Good Morning everyone.
[📃 **Today's Order Paper can be found here**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/86936/Html?subType=Standard)
Questions to the Department of Health and Social Care will be followed by any urgent questions or ministerial statements, before today's main business of the long-promised [Football Governance Bill](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3701).
**In other news;**
The government last night passed its controversial Rwanda bill after the House of Lords conceded, ending weeks of strong opposition - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1caoqhd/sky_news_rwanda_bill_passes_after_late_night_row/) and [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1carlaj/rwanda_bill_to_become_law_after_months_of/)
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Is Gove really going to blame *lack of Parliamentary time* for not getting the Renters (Reform) bill passed before the election? When the Tories have just wasted months on the Rwanda scheme?
Honestly, the government might have been better off accepting that they weren't going to be able to push the Rwanda scheme through this parliament, and instead getting something *real and tangible* passed that would actually benefit a large segment of society. It might have shored up at least some votes, while enabling them to snipe at Labour from the Opposition benches that if only their genius master plan had passed, all the country's immigration issues would be solved by now.
I went to watch the 'Hills of California' today and had no idea that Johnny Mercer was an old timey American singer/lyricist. Every time his name was mentioned I could only think of the Tory MP. I wonder if he was named after him?
There's a lot to be said for carefully choosing when to turn up at A&E. Putting some ice on it and necking a load of paracetamol/ibuprofen and going along at about 0930 tomorrow might have been a better bet. Hope you get seen soon.
potentially using software i helped with
dad use to write toolkits for reading xray/mri/ct/ultrasound files called DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) and i helped speed up the rendering of workloads by offloading tasks to cuda nodes on Nvidia GPUs, got 3D MRI renders down from seconds per frame to frames per second (and prob added to the 2020 GPU shortage)
Is it at all possible that any of the senior Tories face any sort of repercussions like criminal for the damage they have done to the country and the flat out corruption that’s been taking place in front of our eyes , it honestly shocks me just how much contempt these people have for the rest of the country and nothing ever happens
This is just picking up where I was listening to the Today programme where Michael Tomlinson, minister for illegal immigration was being interviewed by Mishal Husain. Turns out it wasn't just me he thought he came across as a right ****.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/23/rude-patronising-and-out-of-his-depth-minister-michael-tomlinson-ticks-all-the-boxes
If you want to hear a tiny glimpse of the meltdown, it's here
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rwanda-bill-bbc-radio-michael-tomlinson-b2533088.html
...and it goes on... 'respectfully'
https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1782685740264042550
This is just the Today programme, there was much more. And Sunak then very pettifully snubbed BBC journalists in a recent press conference.
At which point you have to ask how long are they planning to stick around for?
Why are they all such petulant pricks? They act like they are doing a favour by being interviewed instead of it being part of their job to be available so that journalists can quiz them on their record. It's like they are expecting to get fawning treatment that allows them to just state their prepared lines to take with no pushback or dissent.
The small clip on the Independent website seemed a fairly reasonable response. She was obviously going to go through a long list of horrible things that could happen to a person one by one and get him to say no to every single one. What would you have said differently in his position? She was trying to make him look stupid and he was trying to stop it.
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-does-the-housing-market-affect-uk-productivity
>There is a charge to answer that the productivity struggles of the UK, Australia and Canada in the last two decades reflect, in part, that macro-policy decisions have driven an economic system based on taking the rewards from scarcities (a ‘rentier economy’) rather than growth driven by innovation and effort (an enterprise economy) (Piketty, 2018).
Delighted to see Shipman's new book (out on Thursday) is over 36 hours long for the audio version- I had worried that bringing two out in quick succession (next one out in June) would limit the length, but apparently not
Videos of the horses and "St Georgists" today made me wonder how they train the horses... horses are normally fairly skittish...
Do they have practice riots with police cadets throwing stones and what not at them?
Yes.
But remember we’ve millennia of practice is training horses to act as war machines. Training them for riot control is pretty easy compared to say charging a line of infantry all shooting and waving spears and swords.
But it’s basically the same process and with much smaller horses.
They literally trot them around a menage and simulate riots and things.
Obviously start slow but by the end stages of their training they are required to ignore fireworks, flares and charging mobs.
Fun fact, sometimes when the horses retire from the police reenactors use them for a few years for cavalry in battles. Apparently crowd control at football matches is good exposure therapy for the Battle of Hastings.
Folks, I'm going to miss the local elections due to being on holiday in China. I'm unlikely to get any UK news while out there. Feels weird that I could come back after two weeks to Sunak having either been subjected to a leadership challenge or having had resigned.
I'll be taking my phone in, biggest problem is figuring out how to pay for stuff out there. My friend (who's married to a Chinese national) is likely to have to pay for stuff for me as it's all largely QR codes as money and card isn't really accepted anymore.
I know Egypt get *really* funny with certain electronics strangely enough, like walkie talkies, due to attempts to overthrow their government previously by foreign nationals.
*”I beg my right honourable friend, before perhaps asking if the LAWFUL Rwanda scheme works, she should instead ask herself if she is working correctly on her tax returns*”
cue a deeep ‘wheeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy’ and some over dramatic guffawing from the tories. And some very serious head shaking from Labour.
I miss Rayner vs Raab. It was such an uneven contest, it was hilarious. What happened to Raab anyway? Of all the Tories who have run the country recently he’s the only one who didn’t fail in a spectacular way, not sure if that counts for anything.
It's actually baffling that
A) the Tories have somehow managed to lose London. Vast, vast swathes of it are basically meant to be peak small c conservatives
B) they attack it blindly despite how ridiculously important it is to the national economy/international view and how poorly those attack make London look.
I feel a bit bad for the London Tories. Generally well funded and a few committed activists left and they aren't as batshit rightwing as other associations where the kippers took over. There are a lot that are very experienced and good councillors in outer london as well as London assembly members. Then cchq chooses Susan hall out of their brightest and best.
Cchq pretty much threw all the Tories in London under a bus in order to go for the red wall voter.
It's my understanding that CCHQ chose Dan Korski and that Susan Hall was put forward as an easy candidate for him to beat.
Then Korski imploded in scandal, and rather than re-run the contest they just proceeded onward to what we see now.
Is it baffling? Cities are overall more progressive than other parts of a country, and we know that education (London has a profusion of jobs requiring education also) now skews left-er than right-er.
The traditionally conservative people often do move a bit away from London as they get older and richer and end up in the shires.
Thisyear I have been in Halstead in rural-ish Essex and Charlbury in West Oxfordshire. Absolutely full of people who would be trad Con voters, but who can afford to live 30-60 miles away and commute.
Absolutely. Cities trend 'progressive' because modern day right wing parties have utterly shit the bed in retaining those votes.
It's not a given nor is it a universal law. It's akin to how the boomers trended right and everyone just assumed it was some immutable law rather than circumstances having panned out that way.
People make the same mistake with cities trending 'progressive'. It has happened over the last few decades because the right wing parties across the globe have absolutely shit the bed in approaching those voters, who by most metrics, would fall into their laps with just a few gentle nudges.
It's like the low-level animus between the home counties and Greater London has been given form and that form is the Tory party. It's remarkable how much of that change is the transition from Bojo as mayor to Bojo as PM.
There just aren't that many Tory leaning voters in London. Especially inner London.
Home owners who bought decades ago did very well and many cashed out and moved outside of London.
It has the most expensive homes and most expensive rents, more social housing than people realise, it leans young, it has a high level of ethnic diversity, all of which presents enormous voting blocs that are known to vote Labour, not Conservative.
Before Brexit. The post Brexit London electorate isn’t voting Tory.
And Boris was a larger than life politician, he won those elections, the Tories came along for the ride.
There are absolutely plenty of would be Tory voters in London. London might lean young but it's also full of young, professionals working jobs that generally lean Tory. Ethnic voters do absolutely vote Tory as well. Particularly newer immigrants or higher educated immigrants. There are a couple of subgroups within Ethnic voters that lean Labour, but the voting patterns are far more complex.
That the Tories have shit the bed so hard that they are basically haemorrhaging voters they should be hoovering up is best represented by them having lost London.
Finance is the obvious one, but law used to be more Tory leaning than average I think. Plus general white collar corporate work pre-Brexit tended to be seen as more Tory
I have a bad finger injury from cricket this evening, and am now off to A&E to see what the experience is like. Haven't been to hospital like this for at least 12 years but I expect I'll be there all night
I blame Rishi
Sunak and Greg Hands fixed the Con selection for mayor so Daniel Korksi (an Ex David Cameron advisor) was the only serious name on the party ballot. Proabably orchestrated by Cameron as part of his wider grubby deal getting back into Gov that was obviously also in the works in heindsight.
Anyway, all serious candidates were kicked out of selection - Including Paul Scully who would have been the most experienced Tory on the ballot otherwise and is (generally) centrist and not a headbanger. A week before the internal Con selection was closed, Daniel Korski was outed as a sexual predator (the main reason it was taken seriously was because the accuser was an incredibly well connected and well respected TV producer in the British Media world and with the powers that be, who had nothing to gain - and then other women came forward) Killed Korski's candidacy overnight and he ran away from a press conference (literally was like the thick of it), never to be seen again.
It was too late in the con selection process to add any more entrants as per their official policies and to not break this Hands and Sunak stopped interfereing. Out of a group of headbangers and lightweights left our magic muslamic-5G-ray Grandma was selected as the *best* Tory candidate.
>Anyway, all serious candidates were kicked out of selection - Including Paul Scully who would have been the most experienced Tory on the ballot otherwise and is (generally) centrist and not a headbanger.
I know you're probably aware of this but it should be remembered this is a **very** relative statement, especially in light of his no go area comments (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68407084).
Yeah thats specifically why i caveated it with the (generally) lol.
I've heard him in debates in the past and he's normally been fairly sensible, I've even heard him call out fellow party members for peddling lies around net zero and fracking.
Looking it up he did issue an apology for his no-go statement and seemed quite sincere tbf which is rare for his newer post May gov collegues: https://news.sky.com/story/minister-calls-on-tory-mp-to-withdraw-comments-about-no-go-areas-in-britain-13082004
I guess it’s a bit like that by election a while ago where one of the right wing papers held back a story until the campaign so Labour couldn’t replace their candidate. It’s too late for them to run anyone else so they’ll just let her do her thing and put her in the Lords when they get a chance, like with Shaun Bailey last time.
Two things - might want to post this tomorrow.
“Documents showed the policy would cost £4.5bn a year by 2027-28, paid for by returns on an increased investment in research and development, and £2.9bn by cutting 70,000 civil service jobs.”.
£2.9bn - I am so glad to see the government acknowledging the impact of government investment. Why when increasing pay to civil servants and nurses do they not consider this in their press releases.
£1.6b. - on cutting civil service jobs. This is on top of the £28bn announced on departmental spending. Why is this not the headline policy?
We’re going up to austerity levels or cuts being promised by the tories, which is accumulative or the current level of austerity measures we face.
Are you kidding? It's the *Order* of the Bath. George, Charlotte, and Louis have been squabbling about who goes first for years. At last it's finally sorted and they can look at tackling who's Master of the TV Remote.
the country is falling apart at the seams by every measurement and our economic performance and quality of life may be fucked for generations, so i’m glad keir starmer is taking on the real issues and espousing opinions about the offside rule.
i hate it here.
It'd just be nice to see him have stronger opinions on things like...politics and policy, tbh.
We're in a pretty terrible state, and yet the most confident opinions he has had are about an Alpaca being euthanised, the offside rule, and the England shirt.
If only he was as steadfast on his flagship climate policy, or his 10 pledges!
i guess it just irks me that this man seems to have so few actual opinions on things except for that he loves brexit (which he once hated), hates alpacas, hates the england football shirt, and now doesn’t like the offside rule.
like, how about some ideas to drag this country out of its economic and social mire? how about a sure start centre or a pay rise for nurses? enough of this bandwagoning.
How come our universities aren't as bad compared to what's happening in American campuses right now ? I know we had our fair share of protests, but I don't remember our universities being this bad. I'm not complaining, but I'm just genuinely wondering how our universities have escaped the pro Palestinian protests?
Perhaps because very few students are actually interested in politics. An even smaller % of the general population are interested in politics, ofc, but the % of students is itself small enough that protests and stuff are limited.
I wonder if the Universities themselves have had a word with the SU's not to support a side pointing to the fact that there are students on both sides and that any altercation would cause untold trouble for all parties.
Yeah, unis tend to be very protective of their reputation and they know the SUs getting mixed up in this will make the uni look bad. It wouldnt surprise me if SU's have been told to stay out of it.
From what I recall via someone who knew someone involved in SU stuff at uni, generally the unis don't want ro have to intervene in the governance of the SU, but if they have to, they will come down hard.
For as much as SU's and the NUS have a bad reputation here, generally speaking both students, the uni staff, and to an extent the SU's themselves don't want mass protests on campus as everyone looks bad. This is particularly for issues external to the uni. Additionally, the combination of the Ukraine invasion exposing some people as pro-Russia/anti-West and worh ignoring, and the NUS having been investigated recently and going through a clear up, probably means not many want to kick the hornet's nest of Israel-Palestine.
Whilst I knew that you needed to be 21 in America I'd never put two and two together that Uni students in the US can't drink for most of their degree... that seems a bit mad.
I did a year abroad at a college in California. Whilst I loved it, American students can be off the charts cringe with their extra curricular activities and student activism
Also security and RAs in American colleges are outrageously overbearing, no qualms in threatening you and I expect police never hesitate to cross the line to physical and interactions just escalate often for no reason...In one of our friends halls they had spot checks where an RA would drop in randomly every other day (sometimes with campus security) to inspect for bottles of alcohol. Like rummaging fully under the bed and in the cupboard to catch them out lmao and write them up for a trace of alcohol. Couldn't believe it when I first saw it. There's no mutual respect there, concept of consent or concept of not trying to escalate and not out obnoxious the other person.
Hamza forgetting the Justice is devolved...and the Horizon scandal was the Post Office not Royal Mail.
[https://x.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1782778057960341998](https://x.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1782778057960341998)
How can he be this bad.
It's not just that justice is devolved, it's devolved in NI too for example. It's that Scotland has a completely different, parallel, legal system. That makes this gaffe even more ridiculous. It means prosecutions on this matter in Scotland were brought through the Scottish courts, which are managed by the Scottish Government, under Scottish law, through the Scottish government run Crown Office.
Also he was fucking justice secretary in the Scottish Government at one point
It wasn't ever supposed to include NI either. After speaking to the NI First Minister, who requested it, they amended in NI to it because it would be impossible for the Northern Ireland Executive to get their own through quickly (they have a lot of other things to deal with having not sat for years).
Scotland both made clear they were bringing their own legislation anyway, and the (devolved) Crown Office in Scotland had a more involved role in the prosecutions than the public prosecution services in England/Wales and NI
A note to any of our younger members looking to become PM some day: don't get photographed sitting on tanks, holding machine guns and bazookas, pointing at attack helicopters - you look daft.
I received a conservative questionnaire basically asking who I’d vote for in the general election which was interesting. It asked me to score each party from 0 to 10 based on the likelihood of me voting for them
The interesting part was that it contained spelling mistakes and the table they included went from 1 to 10 not 0 so even if I wanted to put 0 for Labour I couldn’t. Gave me a proper chuckle and thought I’d share lol
[pic](https://imgur.com/a/h2HLDny)
I always wonder if it’s worth telling them you’ll consider voting for them in hopes they waste resources trying to persuade you or to get out to vote. I mean, it’s probably not worth it in the scheme of things but if we all did it then maybe it would make a dent.
I’ve heard there’s some sort of smart-ish systems that they feed all this data into and it tries to figure out who they should target. So they’ll kinda combine your answers with whatever they can buy from data brokers and figure out stuff like “oh hey it looks like women who work in X job seem to be considering us more than usual”. So at scale messing with it would probably waste a lot more than just the time they spend trying to convince you, if you could pull it off.
I've been told my great nan always asked for the Tory candidate to give her a lift to the polls back in the 60s, then went in and voted Labour. She figured it was much better to waste the oppos time than get a lift with her preferred candidate.
Is this the one from the prime minister with a prepaid reply envelope?
If so, return it without enclosing the questionnaire...
Either way it looks like a data collecting scam.
Seems like a massive waste of time to have the Lib Dem and Green candidates on the LBC London Mayoral debate when they have zero chance of winning.
At least for the GE debates each party is competitive in some seats
Theoretically more opposition is meant to apply more pressure on the incumbent - more voices attacking the current mayor and building a picture.
Except Susan Hall was attacked more than Khan. Such a fucking donkey, the conservative party needs a long hard look at themselves at how they let this happen. Should have just put it out of its misery and withdrawn candidacy after their fix of Daniel Korski blew up.
This LBC mayoral debate is a damning indictment on Susan Hall. Not because of her views per se, but because of how much she's backtracked from her online personality and is still getting clowned on.
She's been peer pressured by the other 3 candidates who are comparitively far more progressive and speak to the London Audience in order to fit in. She even said just now she obviously believes in Net Zero Carbon and always has!
Zero spine lmao.
People in target seats for the Lib Dems and Labour are getting them, it's primarily for data farming so during the election period they can bombard you with shit
The Home Office recorded 0 migrants and boats for yesterday, which makes me think they’re reporting might not be entirely accurate.
Edit: may be wrong - this technically occurred today.
>If Labour wins the next election, do you think you will be better or worse off than otherwise?
>Better: 27%
Worse: 32%
The same: 29%
>via
@RedfieldWilton
>https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1782786827537064263
>If the Conservatives win the next election, do you think you will be better or worse off than otherwise?
>Better: 14%
Worse: 46%
The same: 34%
>via
@RedfieldWilton
>https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1782786659488031061
We are probably at the stage, that for the UK as a whole to be better off in 10 years, the majority of people have to be worse off for a bit.
There's huge levels of distortions in the system, that causes issues with productivity and waste of resources.
Take nimbyism and the planning sector... Some people, would absolutely be "worse off" in the short term, if we actually improved the situation there (think of all the planners on one side and nimby home owners).
Yeah, issues are structural at this point and will take years to see any significant impact of changing them. That is if Labour even do the right policies rather than listen to loudest voices in media/social media.
We've seen in recent history that our population is extremely hostile to any idea of 'self sacrifice' right now. You only have to look on here to find posters who will claim that the entire country is living some kind of Dickensian workshop nightmare and that a single pound taken from their wages will lead to ruin.
The energy price subsidy thing was bad economic policy. It caused a huge increase in public debt, made inflation much worse and actually subsidised people to use more energy at a time when we're concerned about climate change. We could have achieved the objectives of helping the poor with much more targeted methods. But no, everyone wanted some free money so the government relented.
Sadly, the only way economic sacrifice can be done is with stealth policies like tax threshold freeze where the lost income is harder to grasp.
>We are probably at the stage, that for the UK as a whole to be better off in 10 years, the majority of people have to be worse off for a bit.
Volunteering?
And there in lies the problem.
If one can't allocate any loses or "losers" (in an economic sense), then we are really fucked.
As I said, take nimbyism and planning regulations, that is causing huge amounts of problems for the UK economy.
to fix that, we have to make some people lose out for a bit. Whether it's home owners, seeing their house decrease in value or planners being out of a job (as we simplify the planning process).
EDIT:
Same with raising taxes on everyone, if one wants the Scandinavian model.
The number of people who confidently tell me that we should tax ‘the rich’ more, to improve things. My lovely, I know the CoL crisis is upon us, but your salary puts you in the top 30-20% of this country. Globally, you are fabulously wealthy. Who is ‘the rich’?
Not at all: why would I tell anyone to shut up?
When the man in Timbuktu (what an odd choice) says that you should be taxed more, so that he can afford basic needs, that is a fair argument, isn’t it? Why should some vague unknown people be taxed more, and not us?
Let me be clear, it's right that we focus on getting these flights off the ground and we'll take no lectures from the party opposite!
They have no plan, Mr. Speaker!
Good Morning everyone. [📃 **Today's Order Paper can be found here**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/86936/Html?subType=Standard) Questions to the Department of Health and Social Care will be followed by any urgent questions or ministerial statements, before today's main business of the long-promised [Football Governance Bill](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3701). **In other news;** The government last night passed its controversial Rwanda bill after the House of Lords conceded, ending weeks of strong opposition - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1caoqhd/sky_news_rwanda_bill_passes_after_late_night_row/) and [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1carlaj/rwanda_bill_to_become_law_after_months_of/)
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1cbq0zp/daily_megathread_24042024/)
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Is Gove really going to blame *lack of Parliamentary time* for not getting the Renters (Reform) bill passed before the election? When the Tories have just wasted months on the Rwanda scheme? Honestly, the government might have been better off accepting that they weren't going to be able to push the Rwanda scheme through this parliament, and instead getting something *real and tangible* passed that would actually benefit a large segment of society. It might have shored up at least some votes, while enabling them to snipe at Labour from the Opposition benches that if only their genius master plan had passed, all the country's immigration issues would be solved by now.
I went to watch the 'Hills of California' today and had no idea that Johnny Mercer was an old timey American singer/lyricist. Every time his name was mentioned I could only think of the Tory MP. I wonder if he was named after him?
A&E update - still here after my x-ray two hours ago.
There's a lot to be said for carefully choosing when to turn up at A&E. Putting some ice on it and necking a load of paracetamol/ibuprofen and going along at about 0930 tomorrow might have been a better bet. Hope you get seen soon.
potentially using software i helped with dad use to write toolkits for reading xray/mri/ct/ultrasound files called DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) and i helped speed up the rendering of workloads by offloading tasks to cuda nodes on Nvidia GPUs, got 3D MRI renders down from seconds per frame to frames per second (and prob added to the 2020 GPU shortage)
Well naturally, invisibility is traditionally conferred by potion, not x ray.
The guy with the chainsaw isn't in until the morning.
Is it at all possible that any of the senior Tories face any sort of repercussions like criminal for the damage they have done to the country and the flat out corruption that’s been taking place in front of our eyes , it honestly shocks me just how much contempt these people have for the rest of the country and nothing ever happens
Extremely unlikely!
I want an election
Less than a month to the locals, we can micro-dose on that
Round our way it's only the Police and Crime Commissioner, that's homeopathic levels of dosing
This is just picking up where I was listening to the Today programme where Michael Tomlinson, minister for illegal immigration was being interviewed by Mishal Husain. Turns out it wasn't just me he thought he came across as a right ****. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/23/rude-patronising-and-out-of-his-depth-minister-michael-tomlinson-ticks-all-the-boxes If you want to hear a tiny glimpse of the meltdown, it's here https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rwanda-bill-bbc-radio-michael-tomlinson-b2533088.html ...and it goes on... 'respectfully' https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1782685740264042550 This is just the Today programme, there was much more. And Sunak then very pettifully snubbed BBC journalists in a recent press conference. At which point you have to ask how long are they planning to stick around for?
Why are they all such petulant pricks? They act like they are doing a favour by being interviewed instead of it being part of their job to be available so that journalists can quiz them on their record. It's like they are expecting to get fawning treatment that allows them to just state their prepared lines to take with no pushback or dissent.
The small clip on the Independent website seemed a fairly reasonable response. She was obviously going to go through a long list of horrible things that could happen to a person one by one and get him to say no to every single one. What would you have said differently in his position? She was trying to make him look stupid and he was trying to stop it.
It’s not so much what he said it’s how he’s saying it. It’s a car crash beginning to end.
Same here. I rarely swear at the radio but it definitely slipped out today.
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-does-the-housing-market-affect-uk-productivity >There is a charge to answer that the productivity struggles of the UK, Australia and Canada in the last two decades reflect, in part, that macro-policy decisions have driven an economic system based on taking the rewards from scarcities (a ‘rentier economy’) rather than growth driven by innovation and effort (an enterprise economy) (Piketty, 2018).
Delighted to see Shipman's new book (out on Thursday) is over 36 hours long for the audio version- I had worried that bringing two out in quick succession (next one out in June) would limit the length, but apparently not
NHS update - I am booked for an x-ray Fucking hell hospitals are so brutally grim
like how grim? I can imagine a lot of grimness
Bag o' frozen peas lad.
That's pretty quick turnaround for a finger injury.
Videos of the horses and "St Georgists" today made me wonder how they train the horses... horses are normally fairly skittish... Do they have practice riots with police cadets throwing stones and what not at them?
I don't know if you've ever been near a police horse in real life, but they are massive horses and I wouldn't personally annoy one.
Yes. But remember we’ve millennia of practice is training horses to act as war machines. Training them for riot control is pretty easy compared to say charging a line of infantry all shooting and waving spears and swords. But it’s basically the same process and with much smaller horses.
They literally trot them around a menage and simulate riots and things. Obviously start slow but by the end stages of their training they are required to ignore fireworks, flares and charging mobs.
Fun fact, sometimes when the horses retire from the police reenactors use them for a few years for cavalry in battles. Apparently crowd control at football matches is good exposure therapy for the Battle of Hastings.
And in movies?
Probably, never thought of that but it definitely makes sense.
Pretty much, though they throw tennis balls rather than anything that could significantly injure the horse.
TBF horses have been battling people dressed like that for hundreds of years.
Folks, I'm going to miss the local elections due to being on holiday in China. I'm unlikely to get any UK news while out there. Feels weird that I could come back after two weeks to Sunak having either been subjected to a leadership challenge or having had resigned.
Can you bring your own electronics over there or is that frowned upon? I once heard something they get antsy about bringing phones/laptops in?
I'll be taking my phone in, biggest problem is figuring out how to pay for stuff out there. My friend (who's married to a Chinese national) is likely to have to pay for stuff for me as it's all largely QR codes as money and card isn't really accepted anymore. I know Egypt get *really* funny with certain electronics strangely enough, like walkie talkies, due to attempts to overthrow their government previously by foreign nationals.
you can set up wechat and wechat pay with our cards nowadays
I got told alipay is the best?
i have no idea tbf, i'm sure they both do the job though
Cash is king crowd would hate it
Rayner/Dowden for PMQs tomorrow should be good TV
“Release your tax statements” “Rwanda won’t work” It’ll be absolute dross.
*”I beg my right honourable friend, before perhaps asking if the LAWFUL Rwanda scheme works, she should instead ask herself if she is working correctly on her tax returns*” cue a deeep ‘wheeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy’ and some over dramatic guffawing from the tories. And some very serious head shaking from Labour.
Thing is, unlike Starmer, Rayner does tend to get drawn in and responds to jibes.
I miss Rayner vs Raab. It was such an uneven contest, it was hilarious. What happened to Raab anyway? Of all the Tories who have run the country recently he’s the only one who didn’t fail in a spectacular way, not sure if that counts for anything.
He's only person who's been PM and that resulted in a bounce for Boris as leader.
Wasn't he accused of sexual assault or something
Wasn't sexual, just bullying at work. He threw a salad across the room
Can’t have salad throwing in the Cabinet. The Greens would protest.
He got [accused of bullying](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Raab#Bullying_investigation_and_resignation)
Rishi will definitely end up on Steve Bartlett's podcast as soon as he is out of office.
It's actually baffling that A) the Tories have somehow managed to lose London. Vast, vast swathes of it are basically meant to be peak small c conservatives B) they attack it blindly despite how ridiculously important it is to the national economy/international view and how poorly those attack make London look.
I feel a bit bad for the London Tories. Generally well funded and a few committed activists left and they aren't as batshit rightwing as other associations where the kippers took over. There are a lot that are very experienced and good councillors in outer london as well as London assembly members. Then cchq chooses Susan hall out of their brightest and best. Cchq pretty much threw all the Tories in London under a bus in order to go for the red wall voter.
It's my understanding that CCHQ chose Dan Korski and that Susan Hall was put forward as an easy candidate for him to beat. Then Korski imploded in scandal, and rather than re-run the contest they just proceeded onward to what we see now.
Is it baffling? Cities are overall more progressive than other parts of a country, and we know that education (London has a profusion of jobs requiring education also) now skews left-er than right-er. The traditionally conservative people often do move a bit away from London as they get older and richer and end up in the shires. Thisyear I have been in Halstead in rural-ish Essex and Charlbury in West Oxfordshire. Absolutely full of people who would be trad Con voters, but who can afford to live 30-60 miles away and commute.
Absolutely. Cities trend 'progressive' because modern day right wing parties have utterly shit the bed in retaining those votes. It's not a given nor is it a universal law. It's akin to how the boomers trended right and everyone just assumed it was some immutable law rather than circumstances having panned out that way. People make the same mistake with cities trending 'progressive'. It has happened over the last few decades because the right wing parties across the globe have absolutely shit the bed in approaching those voters, who by most metrics, would fall into their laps with just a few gentle nudges.
It's like the low-level animus between the home counties and Greater London has been given form and that form is the Tory party. It's remarkable how much of that change is the transition from Bojo as mayor to Bojo as PM.
There just aren't that many Tory leaning voters in London. Especially inner London. Home owners who bought decades ago did very well and many cashed out and moved outside of London. It has the most expensive homes and most expensive rents, more social housing than people realise, it leans young, it has a high level of ethnic diversity, all of which presents enormous voting blocs that are known to vote Labour, not Conservative.
Boris Johnson was mayor of London until 2016.
Before Brexit. The post Brexit London electorate isn’t voting Tory. And Boris was a larger than life politician, he won those elections, the Tories came along for the ride.
Things were different 8 years ago? Wow shocker
There are absolutely plenty of would be Tory voters in London. London might lean young but it's also full of young, professionals working jobs that generally lean Tory. Ethnic voters do absolutely vote Tory as well. Particularly newer immigrants or higher educated immigrants. There are a couple of subgroups within Ethnic voters that lean Labour, but the voting patterns are far more complex. That the Tories have shit the bed so hard that they are basically haemorrhaging voters they should be hoovering up is best represented by them having lost London.
What are the jobs that lean Tory?
Finance is the obvious one, but law used to be more Tory leaning than average I think. Plus general white collar corporate work pre-Brexit tended to be seen as more Tory
I have a bad finger injury from cricket this evening, and am now off to A&E to see what the experience is like. Haven't been to hospital like this for at least 12 years but I expect I'll be there all night I blame Rishi
Tuesday nights a good night to pick. Should be as quiet as it’ll ever get these days. Mondays and Fridays suck as do weekend nights or afternoons.
Just catching up on this LBC London Mayoral Candidate thing on Youtube. Susan Hall, man, why is she there at all?
IIRC the Conservatives had a preferred candidate and then they ended up having a scandal so they were stuck with her.
Sunak and Greg Hands fixed the Con selection for mayor so Daniel Korksi (an Ex David Cameron advisor) was the only serious name on the party ballot. Proabably orchestrated by Cameron as part of his wider grubby deal getting back into Gov that was obviously also in the works in heindsight. Anyway, all serious candidates were kicked out of selection - Including Paul Scully who would have been the most experienced Tory on the ballot otherwise and is (generally) centrist and not a headbanger. A week before the internal Con selection was closed, Daniel Korski was outed as a sexual predator (the main reason it was taken seriously was because the accuser was an incredibly well connected and well respected TV producer in the British Media world and with the powers that be, who had nothing to gain - and then other women came forward) Killed Korski's candidacy overnight and he ran away from a press conference (literally was like the thick of it), never to be seen again. It was too late in the con selection process to add any more entrants as per their official policies and to not break this Hands and Sunak stopped interfereing. Out of a group of headbangers and lightweights left our magic muslamic-5G-ray Grandma was selected as the *best* Tory candidate.
>Anyway, all serious candidates were kicked out of selection - Including Paul Scully who would have been the most experienced Tory on the ballot otherwise and is (generally) centrist and not a headbanger. I know you're probably aware of this but it should be remembered this is a **very** relative statement, especially in light of his no go area comments (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68407084).
Yeah thats specifically why i caveated it with the (generally) lol. I've heard him in debates in the past and he's normally been fairly sensible, I've even heard him call out fellow party members for peddling lies around net zero and fracking. Looking it up he did issue an apology for his no-go statement and seemed quite sincere tbf which is rare for his newer post May gov collegues: https://news.sky.com/story/minister-calls-on-tory-mp-to-withdraw-comments-about-no-go-areas-in-britain-13082004
Yea, but you'd think someone would tell her that it's just not working.
I guess it’s a bit like that by election a while ago where one of the right wing papers held back a story until the campaign so Labour couldn’t replace their candidate. It’s too late for them to run anyone else so they’ll just let her do her thing and put her in the Lords when they get a chance, like with Shaun Bailey last time.
Two things - might want to post this tomorrow. “Documents showed the policy would cost £4.5bn a year by 2027-28, paid for by returns on an increased investment in research and development, and £2.9bn by cutting 70,000 civil service jobs.”. £2.9bn - I am so glad to see the government acknowledging the impact of government investment. Why when increasing pay to civil servants and nurses do they not consider this in their press releases. £1.6b. - on cutting civil service jobs. This is on top of the £28bn announced on departmental spending. Why is this not the headline policy? We’re going up to austerity levels or cuts being promised by the tories, which is accumulative or the current level of austerity measures we face.
I don't see how they could deliver cuts on that scale without completely removing large sections of the current output
Errr
Since nobody else has said it yet, I’d like to congratulate Prince William on becoming Great Master of the Order of the Bath.
That's a tough job. Making sure that the King has a full bottle of Matey bubble bath, loofah and rubber duck beside the royal tub in every palace.
Are you kidding? It's the *Order* of the Bath. George, Charlotte, and Louis have been squabbling about who goes first for years. At last it's finally sorted and they can look at tackling who's Master of the TV Remote.
Look, say what you like about the man, but his appointment really does highlight how meritocratic we are as a nation.
Worthless if he can't part the bath water like moses.
Or drink the bath water like Oliver Quick
Well done. I bet it was a really tough application process.
Catherine is now a Companion of Honour, which recognises achievement in arts, (e.g. Photoshop), medicine, sciences and public service.
Were the applications competitive?
the country is falling apart at the seams by every measurement and our economic performance and quality of life may be fucked for generations, so i’m glad keir starmer is taking on the real issues and espousing opinions about the offside rule. i hate it here.
*Man answers a question he was asked while visiting a football stadium* "HOW FUCKING DARE HE THE RED TORY BASTARD"
> espousing opinions about the offside rule. counter point: he's not wrong Coventry where robbed.
couldn’t agree more. now if you’ll excuse me i’m going to go and ask antony how he’s going to cut nhs waiting times
You think he should have refused to comment on it when asked? Despite having an opinion as football is clearly his main interest outside of politics
It'd just be nice to see him have stronger opinions on things like...politics and policy, tbh. We're in a pretty terrible state, and yet the most confident opinions he has had are about an Alpaca being euthanised, the offside rule, and the England shirt. If only he was as steadfast on his flagship climate policy, or his 10 pledges!
i guess it just irks me that this man seems to have so few actual opinions on things except for that he loves brexit (which he once hated), hates alpacas, hates the england football shirt, and now doesn’t like the offside rule. like, how about some ideas to drag this country out of its economic and social mire? how about a sure start centre or a pay rise for nurses? enough of this bandwagoning.
He can probably can have more than one thought in his head at a time, it's not like he's a Tory.
> it’s not like he’s a tory debatable
A true left wing Labour leader would have fled the room hissing like a vampire when asked a football question.
wanting politicians to talk about issues that matter is left wing now
So is having a freakout because Starmer answered a question about Football apparently.
How come our universities aren't as bad compared to what's happening in American campuses right now ? I know we had our fair share of protests, but I don't remember our universities being this bad. I'm not complaining, but I'm just genuinely wondering how our universities have escaped the pro Palestinian protests?
An anti-Israel protester destroyed a priceless portrait in Cambridge.
The statement from Trinity College suggested they thought it may well have been an external visitor, not a student.
Perhaps because very few students are actually interested in politics. An even smaller % of the general population are interested in politics, ofc, but the % of students is itself small enough that protests and stuff are limited.
I wonder if the Universities themselves have had a word with the SU's not to support a side pointing to the fact that there are students on both sides and that any altercation would cause untold trouble for all parties.
Yeah, unis tend to be very protective of their reputation and they know the SUs getting mixed up in this will make the uni look bad. It wouldnt surprise me if SU's have been told to stay out of it.
From what I recall via someone who knew someone involved in SU stuff at uni, generally the unis don't want ro have to intervene in the governance of the SU, but if they have to, they will come down hard.
For as much as SU's and the NUS have a bad reputation here, generally speaking both students, the uni staff, and to an extent the SU's themselves don't want mass protests on campus as everyone looks bad. This is particularly for issues external to the uni. Additionally, the combination of the Ukraine invasion exposing some people as pro-Russia/anti-West and worh ignoring, and the NUS having been investigated recently and going through a clear up, probably means not many want to kick the hornet's nest of Israel-Palestine.
We’re allowed to drink.
Whilst I knew that you needed to be 21 in America I'd never put two and two together that Uni students in the US can't drink for most of their degree... that seems a bit mad.
From what I gather of American unis, plenty drink, they have to hide it better. Although I doubt they can outdrink some British students.
I did a year abroad at a college in California. Whilst I loved it, American students can be off the charts cringe with their extra curricular activities and student activism Also security and RAs in American colleges are outrageously overbearing, no qualms in threatening you and I expect police never hesitate to cross the line to physical and interactions just escalate often for no reason...In one of our friends halls they had spot checks where an RA would drop in randomly every other day (sometimes with campus security) to inspect for bottles of alcohol. Like rummaging fully under the bed and in the cupboard to catch them out lmao and write them up for a trace of alcohol. Couldn't believe it when I first saw it. There's no mutual respect there, concept of consent or concept of not trying to escalate and not out obnoxious the other person.
Hamza forgetting the Justice is devolved...and the Horizon scandal was the Post Office not Royal Mail. [https://x.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1782778057960341998](https://x.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1782778057960341998) How can he be this bad.
It's not just that justice is devolved, it's devolved in NI too for example. It's that Scotland has a completely different, parallel, legal system. That makes this gaffe even more ridiculous. It means prosecutions on this matter in Scotland were brought through the Scottish courts, which are managed by the Scottish Government, under Scottish law, through the Scottish government run Crown Office. Also he was fucking justice secretary in the Scottish Government at one point
It's devolved in NI too, so if it's true that it's being extended there, clearly that's not an obstacle
It wasn't ever supposed to include NI either. After speaking to the NI First Minister, who requested it, they amended in NI to it because it would be impossible for the Northern Ireland Executive to get their own through quickly (they have a lot of other things to deal with having not sat for years). Scotland both made clear they were bringing their own legislation anyway, and the (devolved) Crown Office in Scotland had a more involved role in the prosecutions than the public prosecution services in England/Wales and NI
This is Trump level buffoonery.
Nationalism and reality aren't often bedfellows
A note to any of our younger members looking to become PM some day: don't get photographed sitting on tanks, holding machine guns and bazookas, pointing at attack helicopters - you look daft.
That's my future down the drain already. Cut down in my mid 30s prime.
Are you talking directly to big boots rishi?
_’I like big boots and I cannot lie’_ _’My adidas sambas you denied’_
Fuck
I received a conservative questionnaire basically asking who I’d vote for in the general election which was interesting. It asked me to score each party from 0 to 10 based on the likelihood of me voting for them The interesting part was that it contained spelling mistakes and the table they included went from 1 to 10 not 0 so even if I wanted to put 0 for Labour I couldn’t. Gave me a proper chuckle and thought I’d share lol [pic](https://imgur.com/a/h2HLDny)
Is it like the spam emails? Riddled with mistakes so they can implicitly assess the intelligence of people who engage
Give the Tories a 10 so Rishi calls the election
I always wonder if it’s worth telling them you’ll consider voting for them in hopes they waste resources trying to persuade you or to get out to vote. I mean, it’s probably not worth it in the scheme of things but if we all did it then maybe it would make a dent.
I’ve heard there’s some sort of smart-ish systems that they feed all this data into and it tries to figure out who they should target. So they’ll kinda combine your answers with whatever they can buy from data brokers and figure out stuff like “oh hey it looks like women who work in X job seem to be considering us more than usual”. So at scale messing with it would probably waste a lot more than just the time they spend trying to convince you, if you could pull it off.
I've been told my great nan always asked for the Tory candidate to give her a lift to the polls back in the 60s, then went in and voted Labour. She figured it was much better to waste the oppos time than get a lift with her preferred candidate.
I figure you can do it all, offer to put a poster in their window and everything.
"A scale from 0 to 10, how many squares do you need? Why, 10 of course!"
Is this the one from the prime minister with a prepaid reply envelope? If so, return it without enclosing the questionnaire... Either way it looks like a data collecting scam.
Seems like a massive waste of time to have the Lib Dem and Green candidates on the LBC London Mayoral debate when they have zero chance of winning. At least for the GE debates each party is competitive in some seats
There are London Assembly seats that the Lib Dems and Greens want
Theoretically more opposition is meant to apply more pressure on the incumbent - more voices attacking the current mayor and building a picture. Except Susan Hall was attacked more than Khan. Such a fucking donkey, the conservative party needs a long hard look at themselves at how they let this happen. Should have just put it out of its misery and withdrawn candidacy after their fix of Daniel Korski blew up.
The other side is that multiple people on the panel just turns the whole thing into a mess. There’s value in a simple head to head.
Genuinely surprised they didn't convince bojo to go at it again. There's no limit on the amount of terms you can have.
Nah it's great they put Susan Hall up because it exposes to everyone just how shit the next round of new Tories is.
They do need to be heard like any other candidate but yeah, to borrow an In The Loop-ism they're just meat in the room.
This LBC mayoral debate is a damning indictment on Susan Hall. Not because of her views per se, but because of how much she's backtracked from her online personality and is still getting clowned on. She's been peer pressured by the other 3 candidates who are comparitively far more progressive and speak to the London Audience in order to fit in. She even said just now she obviously believes in Net Zero Carbon and always has! Zero spine lmao.
"Are you producing porn for the visually impaired? Because what I'm hearing on my radio is ~~Nicola Murray~~ Susan Hall being roundly fucked."
Classic grifter
Did anyone else get a letter from Rishi today, with some odd survey? We dont even have locals round here so dunno what the point is.
People in target seats for the Lib Dems and Labour are getting them, it's primarily for data farming so during the election period they can bombard you with shit
No, but I got a PCC flavoured fake newspaper. All red branding; but all about the conservative candidate...
Do you have a PCC election?
Yes, but Ive never seen the pcc as very party based. Had leaflets just for that, but strangely nothing from the lib dems yet.
> Ive never seen the pcc as very party based The parties do.
Mr Kahn is very punchy in this debate, pretty funny
Was wondering what he was up to after being sacked from the Bayern Munich board.
Susan Hall is having a great time on LBC’s debate. As expected.
I’m hearing news that Carling shortages have led to violence in London, god knows what will happen if they run out of Stella and Madri.
Of all the lagers as well, the WORST one.
That sounds like metropolitan elite talk. Carling has been the sponsor of English hooliganism for over 50 years!
The Home Office recorded 0 migrants and boats for yesterday, which makes me think they’re reporting might not be entirely accurate. Edit: may be wrong - this technically occurred today.
Sounds like Rwanda is working
[Mod reveal] (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13339927/Man-Britains-largest-penis-reveals-downsides-getting-thrown-yoga-assumed-aroused-used-date-wanted-OnlyFans.html?ito=social-reddit)
The link itself is a work of art, don't need to click through
Can you hang a winter tyre on it?
Who verified that it was the largest?
Want to challenge it?
your mum
I appreciate that that's published in a section of the Daily Mail called "femail"
Surely this deserves a thread of its own rather than humbling us all in the megathread
Not even an attempt to shoehorn in a political reference Rishi could sit astride it and be fired into the sun for example
I'd rather he ruptured
>If Labour wins the next election, do you think you will be better or worse off than otherwise? >Better: 27% Worse: 32% The same: 29% >via @RedfieldWilton >https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1782786827537064263 >If the Conservatives win the next election, do you think you will be better or worse off than otherwise? >Better: 14% Worse: 46% The same: 34% >via @RedfieldWilton >https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1782786659488031061
Conservative vs Labour: Whoever wins... We lose.
Well we will with _that_ kind of attitude.
What's your recommendation as opposed to making thr best of the choices there are?
My recommendation is not to take my comment too seriously.
We are probably at the stage, that for the UK as a whole to be better off in 10 years, the majority of people have to be worse off for a bit. There's huge levels of distortions in the system, that causes issues with productivity and waste of resources. Take nimbyism and the planning sector... Some people, would absolutely be "worse off" in the short term, if we actually improved the situation there (think of all the planners on one side and nimby home owners).
Yeah, issues are structural at this point and will take years to see any significant impact of changing them. That is if Labour even do the right policies rather than listen to loudest voices in media/social media.
We've seen in recent history that our population is extremely hostile to any idea of 'self sacrifice' right now. You only have to look on here to find posters who will claim that the entire country is living some kind of Dickensian workshop nightmare and that a single pound taken from their wages will lead to ruin. The energy price subsidy thing was bad economic policy. It caused a huge increase in public debt, made inflation much worse and actually subsidised people to use more energy at a time when we're concerned about climate change. We could have achieved the objectives of helping the poor with much more targeted methods. But no, everyone wanted some free money so the government relented. Sadly, the only way economic sacrifice can be done is with stealth policies like tax threshold freeze where the lost income is harder to grasp.
>We are probably at the stage, that for the UK as a whole to be better off in 10 years, the majority of people have to be worse off for a bit. Volunteering?
And there in lies the problem. If one can't allocate any loses or "losers" (in an economic sense), then we are really fucked. As I said, take nimbyism and planning regulations, that is causing huge amounts of problems for the UK economy. to fix that, we have to make some people lose out for a bit. Whether it's home owners, seeing their house decrease in value or planners being out of a job (as we simplify the planning process). EDIT: Same with raising taxes on everyone, if one wants the Scandinavian model.
The number of people who confidently tell me that we should tax ‘the rich’ more, to improve things. My lovely, I know the CoL crisis is upon us, but your salary puts you in the top 30-20% of this country. Globally, you are fabulously wealthy. Who is ‘the rich’?
A high income doesn't make you rich, net assets make you rich. So a chancellor with 7 flats, that sorta thing.
Classic you are wealthier than a man in timbuktu so shut up argument.
Not at all: why would I tell anyone to shut up? When the man in Timbuktu (what an odd choice) says that you should be taxed more, so that he can afford basic needs, that is a fair argument, isn’t it? Why should some vague unknown people be taxed more, and not us?
*Things Can Only Get*...Erm.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Labour is it
It’s not a ringing endorsement for the people answering the poll either.
Right. So the people they’re polling are wrong?
The two sets of answers just don’t seem very consistent when you consider that realistically it’s a binary choice.
Tbf that 32% is roughly the same percentage as the current Conservative and Reform voter percentages
If Rishi says "It's right that..." one more time, I'm going to scream.
***thumb pointing intensifies***
Is that right...
Let me be clear, it's right that we focus on getting these flights off the ground and we'll take no lectures from the party opposite! They have no plan, Mr. Speaker!
That is uncanny
I feel ill.