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Amazon has you covered on that... Buy some for your friends as well.
it was the journalist who mentioned rainbow lanyards
True. But it's like saying "everyone must be clean shaven"... and then denying that you said you want to stop people having stubble or beards.
Anything after October risks being an even bigger disaster - NHS winter problems kicking in, first disastrous storms/floods of the year,
I still think that they could time it to run along side the USA elections... to benefit from all the internet noise that will throw up. Expect lots of Tory politicians going big on anti-woke and the danger of the Left. Not the main Conservative Central Office campaign... lots of extra campaigns on the side riding along on the back of pro-Trump nonsense across social media.
I still reckon it'll be January, they've seen the polls, they know they're toast. They will be in full salt the earth and contracts for chums mode between now and then.
Get making some "Don't Vote Tory" Christmas cards then.
Its an insane idea
an election in Jan when everyone is feeling skint, weather is grim keeping the oldies away, xmas TV polluted with endless election crap and party political broadcasts, MPs, staff & canvassers all resentful of working over Xmas, NHS waiting lists & ambulance queues through the roof as beds are blocked by the annual flu crisis......
you'd have to be completely deluded and insulated from the realities of daily life with no sense of political acumen to think its a good idea.......
you’d have to be completely deluded and insulated from the realities of daily life with no sense of political acumen to think its a good idea…….
As mentioned above though. They know they're going to get their arses kicked. Why hasten that? A few more expenses to fiddle, a bit of crash and burn to really **** things up for an incoming Labour government to sort, a few more ministerial paychecks to cash and some time to sort out a lucrative career on the dinner speech or consultancy markets.
No rush at all. We've got months more culture war to get through yet. 🙁
Political acumen, did you say?
19(?) months ago Sunak was gifted the Tory leadership and Prime Minister role, without even a sham of an 'election' within the party membership, because the party knew it couldn't trust its own members after the Truss debacle. They pretty much gave him carte blanche within the party as they didn't see a credible alternative.
He inherits a Rwanda policy he thinks is 'batshit', a colossal waste of time and money.
Now, 19(?) months down the line, he is in an election year with Rwanda as one of (if not the) flagship policy.
Political acumen is not something Little Rishi is blessed with. He can't even do politics in his own party, let alone in the real world.
I think he's just burning as much as possible and letting his MPs go on a free-for-all siphoning off money into their own and their mates pockets for as long as possible.
They pretty much gave him carte blanche within the party as they didn’t see a credible alternative.
Now, 19(?) months down the line, he is in an election year with Rwanda as one of (if not the) flagship policy.
I dont think this is accurate. A significant minority of the tory mps were driven by it as well as a large part of the party membership. If he had abandoned it I suspect it would have been leadership election 999999 and then one of the more nutty MPs installed.
I, respectfully disagree.
Despite the nuttiness of this populist incarnation of the Tories, I think there would still be a majority within the party that is sane enough to realise that 3 unelected PMs in a row is taking the piss too much. Even for this version of the Tories.
I think there would still be a majority within the party that is sane enough to realise that 3 unelected PMs in a row is taking the piss too much.
Agreed - which is why he'll never stand down and why he wants to drag this whole thing out. He's selectively writing history at the moment. Going off on party political broadcast speeches which are then selectively redacted to host as text on gov.uk
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1791104781458587650.html?utm_campaign=topunroll
https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1791123815692431645?s=46&t=GT2enJNaj7otdO_U9K40nw
Tetchy titchy Rishi getting rattled on Loose Women wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card.
BillOddie
Full Memb https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1791123815692431645?s=46&t=GT2enJNaj7otdO_U9K40nwTetchy titchy Rishi getting rattled on Loose Women wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card.
Watching him on that both amused and annoyed me at the same time, how does that work?
Anyway...
He is appalling at thinking on his feet, his instinct is to go straight to rehearsed, scripted answers whenever he is pressed on an issue. Any issue. Even if the actors answer is totally irrelevant to what is being asked.
In the run up to the GE I want to see *more* of him on TV, *every single day*. He is an absolute liability and the more people see of him, the more harm it will do him.
^^^
Gillian 'Bloody' Keegan (chippy shouldered, culture war grifter) is equally terrible. She has an obvious tell:
The more rattled she gets by scrutiny the more she stutters "y'know" between every other bloody word.
No, Gillian, we don't know (and my viewers/listeners certainly don't) that's why I'm *ing asking you the *ing questions and the reason, y'know, you keep getting tripped up is because you're making stuff up on the ****ing fly. Because you haven't got the nous to be up to speed on your brief - and you're too busy planning your next financial grift.
🤬
Tetchy titchy Rishi getting rattled on Loose Women wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card.
Not the clip shown on BBC News just now
Not the clip shown on BBC News just now
That was a bizarre choice, it was just the presenter ending the interview!
I think there would still be a majority within the party that is sane enough to realise that 3 unelected PMs in a row is taking the piss too much.
Maybe but I am not sure I would risk it.
In the run up to the GE I want to see *more* of him on TV, *every single day*. He is an absolute liability and the more people see of him, the more harm it will do him.
Agree, I can't see how anyone could like him, just need to make sure everyone sees him so they have the chance to make that decision.
Problem for Starmer is that while he is clearly not as awful as Sunak he is devoid of any charm or likability as well. The Labour Party should have learnt from Johnson and putting someone people like that as the leader (even if just as a front) is a good move. But luck is on Starmers side this time so should be okay.
Problem for Starmer is that while he is clearly not as awful as Sunak he is devoid of any charm or likability as well.
At this stage, I'll go with competent and boring. I want boring.
We've had the funny clown and the cool tech bro and they've been a total disaster. Please can we have someone boring who's not desperately trying to nob the secretary/IT teacher/anything in a skirt and who's not trying to show how cool he is by filling a car up or "chatting" finance in a soup kitchen for the homeless.
you missed out the raving looney tunes free marketeer cabbage lettuce 😉
^^^
Presumably he blinked in late summer 2022.
Easy to miss in terms of longevity, not so much in terms of consequences if you have a mortgage.
an election in Jan when everyone is feeling skint,
Maybe they're looking at early Jan to get the Christmas 'buzz' AKA before the bills come in?
Another day, another suppressed report - Teresa Coffey was 'in charge' through this period, no surprise that she didn't GAS.
At this stage, I’ll go with competent and boring. I want boring.
You may well do. It might not sell so well to other voters who don't do the details of policies and the like.
There is no competent version of this form of ideology that produces good outcomes.
Imagine an environment where being a competent Conservative is accelerating all the terrible elements of neolibralism because you're even better at concentrating wealth and the like?
The Sunday Times Rich List is out this weekend but there's been a few teasers. One is that Rishi and his wife have seen their personal fortune increase by £110m over the last year.
For anyone wondering why he still wants to be PM in spite of being so bad at it.
Must be nice for them to have more money in a year than the average earner will see in their entire lifetime.
And that's on top of the half billion they've already got.
At this stage, I’ll go with competent and boring. I want boring.
Very much this.
I want someone who looks like there’s at least a slim chance that they’re in it for the right reasons. Rather than seeing it as an entitlement or as part of some pissing competition
That’s been completely absent in number ten for a long time. Everyone knows that the present occupant, upon being booted out, will just shrug and move on with his gilded life completely unaffected. Off to California with no consequence for his failure whatsoever, just like his predecessors. Leaving the little people with the mammoth job of clearing up their mess
£122m.
No, not total value, just the year on year increase in wealth. Rishi, a true man of the people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69027955
Yep he has had a good year, as have so many very rich people. Money goes to money as they say.
While it doesn't help his perspective or empathy it doesn't mean he has to be such a **** though.
For anyone wondering why he still wants to be PM in spite of being so bad at it.
Except that the increase is reportedly due to the value of her shares in the family business and I can't see a connection to him or being PM?
I think it's important that we hate him for the right reasons and not just make assumptions.
Infosys has increased its work in the UK public sector, but not nearly enough to account for that jump in value. Probably more to do with increased work for the like of AirBnB etc post pandemic (and our love of everything cloud computing).
Yep he has had a good year, as have so many very rich people
Hardly surprising when you’re reading articles like this in this mornings Guardian. Children in care are the latest victims to be monetised by rapacious venture capitalists and private equity firms
How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel
"Must be nice for them to have more money in a year than the average earner will see in their entire lifetime."
More like more money in about 5 days (average salary for 45 years) or 2 days (average lifetime earnings according to Google) than the average earner will see in their lifetime...
"I think it’s important that we hate him for the right reasons and not just make assumptions."
It doesn't matter where the money came from for me. It's the entitlement to continue in a job he doesn't need, whilst actively pursuing policy that makes most people's lives worse and refusing to call an election when it is clear so many people want him gone. All based on some misguided idea that he is doing good for people he can't even imagine the lives of
The UK does not have a single foreign owned export which causes political instability and which in turn causes endless succession of military coups.
True, we still own BAe Systems.
The thing with him starting his 6 month long election campaign early is that the more people see of him, the less they like him.
I know his enormous ego won’t allow him to even countenance this, but his horrible entitled, condescending tone when delivering speech’s coupled with his whiney, tetchy ‘how dare you?!’ attitude when questioned are hardly very appealing. So the longer he hangs on for, the more his personal approval rates plummet
It’s just a shame that the country is in limbo, effectively with no government, while this nonsense drags on
Two separate opinion polls out today, PeoplePolling and YouGov, give identical results for Labour, Conservative, LibDems, and Greens, I have never seen that before.
Although I struggle to believe that the LibDems are only one percentage point ahead of the Greens, which both polls claim.
@binners that article is properly boiling my piss.
How the hell is that fair or legal. Utterly insane that children's care is for profit
that article is properly boiling my piss.
How the hell is that fair or legal. Utterly insane that children’s care is for profit
Now imagine you are married to a social worker who has had to travel all over the country to get a child into one of those units.
And the staff who have to deal with them there are chronically undervalued and underpaid.
Absolutely ****ing criminal, literal theft of public money while rarely delivering the support and outcomes those children need.
SNP 0%? Or just another UK wide poll that is nonsense in its application to Scotland?
It’s not a proper poll. Ignore it. The YouGov poll makes more sense.
"Now imagine you are married to a social worker who has had to travel all over the country to get a child into one of those units."
I can't even imagine how bad it is. Just grateful there are people able to do the job. Yet another area where the funding for people and the needs should be as good as it should be
kelvinFull Member
It’s not a proper poll. Ignore it. The YouGov poll makes more sense.
Yeah people polling are a bit of a weird one, they do a lot of work for gbnews so that immediately makes me suspicious
You'd think they'd see the snp score and think maybe this isnt good data before publishing?
Anyway interesting breakdown of the yougov has 2019 tory voters going 1/3rd tory, ~20% to reform 12% Labour, 18% don't know and 6% won't vote
The 18% dks are where the tories have the potential to turn a wipeout into 'just a defeat' be interesting to see if they can pull that off come November / January
SNP 0%? Or just another UK wide poll that is nonsense in its application to Scotland?
Of course it is UK wide, it is voting intentions for the Westminster parliament.
Zero for the SNP does seem strange, almost all polls put the SNP share at 2-3%. Having said that the accepted margin of error is 3%
The very latest opinion poll which concluded yesterday puts SNP on 2%
https://twitter.com/wethinkpolling/status/1791494365254172797
Edit: That ^^ poll puts the LibDems and the Greens on an identical share of the vote. I would love to believe that the Greens might possibly become the third party in UK politics but I imagine that the general election result will be very different.
ernie - totally meaningless in regard to the SNP vote - UK wide polls are not granular enough to be able to have any prediction on the SNP vote - as their vote is around 4% and margin or error is 3%
SNP are the third largest party in the UK by a long way with 43 seats. Greens and lib dems are nowhere near them
SNP are the third largest party in the UK by a long way with 43 seats.
Not for much longer.
SNP are the third largest party in the UK by a long way with 43 seats.
I am of course talking about share of the vote, sorry I thought that obvious.
IN FPTP seats is the only thing that counts. 🙂
I think the thing that counts is that the SNP has very little support outside Scotland.
You know how the next general election isn't all about London, and not everyone is obsessed with how London thinks politically? Well the same is true of Scotland.
so being the 3rd largest party with a fair chance of holding the balance of power is irrelevant?
I doubt they will be holding anything and I cant see either main stream party wanting anything to do with the SNP. Be interesting to see how they do in the general election, I imagine they will have less than 43 seats next year.
Oh they will lose seats ok - 10 - 20 loss range is my bet. Still a toss up that they will be the third largest party
Its just classic how the third largest party is ignored and gets a tiny fraction of the air time / media attention of smaller parties such as the lib dems or reform. Many of the other parties have no representation over vast swathes of the UK as well.
the third largest party is ignored and gets a tiny fraction of the air time / media attention of smaller parties such as the lib dems
That's because the Liberal Democrats recieved THREE TIMES MORE votes than the SNP at the last general election.
The population of Scotland relative to the rest of the UK is tiny, to put some perspective on it the population of London is greater than the combined populations of Scotland and Wales, so a lot of people in the UK are not really that interested in the local politics of Scotland.
Obviously the SNP gets a huge amount of airtime on STW, certainly more than the LibDems, mostly thanks to you TJ. Despite you apparently never having voted for them 😂
The lib dems have less that half the seats and a tiny % of the members. They are much less important than the SNP in national UK terms
Well that's the whole point, in national UK terms the LibDems are far more important than the SNP. The LibDems received 3.7 million votes, which is why they get more airtime than the SNP who didn't get anywhere near that level of support.
Obviously you want to milk the first past the post electoral system for all it's worth but it doesn't justify treating the SNP with the same level of importance as the LibDems, let alone more important, as you wish to claim.
Its just classic how the third largest party is ignored and gets a tiny fraction of the air time / media attention of smaller parties such as the lib dems or reform.
It is because they are only available to 7% of the UK population so pretty much irrelevant to anyone outside of that Scottish 7%. The same as why we don't find Plaid Cymru relevant when talking about UK government.
They have less chance of being the UK government (as it is technically impossible) than the Green Party which is saying something...
Surely a party that I cannot vote for is pointless wasting too much time thinking about, they only impact is how they affect the parties I can vote for.
What parochial attitudes you show.
Oh the ironing ! 😂
You know full well that the SNP unlike the LibDems has no support outside Scotland, and that despite your consent reference to first past the post that the LibDems have three times more support throughout the UK than the SNP.
And yet you want them to both receive the same level of media coverage. Instead of repeating the same spin over and over again perhaps you should explain why you believe that the average person living in England and Wales should be particularly interested in Scottish politics?
Btw there are more Labour MPs in London than there are SNP MPs in Scotland, do you think that the rest of the UK should be particularly interested in the views of Labour MPs from London?
Why would I care about an insular little party like the snp when I can't vote for them?
If we had a better form of voting then we would care even less
Fek me if you think Scottish politics is under reported at a UK level, try finding out about Wales. Actually the same probably goes for any region. Unless a total shitstorm is going on, it doesn't get on the radar.
i'm no more interested in Scottish politics than I am the politics of Denmark or Norway.
And the West Lothian question is still a thing so maybe SNP supporters should stop moaning? 🤷🏻♂️
This attitude you show here is one of the drivers for independence
Is this the politcal equivalent of taking your cricket set home if you don't get what you want? Sounds a bit like the brexiteers did before 2016.
i’m no more interested in Scottish politics than I am the politics of Denmark or Norway.
So you don't care what's happening in the UK - interesting...
So you don’t care what’s happening in the UK
Most of the important stuff is decided in Westminster. I'm all for devolving as much as possible to regional and local govt, but that should be within a greater federated state. The SNP though just have their cake and eat it much like Johnson et al wanted for brexit so no I'm not really interested in that.
Utterly insane that children’s care is for profit
You occasional reminder that most NHS High Street services - Dentists, Pharmacists, GPs, Care Homes, Opticians, Audiologists are all run by for-profit organisations.
I’m all for devolving as much as possible to regional and local govt, but that should be within a greater federated state.
Except you said you don't care about Scottish politics, so you have no interest in "devolving as much as possible" as you still want the centre to have full control.
This attitude you show here is one of the drivers for independence
And yet the SNP care so much about independence their new leader has just scrapped the cabinet post specifically for it.
so you have no interest in “devolving as much as possible” as you still want the centre to have full control.
Devolving powers != Independence
TBH if Scotland wants to be independent that's fine by me, I just think it will be a really stupid thing to do for all the reasons we thought leaving the EU was a bad idea.
@nickc difference is, i knew about those. I don’t like that either
Oh sure, I get that, I'm not making the case that for-profit is the best (or only) way these things should be organised, just that they are. I generally think most folks don't really give it much thought, and are (like you) surprised when they discover some-one's making money from it.
The difference between children’s care and those high street NHS services (ok, GPs not so much) is whether the service user gets to choose the service provider.
That difference is enough to justify the “utterly insane”. The children are the commodity in this business model.
What's utterly insane is government funded bodies agreeing to pay those prices, like the NHS paying £2k to cover a shift with an agency nurse (and the agency taking half it).
Looked-after children services are often hamstrung by regulation and local authorities though. Partly, charitable providers are being forced out the sector becasue of the onerous requirements of both local authority guidelines and organisations like the CQC and Care Commissioners in Scotland and Wales who are imposing stricter and stricter [and more and more costly] controls that organisations (apart from those who're are very well funded) find it increasingly more difficult to meet and manage. The numbers of these children is increasing beyond local authorities capacity and capability to look after. The sector is a victim of previous scandals and austerity. The providers that do provide these services are few and far between, and while I'm not going to defend profit gouging, running these services [properly to the standards we want and expect] ain't cheap, neither.
On the one hand you can't expect charities to be able to either pay for the sorts of staff that can do these things, but on the other, relax the guidelines and potentially put [the most very vulnerable] people in society in harms way.
Unless govts regulate this sector and manage the issues that increase the need for them better, then this is the result.
and while I’m not going to defend profit gouging, running these services [properly to the standards we want and expect] ain’t cheap, neither.
This can be very true. the child may need constant supervision in a solo setting ( worst case scenario). that means two staff on duty 24 hours a day ( so one can have breaks / go for a pee) that means more than 8 full time staff just for that one child plus holiday / sickness cover which is effectively another staff member. Paid at minimum wage thats getting close to £250 000 pa in wages and other employment costs alone
Gove really is a shit, his party is largely responsible for the poisoning of British politics yet as usual it is everyone else's fault
Gove really is a shit, his party is largely responsible for the poisoning of British politics yet as usual it is everyone else’s fault
I refer to my comment yesterday regarding lack of self awareness....
Come on, give them a break - they have only been at if for 14 years. Shocking to think that younger people have not known anything else.