Anyone know what the current majority is?
I can't keep up!
He’s speaking at the NFU conference this morning.
What could possibly go wrong?
Good luck on trying to convince them they've not been utterly ****ed by Brexit and that Kemi's fantastic trade deals, which undermine their livelihoods with cheap imports, are in fact an absolute triumph!
Rishi explaining the detail of the deal to them
Well.
Currently 349 Tory MPs, vs 301 Other. So 48. If Scott Benton loses the whip that's 46.
But there are 7 Sinn Fein MPs who don't attend the HoC, or vote IIRC.
No wonder the little fella is at the NFU conference trying to present himself as a saviour for farmers and farming - recent poll in Farmers Weekly asked about voting intentions...Lab 61%, tories 4%, others 35%.
The wider article/discussion provided little comfort for either labour or tories; will post a link to it later.
Was there a Q&A after his platitudes to the NFU delegates and, if so, was he asked about trade deals with Australia and NZ which, demonstrably, are disadvantageous to UK farmers?
What about the shortage of vets in the meat & poultry sector?
What about the mass closures of small local abattoirs?
What about increased phyto-sanitary checks and increased regulation on food exports as a direct result of brexit?
I would feel sorry for the farmers aside from how many were in favour of brexit.
Plenty of trailers round here during the referendum period voting for it.
Other groups who didnt vote for it deserve helping before those who did.
will they do the byelection to coincide with the locals inMay
Benton always did seem to be a cockwomble
They're one of the few groups who had a valid argument for Brexit due to the way the EU uses farmers as a bargaining chip between members.
The farmers were on the recieving end of some horrendous disinformation regarding Brexit, yet nothing that was promised to farmers has materialised. We're only just getting the new subsidy system now after 8 years to get it ready.
The farmers have been solidly Tory historically, even though some data shows labour governments actually being more pro-farmer, but to see such a swing to labour should be a damning indictment to the government, but isn't getting much traction in the media
Edit: just to be clear, I'm incredibly anti-brexit and pro-farmer
The farmers were on the recieving end of some horrendous disinformation regarding Brexit
They were not the only ones. Maybe they should have looked into it a bit more and also checked who the government was who was going to deliver the BS they were sold...
Just look up what farmers were promised before you tar and feather them
If I was in their position back in 2016 I'd probably have voted for Brexit.
They've been royally shafted
Just look up what farmers were promised before you tar and feather them
Everyone was promised everything. Which was a rather big hint most people were being lied to.
Sorry but the farmers (obviously not all but as a general group) dug the hole not just for themselves but for the rest of us as well.
bring back boris! the most popular leader!
Love that they've extended that graphic for Liz Truss - so low was her approval.
It's good that Starmer is sooo far ahead of sunak but it's worth noting that his net approval rating is still negative.
It’s good that Starmer is sooo far ahead of sunak but it’s worth noting that his net approval rating is still negative.
And still trending steadily downwards.
No mention of Cameron knowing about Post Office Horizon problems on this thread? Or is it on the PO thread?
As Sunak brought the gammon faced, pig-pleasurer back into Govt I thought it'd be on this thread
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68146054
No mention of Cameron knowing about Post Office Horizon problems on this thread? Or is it on the PO thread?
Its the Cameron government mentioned not him (normally you could say the "tory government" but given how many PMs we have got through that doesnt work for the last 14 years) and the article states there is no evidence he knew personally.
It’s good that Starmer is sooo far ahead of sunak but it’s worth noting that his net approval rating is still negative.
And still trending steadily downwards.
id say he's picked up a bit lately , certainly since December 23, but it could be worse .....
Truss Sunak meanwhile has ecliped Johnson! but not at Truss levels...... yet
id say he’s picked up a bit lately , certainly since December 23, but it could be worse …..
You have to do some serious squinting to see that trend as a trough prior to an upturn and not just a line steadily going in one direction.
Given his constituency has one of the biggest concentrations of hill farmers in England, and they have been stitched up the most royally by Brexit, I'm surprised he can even set foot anywhere near it.
He does only travel in and out of his constituency by helicopter though.
He's like a para in South Armagh in the 1980's
IIU the graph correctly, to get -40 and assuming that's full responses, that's a -70/+30 split - SKS is about 50/50, but as low as -55/+45
Which makes Liz Truss's -90/+10 all the more remarkable. Both that she was so bad that 90% of people thought she was doing a bad job; but also that 10% still thought she was doing a good one.
Interesting contrast between Lil' Rishi and Starmer... but I suppose Rish! is very busy delivering "The Plan"
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1759963826571653163
Do we need a separate thread to keep track of all the Tory shitbaggery?
So today we've had
Baddenoch fighting with the Post Office bod she's making a scapegoat sacked
Gove not declaring hospitality from someone he recommended for £164m in PPE
Cleverly sacking the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration because he has the audacity to do his job and find problems. Fun fact he has written 15 reports waiting for publication, all being sat on by the home office, some dating back to April 2023
The department of transport publishing a delayed bill on the proposed Great British Railway that ever so conveniently means it won't be passed before any election
Strange that Post Offiice bod was sacked DURING the 'bullying' investigation and not the end, surely?
Looks like Jimmy Dimly saw Kemi picking a fight she’s can’t win and said ‘hold my beer…’
Looks like we can expect another protracted Bitch-fight
Rats in a sack
Just call a general election and get it over with FFS!
The approval ratings graphs track each other surprisingly closely. Not perfectly of course, there's some very big unconnected swings for both, but especially from early 2023 onwards Sunak trends more downwards but the actual spikes and troughs (rather than the size) seem to track pretty closely? Usually leadership approval is roughly mirrored, the more we hate one guy the more we like the other, because we see leaders in that context.
I'd like to see the actual numbers to see how true that actually is, the graphs aren't the easiest to read, but if I'm right it's really weird.
badenoch in more trouble
this time its the Canadian government who are calling her out
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1760048288563155218?t=Ptm0UowpwT15rqGHlHSxZg&s=19
regarding Cleverly sacking the immigration inspector could be a big own goal, has the potential to cause big problems for the government, theyre are going in balls deep to keep the gbnews xenophobes happy.
If the government really are sitting on 15 reports saying the entire system is in shambles , theyre going to get a lot more focus now.
Badanoch lies as easily as she breathes.
As a contender for the Tory leadership she’s certainly following the pattern that each one is worse than the last. She’s the spawn of Johnson though
It shows how desperate and bankrupt they are that she is eriously the best they can come up with. She appears to be an absolutely vile, nasty clueless half-wit, who doesn’t seem to have a single redeeming feature as a human being. Much like her main contender, Cruella
It looks like she’s bound to self-destruct before she gets to fulfil her self-appointed prophecy though
She got the kids of death of Sunaks support today
If the government really are sitting on 15 reports saying the entire system is in shambles , theyre going to get a lot more focus now
It’s absolutely insane to pick a fight with someone who knows (literally) where the bodies are buried, but then Cleverly is another one who’s monstrously arrogant but not very bright
Would anyone bet against two senior ministers being shortly forced to resign as this self-inflicted shitshow plays itself out?
They’re both too stupid to acknowledge the obvious… Choose your battles
Look what (somewhat unsurprisingly) came to light this morning in time for PMQ's.
I wonder if Kemi will be alongside Lil Rishi on the front bench or whether she's remembered an urgent photoshoot at the other end of the country?
Bit awks for Sarah Munby, giving an accurate appraisal of the civil servant/minister relationship there. I expect she'll be chucked under the bus as soon as possible.
I doubt don't Sarah Munby has records of meetings with Baddenoch where she was instructed to slow down the payments.
You don't get to permanent secretary without knowing where the bodies are buried
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the surplus more than enough to cover the shortfall in local authority budgets this year? The local government association was using a £1.6billion figure the other week.
That would provide a better impact for people than the tax breaks, but will never be presented as such
You don’t get to permanent secretary without knowing where the bodies are buried
This is the interesting bit for me. Feels like the desperate flailing to shut down the Times story at the weekend was motivated by the next couple of layers of the onion which may start getting peeled away if it turns out to be true.
If Staunton was instructed to slow down the process to recompense Subpostmasters, the purpose of it was to not expose the government finances to additional liabilities in the run-up to the election. The potential liabilities to SPMs are in the hundreds of millions.
It seems likely that this instruction would have not just come from Badenoch, but from Hunt, whose main task right now is trying to generate some headroom for tax-cutting in the run-up to the election.
It's not quite the smoking gun that was hoped for. I mean, it's a gun, and there's some smoke nearby but it's not clear it came from the barrel.
From BBC
"Now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues," the memo said, and that the Post Office needed a plan to "hobble" up to the election.
In response to the memo, a government source said issues around Post Office finances were "a matter of public record" and did not include sub-postmaster compensation, which is being "fully-funded by the government".
"Henry Staunton is either confused or deliberately mixing up the two issues," the source said, adding that he should "apologise to the government and the postmasters".
Mr Staunton's memo indicates the conversation appears to have been broader than merely discussing compensation for the sub-postmasters.
Sources close to Mr Staunton said he understood from the conversation that "long term issues" included the compensation payments to victims of the scandal.
but if Gov stick to the 'ah, when we said there's no appetite for long term issues we didn't consider the compensation that has been going on for years to be long term' then it's easy to just paint it as a bit of confusion.
(just as an aside, can anyone else hear a duck?)
In the meantime, it looks like the argument between Jimmy Dimly and Immigrations InspectorDavid Neal is hotting up nicely too.
You can understand it really. If you've a grudge against any of this lot, which I'm sure plenty of senior servents have, why not help bury them as they'll all be gone in a couple of months anyway
Apparently Rishi and co's mates have been flying in and out of the country on their private jets without any immigration or visa checks. Who'd have thunk it?
Yes that was my first thought too - I was expecting a bit more than that.
I think the problem is that to someone like Staunton who has decades of dealing with ministers and civil servants of the slightly older school with some intelligence and even a few principals, the making public of a nuanced discussion like this WOULD have been a resigning matter for the minister involved.
However this lot have moved the goalposts so far that these days only an email from Badenoch stating how she'd personally rip up any cheques written to a sub-postmaster before the election and flush them down the toilet would do the trick. He may well have miscalculated and attributed too much to people reading between the lines - I think she'll get away with it.
"Apparently Rishi and co’s mates have been flying in and out of the country on their private jets without any immigration or visa checks. Who’d have thunk it?"
Hmmm I wonder how many Russian Oligarchs were on those jets carrying suitcases full of used 50s for various lobbying purposes.....
but if Gov stick to the ‘ah, when we said there’s no appetite for long term issues we didn’t consider the compensation that has been going on for years to be long term’ then it’s easy to just paint it as a bit of confusion.
But every one knows that the only real way of changing the medium/long spending plans in the Post Office are changing either compensation or replacing Horizon. That's it, there's nothing else to talk about.
Wish I hadn't chosen to listen to PMQs this week... the PO stuff is already a mess, and has damaged so many lives, covering up the cover ups and attempting to divert attention elsewhere isn't the response that anyone deserves. It won't help Sunak either... he could offer full transparency considering that politicians of all parties have been involved at some stage... he's just digging a bigger hole for him and his party.
Whether by choice or not, the government appears to be employing the standard Boris tactic for dealing with damaging stories - flood the zone so no-one knows what to focus on.
I know it's the Rishi thread but it's also a bit general Gov related. The PO scandal is clearly high on the agenda but this one from later on shouldn't be missed.
Labour's Ben Bradshaw puts it to Sunak that Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, claims she has "engaged extensively" with LGBT organisations while in office, however a freedom of information request reveals she's not met with "a single one", but has met "two fringe groups" that campaign against transgender rights.
"What is the problem the prime minister and a section of his party has with transgender people?" Bradshaw asks.
Don't re-empower these ****s. Use your vote wisely.
I suspect this will get lost in the debate over Gaza and the multiple Tory dumpsterfires going on at the moment but seems very serious as well as another headache for Sunak
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1760294247557640278?t=yEJieyaZOQCevoLfnwrlNw&s=19
i feel like this story may take off better than a trident missile
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1760296749594210460?t=E5l2Dg1eYHw_z00lRtQiXQ&s=19
"UK to consider suspending arms exports to Israel if Rafah offensive goes ahead"
Someone is getting worried :
Ministerial sources said that while no decision had been made about a suspension of arms export licences, the UK had the ability to respond quickly if the legal advice to ministers said that Israel was in breach of international humanitarian law.
At a meeting in Geneva on Wednesday on the Arms Trade Treaty, UK officials were accused by Palestinian diplomats of breaking the treaty by refusing to rescind arms sales after the ICC ruled that Israel must ensure its forces did not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Earlier this month The Hague district court ordered the Dutch government to stop the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel within seven days due to the risk of serious violations of international humanitarian law and referred to the ATT and EU policy.
Wow this thread has become a ghost town since all the chaos in Parliament yesterday.
Wow this thread has become a ghost town since all the chaos in Parliament yesterday.
I think they all debunked to the Starmer thread to blame him for the chaos yesterday.
Sunak should be forgotten as just waiting for him to call election and lose it now aren't we? Focus should rightly be on the next PM who is doing a cracking job isn't he...
I think they all debunked to the Starmer thread to blame him for the chaos yesterday.
But Starmer didn't do anything!
It's a well-known fact that Starmer never does anything. Which is why he is such a great leader of the opposition.
Focus should rightly be on the next PM who is doing a cracking job isn’t he…
20 plus point lead in the polls and on for a cracking majority, yes I'd agree with you Starmer is nailing it.
His approval has been steadily declining for months.
So yeah, definitely nailing it.
More fun for Rishi today as his predecessor, who still inexplicably has a large fan club amongst his backbenchers and the membership has now gone full-on, far-right, whacko conspiracy-theory nutjob…
Britain’s ‘deep state’ thwarted my plans, Liz Truss tells US far-right summit
She really is madder than a tube of kittens
I wonder what the little fella thinks of his new role as a lefty member of the ‘Deep State’?
Who do the Tories want to replace Hoyle? He lets them get away with crap all the time so why do they want him out?
The ones who get away with the crap aren't the ones calling for him to go
I'm really not a fan of Hoyle, but it's he potentially the best of a bad bunch?
Next speaker will be a Tory too, so who would they put forward?
Dunno, but the convention is that they'd get to keep their seat and wage. So I suspect they'll be plenty of Conservatives who'd put themselves forward to avoid having to fight a contested seat at the next election.
latest polls show Sunak is still boned
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1760649865351078342
not as bad at savanta
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1760643631566774277
but still terrible
Sunak has a month at the latest to call a GE to have it with the locals in May
I still dont see that happening
He is in no rush to call the elections as I heard him say just a few days ago how hard he is working to deliver his pledges to everyone, why would he want to stop delivering that great stuff.
@kimbers It’s a bit of a gamble.
Good LEs and it makes his position stronger for the GE, bad LEs (which frankly seems more likely) and he’ll have a load of pissed off local activists who won’t campaign.
She really is madder than a tube of kittens
Probably taking home a shitload of cash for telling the audience what it wants to hear so maybe not mad.
Even without that she has a choice between admitting the plans she had for years and schemed to the top of the tory party for were in fact shit or blaming someone or something else.
Given the position of power she was in she has to go for deep state as the evil opponents.
Get ready for the Tories to celebrate lowering energy prices (not reverting back to the low pre-inflation of course.) And nothing to do with them.
I reckon this is just temporary dip because that's how it works as things get bumpy.
But the Tories will love it. Also remember everything has gone up loads including anything to do with interest rates and they've not gone down. (The general price level.)
She really is madder than a tube of kittens
🤣 This really made me laugh. I know it's not funny really though. She's very dangerous. And stupid. A terrifying combination.
I think they all debunked to the Starmer thread to blame him for the chaos yesterday.”
I just popped onto that thread to see how it was going… I now regret that choice.
‘That’ thread is the STW equivalent of Super Hans New Year’s Eve party 😂
^^ lol 😁
the Tories are having a normal one
Truss has has done more (paid) trips to America than speeches in the commons this year & the stuff she said with bannon was bonkers
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1761146826588053890?t=CO9sbBCkGi1YYhuxFnM2Zg&s=19
Sunak has been out courting the Gilet Jones in wales
https://twitter.com/JonesyFay/status/1761033233842471013?t=b2_bWr0iwQiYDeYZrx3wXg&s=19
and lee Anderson has gone full Tommy Robinson
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1761146872352145869?t=uS5MlF64qMt70akNF9h3Nw&s=19
is there a sort of mania that grips a party when they're stuck consistently 20pts behind in the polls?
Gilet Jones
I'm actually way prouder of that than i should be
Seems like it’s a deliberate campaign from the nutjobs. Cruella has waded in with her size 12’s, saying the same thing in the Torygraph
They’re all completely hatstand, aren’t they?
Just wait until she finds out who’s actually been in charge of Britain for the last 14 years
This sums up the Truss fandango quite nicely:
https://twitter.com/cbrookmyre/status/1761070124579115193
is there a sort of mania that grips a party when they’re stuck consistently 20pts behind in the polls?
Anderson's comments are very similar to those made by David Cameron 18 years ago:
It didn't help Zac Goldsmith to win the London Mayoral election, in fact it almost certainly backfired and helped Sadiq Khan.
There is no reason to believe that the latest anti-Khan islamophobia by the Tories will be any more productive.
Looks like the Tories are taking a long run up to a May 2nd election day by trying to bleed talking points from the London Mayoral Election on the same day into the national campaign, where there may even be a better reception for that kind of culture war shit.
Now the Starmer thread has been closed they're coming here to, no doubt, push the same views which will lead to this thread also being closed.
I give it two weeks.
Oh joy! Something to look forward to. You know how every town needs a pub that’s a nobhead magnet, to keep them out of every other drinking establishment…
Looks like I’ll have to retire this then
Meanwhile Sunak and gang have normalised this kind of behaviour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68388579