter users will not make it that far north, but the rest of us might.
I lived in the opposite room to a guy from Leigh in my first year at uni.
The way he described the town it was all drinking beer, eating chips and rugby league and nothing else.
I say this without malice aforethought, but many will soon become working class former business owners. Who they will turn to for reassurance in such circumstances is anyone's guess.
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
Yesterday's job losses are Boots, John Lewis and Burger King closing stores that were never really that profitable.
The geography is interesting, though.
The wider point is that the line above which businesses are profitable has shifted dramatically, certainly temporarily, and possibly for a longer time.
The lockdown has massively shifted the level of online purchasing. For food it has forced people back into the kitchen.
I do not think that it will not go back to where it was. Which in turn, means that another tranch of the high street is no longer viable.
I would also say that this has accelerated a process already in train.
Many of the incumbent retailers never invested in technology, but borrowed to pay their bonuses hoping things would return to normal. The smaller independents focused on 'experiential' retail which relied heavily on face-to-face interactions (e.g. bookshops and cafes). This capability has fallen off a cliff.
Now there is a reckoning, and it will be an extinction-level event sadly. Those retailers that will survive will manage to use technology to service a customer base that is both 'back to normal' and 'staying home' (and they'll need this for subsequent waves and lockdowns). Companies like Boots are making swathes of people redundant to keep afloat while they play catch-up with in-store and online tech roll-outs.
But too many retailers - both large and small - refuse to make changes and adopt technology. They take a 'use us or lose us' stance, and in the current climate, that means they've lost.
Yes - I am reminded of a model shop in a village out in the sticks. When on-line became a thing, the owner (a) started doing on-line stuff and (b) started specialising in all the bits that people need *now*
For example, most serious RC kits do not include the actual remote control stuff - you need to source that yourself. So someone buys, opens the box on Saturday morning...
Or drone prop blades - he stocks everything. Break a blade.... either wait a couple of days (weekend shot) or go to him....
He does (did - haven't been out that way for a while) a roaring trade.
I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
What a totally incompetent disaster with the votes not being counted for weeks as they continue to dribble in and everyone becoming increasingly distrusting of the result? Probably.
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?
Both Pensylvania and Michigan went from comfortable but close Trump wins to absolute knife edges once all the votes were counted.
We could absolutely be looking at idiot American News Networks "calling" multiple states for Trump only to see the postal votes flip them weeks later.
That will be very dangerous with Trump at the helm.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
I used to play a solid level of non-league up in the North west and we played Leigh once, in 2008, 2009. No doubt about it, it was run down. The centre had as many closed shops as open ones. Without a railway or tram, its proximity to Manchester as much a weakness as a potential strength.
The fact that there is a artisanal pizza place there now speaks volumes. It is local and independent businesses that will help make places like Leigh better and more prosperous. So yeah, fair play to him, and if you find yourself in Leigh, why not check it out?
Well, yeah, every-so-slightly-angry lefty twitter users will not make it that far north, but the rest of us might.
I lived in the opposite room to a guy from Leigh in my first year at uni.
The way he described the town it was all drinking beer, eating chips and rugby league and nothing else.
Did the UK government invest in OneWeb last week, because Cummings read in MIT Technology Review that it was one of their top ten technologies of the future in the May edition
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.
A few points: 1. I do keep pointing out that I am irrelevant. I do not make any claim to others being as mad as me to end up in a similar place, but as I keep being the topic of conversation... 2. The party were right to reject my lunatic attempt to rejoin for the wrong reasons. But that wasn't the CLP - I had the EC on board with voting in my favour. One of the "lets shout at Labour voters on the doorstep, vote Labour" types nobbled me at national level - the GC has absolute power to reject anyone they see fit for any reason. And she did, which is (was) entirely her right. My friends in the CLP were appalled 3. I had a mental crisis. I'd been part of something my entire adult life. I walked away and was comfortable having joined the LDs. Then a combination of being caged up at home, dealing with a pain in the bum Electoral Commission return and an increasingly acute need to Stop the absolute Hell that my existence has turned into pushed me over the edge. Starmer got elected, didn't impress me that much but was Not Corbyn, and my friends in Labour implored me to "come home". So a quick call to the CLP chair and I pulled the trigger. Madness. 4. I am not a socialist. Not any more. When you're in something, or you're trying to justify something to yourself you can find yourself saying stuff because you're supposed to rather than because you wisely should do. I'm not sure what that Damascean conversion you mention is. I want Starmer to succeed - we need to purge lunatics of all colours from politics. The LibDems couldn't work with Corbyn, but could work with Starmer.
Again, I'm irrelevant to what is going on out there. You good people have been a safe space for me to express myself during this rather interesting period in my political life, and I thank you all for it. But less about me would probably be a Good Thing!
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.
Also Westminster Council used its staff effectively to do a host of things (food delivery to shielding houses being a more visible thing).
If local councils were not doing that why is that the governments failure not the local councils?
Also complaining the Nightingales were unused? I mean WTF? That criticism makes me seriously angry. It was a good use of resource, well executed, and thank God we didn’t need them.
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.
We’re back to traitors now ? You’re a curious mix of the eminently reasonable and the absurd, Max. This morning the latter seems to have the upper hand.
Maybe I'm the opposite of SeanT.
Tbh, I'm calling it as I see it, councils are staffed by absolute duffers at least the ones who would be asked to do this and @RochdalePioneers is absolutely in denial over his leaving and subsequent rejection wrt Labour. It's similar to a very clearly straight girl agreeing to go to a strip club with the lads, it's an evening of overcompensation followed by a morning of regret, he's still in the overcompensation part of it. Worse because being Labour is something that is part of Labour people's soul, hence my usage of the word traitor, Rochdale, who is an ex Labour councillor and member of 25 years is the Labour party. He rejected that and didn't fight for it, which is a shame.
It's odd that being a Tory member isn't the same, for most people it is a temporary alliance based on what the party stands for at that moment, Labour is a way of life. I also think it's why the party is much less forgiving of turncoats than the Tories. Once Boris is gone, I'll rejoin and no one will care, the same people will welcome me back. With Labour it's almost seen like rejecting heaven.
Iain Martin's assessment of Boris doesn't chime with me. The notion that he can "make lots of money delivering funny speeches" has no bearing on Boris's goals. And "(t)his whole PM business isn’t really his thing" is facile and completely wrong imo. Only health is likely to prevent him from standing at the next general election.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
So what you are saying is that if you're a bright and go-getting Dundonian you go and get out? Leaving the various civic positions, among other things, to those with less ambition? Classic cycle of deprivation, isn't it. From those that hath not, it shall be taken away.
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.
We’re back to traitors now ? You’re a curious mix of the eminently reasonable and the absurd, Max. This morning the latter seems to have the upper hand.
Maybe I'm the opposite of SeanT.
Tbh, I'm calling it as I see it, councils are staffed by absolute duffers at least the ones who would be asked to do this and @RochdalePioneers is absolutely in denial over his leaving and subsequent rejection wrt Labour. It's similar to a very clearly straight girl agreeing to go to a strip club with the lads, it's an evening of overcompensation followed by a morning of regret, he's still in the overcompensation part of it. Worse because being Labour is something that is part of Labour people's soul, hence my usage of the word traitor, Rochdale, who is an ex Labour councillor and member of 25 years is the Labour party. He rejected that and didn't fight for it, which is a shame.
It's odd that being a Tory member isn't the same, for most people it is a temporary alliance based on what the party stands for at that moment, Labour is a way of life. I also think it's why the party is much less forgiving of turncoats than the Tories. Once Boris is gone, I'll rejoin and no one will care, the same people will welcome me back. With Labour it's almost seen like rejecting heaven.
You're a former Tory member, praising by implication the more understanding approach taken by your (former) party colleagues; it isn't clear where the very strong language you use to condemn someone leaving the Labour Party is actually coming from?
Nor your condemnation of everyone who works for local government, come to that. Given how many of them there are, they are a mixed bunch from intelligent, capable, honest and committed through to the opposite.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
So what you are saying is that if you're a bright and go-getting Dundonian you go and get out? Leaving the various civic positions, among other things, to those with less ambition? Classic cycle of deprivation, isn't it. From those that hath not, it shall be taken away.
Yes, its really troubling. Our local politicians are unfortunately more focused on the nirvana that is independence than doing anything about it.
I say this without malice aforethought, but many will soon become working class former business owners. Who they will turn to for reassurance in such circumstances is anyone's guess.
Once you have owned a business it is more than likely you will open another at some point after your business fails
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
In the context of that question, there’s a paper out following up some of those hospitalise months ago in a Italy. Johnson seems to show signs of dyspnea, one of the more prevalent continuing symptoms. https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1281333800312745986
Christ. It's not that shocking, though, given the anecdotal reports I've had from those who've had it. A lot of non-hospitalised people have similar issues as well. Imagine the impact if we'd just let it run rampant, like some wanted. Or even if we'd continued down the "herd immunity" route.
Iain Martin's assessment of Boris doesn't chime with me. The notion that he can "make lots of money delivering funny speeches" has no bearing on Boris's goals. And "(t)his whole PM business isn’t really his thing" is facile and completely wrong imo. Only health is likely to prevent him from standing at the next general election.
Very few PMs willing walk away. Thatcher, May and Blair were pushed out. Cameron lost the referendum. Callaghan, Major and Brown lost elections.
Wilson was probably the last to willingly walk away and he had done the job for 8 years.
And if we remember, when May was struggling, there were various lists of shortest serving PMs floating about. Boris doesn't want to be on that.
Boris' health does seem to be on the mend anyway. I hope he finds a couple of weeks over the summer to take his paternity leave.
Iain Martin's assessment of Boris doesn't chime with me. The notion that he can "make lots of money delivering funny speeches" has no bearing on Boris's goals. And "(t)his whole PM business isn’t really his thing" is facile and completely wrong imo. Only health is likely to prevent him from standing at the next general election.
I agree - apart from it's "Johnson".
People don't voluntarily give up great power and the spotlight. So imo he goes only if he's kicked out by the party - which I think is unlikely given his electoral prowess - or he suffers health issues far greater than those he may have at the moment getting over The Bug.
I suspect state governors will be back in fashion as Presidential candidates in 2024 - the parade of clapped out shite Senators must be seen through at some point.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Laura's definition of working class has to be framed as it is in order for her to be working class. But that is as close to the Corbynista definition as you will get and it applies to every single person featured in that Leigh piece in the Guardian. The far left is hoisted by its own petard. Again.
In the context of that question, there’s a paper out following up some of those hospitalise months ago in a Italy. Johnson seems to show signs of dyspnea, one of the more prevalent continuing symptoms. https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1281333800312745986
Christ. It's not that shocking, though, given the anecdotal reports I've had from those who've had it. A lot of non-hospitalised people have similar issues as well. Imagine the impact if we'd just let it run rampant, like some wanted. Or even if we'd continued down the "herd immunity" route.
Yes. It's a serious illness for many people other than those who die from it. I'm not sure this point is adequately realized by many.
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
Which is why the government had to force it to use outside testing.
The outsourcers and consultants the government likes to hand our money over to are just as much of a blob, just a much better paid and less accountable one.
Its all part of the same blob.
And you can add the big charities and pressure groups as well.
The allocation of so many disparate things to one amorphous 'blob' says more about your personal conceptual space rather than any objective reality.
That graph shows how unfair things can be - to the benefit of Brown and detriment of Darling.
Darling would have made a fine LOTO.
Did you not see him debate Alex Salmond? I watched in open mouthed horror.
The second debate was utterly stunning.
To be honest whilst many remember the first debate as bad for Salmond it was only really the first half where he fucked it. Darling fell apart in the second half and then took that form into the second debate.
If Salmond hadn't utterly blown the first half of debate 1 the IndyRef result may well have been a lot closer.
I suspect state governors will be back in fashion as Presidential candidates in 2024 - the parade of clapped out shite Senators must be seen through at some point.
Maybe so. Certainly if TrumpToast club members are correct - which they are - it will be an insurmountable liability to have been closely associated with him.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
I visited Dundee half a dozen times on business. The city centre looked like a fabulous place. Accept that some of the suburbs and estates may be less fabulous...
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
So what you are saying is that if you're a bright and go-getting Dundonian you go and get out? Leaving the various civic positions, among other things, to those with less ambition? Classic cycle of deprivation, isn't it. From those that hath not, it shall be taken away.
Yes, its really troubling. Our local politicians are unfortunately more focused on the nirvana that is independence than doing anything about it.
It's a form of distraction policy (is that the phrase?) isn't it. Having a lofty, long term goal that will 'solve' the short-term problems, while failing to do what you can do address them at the time.
See it in large, well furnished, religious buildings set among hovels.
That graph shows how unfair things can be - to the benefit of Brown and detriment of Darling.
As well as the state of the economy on taking over impact, Id imagine there is a reasonable portion of Chancellor popularity tied to PM popularity. Brown benefited from Blair, whereas Darling suffered from Brown. Darling under Blair would have been popular imo.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Pb tories like class as cultural construct but don't like class defined as relation to the MoP. They find it unhelpful.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
Iain Martin's assessment of Boris doesn't chime with me. The notion that he can "make lots of money delivering funny speeches" has no bearing on Boris's goals. And "(t)his whole PM business isn’t really his thing" is facile and completely wrong imo. Only health is likely to prevent him from standing at the next general election.
Very few PMs willing walk away. Thatcher, May and Blair were pushed out. Cameron lost the referendum. Callaghan, Major and Brown lost elections.
Wilson was probably the last to willingly walk away and he had done the job for 8 years.
And if we remember, when May was struggling, there were various lists of shortest serving PMs floating about. Boris doesn't want to be on that.
Boris' health does seem to be on the mend anyway. I hope he finds a couple of weeks over the summer to take his paternity leave.
In normal circumstances I would agree with you. But the sample of PMs who have been in intensive care with a newborn baby is just Boris as far as Im aware - it is different this time. I think 6/4 sounds about right, if I had to have a bet, Id back 5/1 in 2021.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
So what you are saying is that if you're a bright and go-getting Dundonian you go and get out? Leaving the various civic positions, among other things, to those with less ambition? Classic cycle of deprivation, isn't it. From those that hath not, it shall be taken away.
Yes, its really troubling. Our local politicians are unfortunately more focused on the nirvana that is independence than doing anything about it.
Hasn't Dundee always been a pretty terrible place to live, with overcrowded housing, poor working conditions and a severe alcohol problem dating right back to the days of the Jute Barrons? (I hope you won't see this as me denigrating the people of Dundee, who have put up with an awful lot over the years with grace and humour). Seems to me that Dundee was a victim of a particularly brutal and exploitative form of capitalism during the nineteenth century, and has never really recovered. Perhaps a lot like towns in the North of England in that regard.
Did the UK government invest in OneWeb last week, because Cummings read in MIT Technology Review that it was one of their top ten technologies of the future in the May edition
But he has one overriding characteristic for the new job: he knows nothing about security or intelligence.
Partnered with new security supremo (and world leading intelligence expert) David 'Frostie' Frost, Cummings and co can ensure sod all oversight from this committee.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
So what you are saying is that if you're a bright and go-getting Dundonian you go and get out? Leaving the various civic positions, among other things, to those with less ambition? Classic cycle of deprivation, isn't it. From those that hath not, it shall be taken away.
I wonder if regional Scottish, and Welsh, towns suffer from a double pull effect.
That is both London and Edinburgh / Cardiff both attract the local 'best and brightest' in a way that English regional cities do not.
I remember AM doing an interesting piece on cities for PB.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Pb tories like class as cultural construct but don't like class defined as relation to the MoP. They find it unhelpful.
Class no longer defines politics based on wealth and income but based on culture and level of education.
For example in 2019 the Tories won a higher voteshare with skilled working class C2s than upper middle class ABs for the first time.
In 2019 Labour did as well with upper middle class ABs as it did with poor DEs for the first time too.
Did the UK government invest in OneWeb last week, because Cummings read in MIT Technology Review that it was one of their top ten technologies of the future in the May edition
As Grieve pointed out on R4 this morning, the PM ought not to be lining up anyone to chair the committee. It's supposed to be a non partisan independent group who select their own chair.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
Until relatively recently, the membership of one economic 'class' or another was rather more fixed in stone, no?
Doesn't this all tie into the 'lost an empire and not yet found a role' argument that has been swirling about the Labour party for, oh, ages. Hence all their ambulance- and trend-chasing since 2010 and probably before then.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Pb tories like class as cultural construct but don't like class defined as relation to the MoP. They find it unhelpful.
Really enjoyed the Austrian GP so looking forward to another cracker this weekend. Some interesting names being chosen for the repeat races - had to Google "Styria"
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
Agree with that. And can someone explain why you cant be capital and labour at the same time? Own shares in businesses and work for a different business? Through pensions that applies to the vast majority of workers in the country.
Or more directly own one business wholly and work in another?
Can someone explain how a duffer like Grayling keeps getting high level positions? The man is a disaster. I fully expect for all national secrets to leak to China.
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.
A few points: 1. I do keep pointing out that I am irrelevant. I do not make any claim to others being as mad as me to end up in a similar place, but as I keep being the topic of conversation... 2. The party were right to reject my lunatic attempt to rejoin for the wrong reasons. But that wasn't the CLP - I had the EC on board with voting in my favour. One of the "lets shout at Labour voters on the doorstep, vote Labour" types nobbled me at national level - the GC has absolute power to reject anyone they see fit for any reason. And she did, which is (was) entirely her right. My friends in the CLP were appalled 3. I had a mental crisis. I'd been part of something my entire adult life. I walked away and was comfortable having joined the LDs. Then a combination of being caged up at home, dealing with a pain in the bum Electoral Commission return and an increasingly acute need to Stop the absolute Hell that my existence has turned into pushed me over the edge. Starmer got elected, didn't impress me that much but was Not Corbyn, and my friends in Labour implored me to "come home". So a quick call to the CLP chair and I pulled the trigger. Madness. 4. I am not a socialist. Not any more. When you're in something, or you're trying to justify something to yourself you can find yourself saying stuff because you're supposed to rather than because you wisely should do. I'm not sure what that Damascean conversion you mention is. I want Starmer to succeed - we need to purge lunatics of all colours from politics. The LibDems couldn't work with Corbyn, but could work with Starmer.
Again, I'm irrelevant to what is going on out there. You good people have been a safe space for me to express myself during this rather interesting period in my political life, and I thank you all for it. But less about me would probably be a Good Thing!
Not at all. The views of those who are not either party loyalists or party drones (two sets which overlap to an extent) are worth hearing.
I suspect state governors will be back in fashion as Presidential candidates in 2024 - the parade of clapped out shite Senators must be seen through at some point.
Maybe so. Certainly if TrumpToast club members are correct - which they are - it will be an insurmountable liability to have been closely associated with him.
I suspect state governors will be back in fashion as Presidential candidates in 2024 - the parade of clapped out shite Senators must be seen through at some point.
Maybe so. Certainly if TrumpToast club members are correct - which they are - it will be an insurmountable liability to have been closely associated with him.
Haley got out quite soon and without enraging the Orange Idiot.
That graph shows how unfair things can be - to the benefit of Brown and detriment of Darling.
As well as the state of the economy on taking over impact, Id imagine there is a reasonable portion of Chancellor popularity tied to PM popularity. Brown benefited from Blair, whereas Darling suffered from Brown. Darling under Blair would have been popular imo.
I think there's some truth in that, but I seem to remember the Tories having to drop the slogan "vote Blair, get Brown" in 2005 because people actually quite liked that!
Did the UK government invest in OneWeb last week, because Cummings read in MIT Technology Review that it was one of their top ten technologies of the future in the May edition
But he has one overriding characteristic for the new job: he knows nothing about security or intelligence.
Partnered with new security supremo (and world leading intelligence expert) David 'Frostie' Frost, Cummings and co can ensure sod all oversight from this committee.
And according to the government this committee will decide when and if, note that weasel word creeping in, the Russia report will be published.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Pb tories like class as cultural construct but don't like class defined as relation to the MoP. They find it unhelpful.
Class no longer defines politics based on wealth and income but based on culture and level of education.
The English obsession with class is.... well.... weird.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Laura's definition of working class has to be framed as it is in order for her to be working class. But that is as close to the Corbynista definition as you will get and it applies to every single person featured in that Leigh piece in the Guardian. The far left is hoisted by its own petard. Again.
For a long time I've considered it thus: If you have to get out of bed in a morning to work to pay your bills, you're working class If other people have to get out of their beds to pay your bills, you're not working class.
The idea that you can't be a business manager or owner or in a profession and be working class is absurd. We work our arses off, and in an SME you're carrying the weight of all your colleagues' jobs as well as your own. I am certainly...
Testing equipment is very expensive. That's the main budget for the £10bn. On PPE I think a lot of the money has been spent on inducements for domestic production and the international pricing is 3-5x higher than the same time last year. So what would cost £0.5bn last year would be £2bn this year and we need 3-4x as much of it. Plus getting companies to manufacture in the UK and you're getting on to a massive number.
This point is probably obvious enough to have been made already, but I think it's worth repeating if so - Johnson could already make loads of money making funny speeches, but he chose to give that, and the newspaper column, up in order to be PM.
He's been working towards becoming PM for years, it's not something he will give up easily after all that time.
When was the last time a PM walked away from the job willingly?
That graph shows how unfair things can be - to the benefit of Brown and detriment of Darling.
As well as the state of the economy on taking over impact, Id imagine there is a reasonable portion of Chancellor popularity tied to PM popularity. Brown benefited from Blair, whereas Darling suffered from Brown. Darling under Blair would have been popular imo.
I think there's some truth in that, but I seem to remember the Tories having to drop the slogan "vote Blair, get Brown" in 2005 because people actually quite liked that!
According to the graph Brown was more popular then than Sunak is now, and every Chancellor in between so of course it wasnt a good slogan at the time. As Sunak may find being a popular Chancellor doesnt automatically make you a popular PM or even one who ever gets there - I suspect his career may be like Ken Clarke's, he is a bit too realistic and honest for the Tory Party leaders role.
Re Leigh. I grew up in the constituency. Boundary changes mean I would no longer be there, but no matter. Yes Leigh itself is run down. It has dreadful transport links and has not much going for it. But. The surrounds are quite affluent. There are swathes of new housing going up. All semis or detached with large gardens. The population is rising. The constituency is oversized. Several wards have been moved out. So, it is not quite the smoking post nuclear landscape... It also defines itself in opposition to Wigan which dates back to the strike of 1926. Being in Wigan MC, and known as ""our colony" doesn't help.
My Marxist theory is pretty rusty but I'm fairly sure someone who owns the means of production doesn't qualify as working class no matter what lens you apply.
Laura's definition of working class has to be framed as it is in order for her to be working class. But that is as close to the Corbynista definition as you will get and it applies to every single person featured in that Leigh piece in the Guardian. The far left is hoisted by its own petard. Again.
For a long time I've considered it thus: If you have to get out of bed in a morning to work to pay your bills, you're working class If other people have to get out of their beds to pay your bills, you're not working class.
The idea that you can't be a business manager or owner or in a profession and be working class is absurd. We work our arses off, and in an SME you're carrying the weight of all your colleagues' jobs as well as your own. I am certainly...
Yes, I think that's a good description, but it is also related to job status. Working and non-working class is different from socioeconomic class.
Comments
https://twitter.com/helenpidd/status/1281285770192531456
The main reason was Boris was more popular with Tory voters but Sunak was more popular with Labour voters, however while those Labour voters may like Sunak they will still vote for Starmer Labour over a Sunak led Tory Party. However there would be some Tories moving back to the Brexit Party if Boris goes and Sunak replaces him
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Postal ballot request by Dem registered voters has also been surging this year - in Dems have been requesting mail ballots by 2-1 ratios and more.
Trump spending all his time railing against postal voting is suppressing GOP turnout
Now there is a reckoning, and it will be an extinction-level event sadly. Those retailers that will survive will manage to use technology to service a customer base that is both 'back to normal' and 'staying home' (and they'll need this for subsequent waves and lockdowns). Companies like Boots are making swathes of people redundant to keep afloat while they play catch-up with in-store and online tech roll-outs.
But too many retailers - both large and small - refuse to make changes and adopt technology. They take a 'use us or lose us' stance, and in the current climate, that means they've lost.
No amount of cheery flag waving is going to help.
I used to play a solid level of non-league up in the North west and we played Leigh once, in 2008, 2009. No doubt about it, it was run down. The centre had as many closed shops as open ones. Without a railway or tram, its proximity to Manchester as much a weakness as a potential strength.
The fact that there is a artisanal pizza place there now speaks volumes. It is local and independent businesses that will help make places like Leigh better and more prosperous. So yeah, fair play to him, and if you find yourself in Leigh, why not check it out?
Well, yeah, every-so-slightly-angry lefty twitter users will not make it that far north, but the rest of us might.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53354308
https://mobile.twitter.com/beINSPORTS_EN/status/1281323916242362387
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53358330
The way he described the town it was all drinking beer, eating chips and rugby league and nothing else.
For example, most serious RC kits do not include the actual remote control stuff - you need to source that yourself. So someone buys, opens the box on Saturday morning...
Or drone prop blades - he stocks everything. Break a blade.... either wait a couple of days (weekend shot) or go to him....
He does (did - haven't been out that way for a while) a roaring trade.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/status/1281503250424922113
1. I do keep pointing out that I am irrelevant. I do not make any claim to others being as mad as me to end up in a similar place, but as I keep being the topic of conversation...
2. The party were right to reject my lunatic attempt to rejoin for the wrong reasons. But that wasn't the CLP - I had the EC on board with voting in my favour. One of the "lets shout at Labour voters on the doorstep, vote Labour" types nobbled me at national level - the GC has absolute power to reject anyone they see fit for any reason. And she did, which is (was) entirely her right. My friends in the CLP were appalled
3. I had a mental crisis. I'd been part of something my entire adult life. I walked away and was comfortable having joined the LDs. Then a combination of being caged up at home, dealing with a pain in the bum Electoral Commission return and an increasingly acute need to Stop the absolute Hell that my existence has turned into pushed me over the edge. Starmer got elected, didn't impress me that much but was Not Corbyn, and my friends in Labour implored me to "come home". So a quick call to the CLP chair and I pulled the trigger. Madness.
4. I am not a socialist. Not any more. When you're in something, or you're trying to justify something to yourself you can find yourself saying stuff because you're supposed to rather than because you wisely should do. I'm not sure what that Damascean conversion you mention is. I want Starmer to succeed - we need to purge lunatics of all colours from politics. The LibDems couldn't work with Corbyn, but could work with Starmer.
Again, I'm irrelevant to what is going on out there. You good people have been a safe space for me to express myself during this rather interesting period in my political life, and I thank you all for it. But less about me would probably be a Good Thing!
If local councils were not doing that why is that the governments failure not the local councils?
Also complaining the Nightingales were unused? I mean WTF? That criticism makes me seriously angry. It was a good use of resource, well executed, and thank God we didn’t need them.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/10/its-time-to-talk-about-class
Tbh, I'm calling it as I see it, councils are staffed by absolute duffers at least the ones who would be asked to do this and @RochdalePioneers is absolutely in denial over his leaving and subsequent rejection wrt Labour. It's similar to a very clearly straight girl agreeing to go to a strip club with the lads, it's an evening of overcompensation followed by a morning of regret, he's still in the overcompensation part of it. Worse because being Labour is something that is part of Labour people's soul, hence my usage of the word traitor, Rochdale, who is an ex Labour councillor and member of 25 years is the Labour party. He rejected that and didn't fight for it, which is a shame.
It's odd that being a Tory member isn't the same, for most people it is a temporary alliance based on what the party stands for at that moment, Labour is a way of life. I also think it's why the party is much less forgiving of turncoats than the Tories. Once Boris is gone, I'll rejoin and no one will care, the same people will welcome me back. With Labour it's almost seen like rejecting heaven.
Only health is likely to prevent him from standing at the next general election.
Nor your condemnation of everyone who works for local government, come to that. Given how many of them there are, they are a mixed bunch from intelligent, capable, honest and committed through to the opposite.
Imagine the impact if we'd just let it run rampant, like some wanted.
Or even if we'd continued down the "herd immunity" route.
Wilson was probably the last to willingly walk away and he had done the job for 8 years.
And if we remember, when May was struggling, there were various lists of shortest serving PMs floating about. Boris doesn't want to be on that.
Boris' health does seem to be on the mend anyway. I hope he finds a couple of weeks over the summer to take his paternity leave.
People don't voluntarily give up great power and the spotlight. So imo he goes only if he's kicked out by the party - which I think is unlikely given his electoral prowess - or he suffers health issues far greater than those he may have at the moment getting over The Bug.
https://twitter.com/adamcooperF1/status/1281508928640212992
I suspect state governors will be back in fashion as Presidential candidates in 2024 - the parade of clapped out shite Senators must be seen through at some point.
To be honest whilst many remember the first debate as bad for Salmond it was only really the first half where he fucked it. Darling fell apart in the second half and then took that form into the second debate.
If Salmond hadn't utterly blown the first half of debate 1 the IndyRef result may well have been a lot closer.
See it in large, well furnished, religious buildings set among hovels.
Partnered with new security supremo (and world leading intelligence expert) David 'Frostie' Frost, Cummings and co can ensure sod all oversight from this committee.
That is both London and Edinburgh / Cardiff both attract the local 'best and brightest' in a way that English regional cities do not.
I remember AM doing an interesting piece on cities for PB.
For example in 2019 the Tories won a higher voteshare with skilled working class C2s than upper middle class ABs for the first time.
In 2019 Labour did as well with upper middle class ABs as it did with poor DEs for the first time too.
The US shows a similar trend
Doesn't this all tie into the 'lost an empire and not yet found a role' argument that has been swirling about the Labour party for, oh, ages. Hence all their ambulance- and trend-chasing since 2010 and probably before then.
They can win a headline.
They can't win an election.
like winning.
Or more directly own one business wholly and work in another?
And, yes, Rishi is superb.
“If”.
Americans are going to vote for the UK Labour Party? Are they importing votes now?
If you have to get out of bed in a morning to work to pay your bills, you're working class
If other people have to get out of their beds to pay your bills, you're not working class.
The idea that you can't be a business manager or owner or in a profession and be working class is absurd. We work our arses off, and in an SME you're carrying the weight of all your colleagues' jobs as well as your own. I am certainly...
He's been working towards becoming PM for years, it's not something he will give up easily after all that time.
When was the last time a PM walked away from the job willingly?
Yes Leigh itself is run down. It has dreadful transport links and has not much going for it.
But. The surrounds are quite affluent. There are swathes of new housing going up. All semis or detached with large gardens. The population is rising. The constituency is oversized. Several wards have been moved out. So, it is not quite the smoking post nuclear landscape...
It also defines itself in opposition to Wigan which dates back to the strike of 1926. Being in Wigan MC, and known as ""our colony" doesn't help.
Interesting to try and call this weekend's race. The cars won't quite be identical, with Ferrari especially trying to improve their pace.