Guardian live election text feed:
Here is [a picture of] Rishi Sunak looking at a laptop on a visit to Great Oldbury Primary Academy in Stonehouse this afternoon. We hope, for his sake, he’s not looking at Twitter …
The immediate interest for me is how tonitghts debate plays out
He's not doing the debate tonight, Mordaunt is. Bet she's thrilled about that! 😂
The alternative being he’s planning all these gaffs himself for reasons known only to himself.
Or its just the inevitable fall-out of a group of people that were [by all accounts] . 1. caught off-guard by the sudden announcement of the date of the election that went against their advice, and 2. given the polling and odds on the gambling sites are now in full on panic mode and this is result of them running about like headless chickens. I get them impression that no one is really in charge, or more likely it's a game of reverse pass the parcel when the idea is not to be holding the parcel when the music stops in July.
dazh - that is a crying shame - unusually I was looking forward to some bloodsports
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1798968915298496877
yet Biden, Macron and Scholz seemed to have found the time, ****ing Tory Shills
@Solarider - fair enough, I hadn't considered the VAT on school fees effecting anyone in that way as I don't know anyone that privately educates their kids that couldn't afford the extra. I do feel for you and have a lot of sympathy with the "private schools take the pressure off public schools" line but private schools aren't charities and the fees shouldn't be VAT free. If ever there was a luxury item, it's private education.
I hope for your sake it's a nuanced introduction.
Perhaps if the rich had to use the same schools, hospitals, dentists, doctors…
I have private medical insurance (which unfortunately I'm getting a lot of use from at the moment). The dentists I use are the same private dentists as anywhere else - the real scandal there is that it's practically impossible to get enrolled as an NHS patient! Bizarrely the hospitals and doctors and surgeons private patients use are often the same as rhe ones NHS patients use - just on different days and often with shorter wait times. Ultimately it is a weird system in which many medical staff allow their private patients fees to "top up" their continued employment in the NHS. And of course there is no private A and E etc.
It shouldn't be this way.
“ If ever there was a luxury item, it’s private education.”
that and a rolling collection of very expensive titanium bikes.
Am wondering what is going to happen on HIGNFY later. They only have 30 minutes
Earlier in the thread someone started doing a Day 1, Day 2 list of gaffs. I can only assume that has stopped due to the author getting RSI from having to type so much.
Well I for one sincerely hope Sunak doesn't resign before the election. He's doing s great job, crack on lad.
Presumably the tories would have to install an emergency interim leader. But who?
I hope they've not found a way to crowbar Johnson in somewhere.
Starting to see some fall-out from some party functionaries....... i didn't click the telegrah link - god no
Tories have apparently suspended all online advertisingtoday.......
@politecameraaction except dentists aren’t employed by the nhs and the nhs doesn’t currently pay their businesses enough to remain viable without being subsidised by private income....
hate to say it but no one is fixing nhs dentistry anymore, that ship sailed somewhere in the last 14 years
Mordaunt must be absolutely fuming about being trotted out tonight.
Obviously in one way it raises her profile (for which she is about as craven an attention-seeker as I've seen).
But surely, if she makes it through election night, she knows that if she gets the leadership Labour can just play her defence of the indefensible back at her when she gets a bit big for her boots.
This implosion is so utterly delicious to see.
So I can’t see why a Lord couldn’t be leader of the opposition.
PMQs would be a problem and it would provide a handy attack option if bored/on back foot "unelected blah blah".
The pragmatic solution is to get an MP in a safe seat to quit and hold a by-election
Alec Douglas-Home sort of did this when he became PM whilst a Earl.
Not wanting to worry any tories in a safe seat but that by-election was due to the death of the incumbent though.
Mordaunt must be absolutely fuming about being trotted out tonight.
She’ll dress up in finery, brandish a sword and cry out “there can be only one”
He’s not doing the debate tonight, Mordaunt is. Bet she’s thrilled about that! 😂
Ah - one is minded of the avalanche of "Sir Fear Starmer" nonsense shovelled out this week.
I could certainly see a way that Cameron is interim leader if Sunak loses his seat or quits, pending a leadership election?
WRT school fees, they're set at what the private schools think the market will pay (hence why they've gone up drastically in real terms in a generation - not sure my parents or in-laws would have been able to afford it now). My suspicion is that there will be a decrease in pre-tax fees from a lot of schools so the overall increase is less than 20%, achieved either by the school just swallowing it, by increasing class sizes or by making things that are currently included extras.
Mordaunt
We can only hope she finds some backbone and actually criticises the behaviour of her overlord in the debate tonight...
This could be a lot of fun!
Quick one on the private schools thing.
They don't have to pass on all of the 20%. They could choose to cut back on, say, sport facilities, or funded school trips. All the things that state schools effectively cut back on too to preserve their standard of teaching. And private schools also have a proportionately high number of very rich former pupils who can be tapped up for help.
If Labour win and the policy is implemented I would doubt if private schools will lose more than 10% of their pupils and probably less than 5% will go under.
We can only hope she finds some backbone and actually criticises the behaviour of her overlord in the debate tonight…
Whatever her supposed moderacy she is still a Tory minister who has prospered under the Brexit incarnation of the Tories. She will only find backbone if it is to her advantage to do so.
Did I just hear the prime minister apologised for leaving Europe?
😉
Mordaunt, like many of the current ghastly cohort, is only there as they've purged the old fashioned Tories and we're left with the current absolute shower of C you next Tuesdays.
On twitter someone has just pointed out that Mordaunt is a serving RN reservist - so may have conflicting loyalists...
turns out remainers are more "patriotic" than leavers, fancy that.
Unfortunately the tories have managed to get candidates in all but 1 seat
I think reform are about 50 short, not sure how many have incumbent tories
Is there a published list available yet kimbers?
Unfortunately the tories have managed to get candidates in all but 1 seat
I'm betting at least 4 drop out when some journo unearths the compromising pictures or ineligibility to stand....
4? I reckon that a bit of digging will end up with a list of at least 20 (and yes I think I am being generous with 20). They are hardly going to be picking the top tier
Lammy on R4 just now making it absolutely clear that Labour have nothing to say about Palestine. Statehood at some undetermined time in the future, subject to Israeli veto. Another Green vote here.
It’s convention that the PM is an MP, but not essential. So I can’t see why a Lord couldn’t be leader of the opposition.
It may theoretically be possible for a non MP to be PM, but its a tory party requirement that the Leader of the Conservative Party is a serving MP. I'm not sure what happens if they lose their seat. However I think its irrelevant, Rishi won't quit now - he knows he's gone on July 5th. He's probably already got a flight to California booked. When leaders quit whilst in official office, they almost invariably remain in post till the next leader is elected.
Penny will have an interesting dilemma tonight - is she trying to get conservatives across the country to think of her as a future leader or is she trying to get reelected - in 2005 she lost that seat by a small % to the labour candidate.
Lammy on R4 just now making it absolutely clear that Labour have nothing to say about Palestine. Statehood at some undetermined time in the future, subject to Israeli veto. Another Green vote here.
Of course they don’t, they admitted the utterly ****ing odious self confessed Zionist shitlord Luke Akehurst, he’s little more than a globule of fat n’ gristle
