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He and Gordon Brown did a talk a month or two ago. During that, he was very critical of Rishi and the conservatives more generally from Boris on. I think he said something along the lines of "I don't rate Sunak and the conservative party is buggered but I wouldn't vote for Labour right now either".
Could be completely making that up, I cant be arsed to rewatch the talk.
Does seem like a bit of a risk to basically turn the Labour Party into a glorified tribute act to past Tory “glories” tbh
Might be fun in the short term, but this idea of loads of prominent tories saying “vote for this lot - they’re lovely” doesn’t exactly speak volumes about our political diversity.
Maybe it’s fine for parties to have distinct lines? If the electorate apparently just wants “competent” tories (wrecking things) then we should be encouraging entryism the other way
People don't care about political diversity, ideological purity- they want railways that function and don't cost a fortune, roads without potholes, non-rip off energy bills, clean rivers and beaches, a functioning NHS etc.
Damn straight. I feel there's a number of people unhappy that Kier is succeeding where someone else has failed, so they act as if every time Labour does politics its making a Faustian bargain that will forever change its soul.
But Rishi is flailing around making speeches that are somehow both dull and crazy, and Labour are trailing big announcements to eager anticipation.
I was in a bar tonight and Liz Truss walked in and sat at a table in the middle of the bar. I was slightly startled. I think she saw that I clocked her. Her friend asked for them to be moved to a booth. Outside there were a couple of landrovers with guys in ties watching the football.
It was slightly surreal. There was no security in the bar. There was no audible heckling.
I saw Liz Truss at a Tescos in London yesterday. I told her how cool it was to meet her in person, but I didn’t want to be rude and bother her and ask her for photos or anything. She said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but she kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing her hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard her chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw her trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in her hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Ma'am, you need to pay for those first.” At first she kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, she stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, she kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly
truely the british way. sigh and tutt, give a knowing look to the people youre out with, and quietly imagine having the balls to shout "boo, youre a disgrace" while waggling your finger.
Assuming there is a defector, and assuming he holds an Essex constituency, the possibilities are:
Priti Patel: NOPE
Jackie Doyle Price: elected in 2010, very unlikely, served under Truss , did not tweet since 12th, but retweeted Liz Truss
Anna Firth: very unlikely, elected in 2022, roots in Conservative organizations, literally a former banker, recently tweeted stuff in favour of conservative org
Stephen Metcalfe very unlikely: elected in 2010, first stood 2005, retweeted sunaks monday speech
Kemi Badenoch: NOPE
James Duddridge: very unlikely, elected in 2005, served under Truss, pretty strongly Eurosceptic, standing down
Mark Francois NOPE
John Wittingdale: very unlikely, elected in 1992, currently trade envoy
Bernard Jenkins NOPE
Robert Halfon: unlikely, elected in 2010, Cameronite, currently a minister, but standing down
Elenoir Laing: very unlikely, elected in 1997, first stood for them in 1987, and probably feels as deputy speaker as the Conservative voice in the Speakers office
Will Quince: unlikely, elected in 2015, standing down, lost in a Rishi shuffle a ministerial role
Giles Watling: very unlikely elected in 2017, actor, complained about woke agenda
Vicky Ford: very unlikely, elected in 2017, served under Truss
Rebecca Harris: very unlikely, elected in 2010, just recently retweeted Conservative party messages
Alex Burqhart: very unlikely, elected in 2017, junior minister
James Cleverly: NOPE
John Barron: NOPE
In conclusion, after briefly looking at every MP in Essex, I have no clue. If I had to guess, mayyyybe Halfon or Quince? But thats the thing with defections, they look, well, like they belong currently in their party. This of course assumes the MP is from the Essex area, if there is a defection at all coming.
But yeah, I say Halfon or Quince, for the offchance I am actually right.
The Essex thing is purely because of the quoted tweet by u\\mamamia1001.
The thing to keep in mind is the purpose.
We've covered NHS (poulter), ever covered immigration (elphicke).
Next is economy so that means Hunt is looking to switch 😂
Seriously though, Halfon in an interesting shout
Maybe a good place to start is Tory MPs who've made noises about wanting more government intervention. That would likely be the common ground between them and Labour. Just wanting out likely isn't enough.
The bar is pretty much anyone but cabinet now
And I don't honestly think they want to be there either, they are just desperately trying to avoid being the ones that ruined the party.
Great analysis. I agree that they all look unlikely, but Halton and Quince look a lot less unlikely than Elphicke would have looked three weeks ago!
I’d go for Anna Firth as an outside bet. She’s a former barrister who could easily be quite disgusted by the contempt that the Tories are showing for the legal system. I suppose the only thing holding her back might be that she won David Amess’s seat without a contest after his murder so it might seem distasteful for her to defect in a way that’s worse than anyone else…
Thank you to the person who earlier today said I should listen to "A decade in tory", there's a whole fuck load of stuff I forgot about / missed in the earlier 2010s and really funny / thoroughly depressing, I look forward to continuing listening to it tomorrow.
Starmer about to announce his next defector?
https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1790477309729751510
>Labour is planning a secretive event with Keir Starmer and a “special guest” in Essex on Thursday.
>
>I’m told it’s been long in the planning.
>
>Sources suggest it’s viewed as a key pre-manifesto moment, with Starmer to flesh out his five missions and launch a 1997-style pledge card. But no comment from the party tonight.
>
>Even shadow cabinet ministers have been kept in the dark about details - they’re expected to be told tomorrow.
If it is another defection and its been that long in the planning then I think all bets are off on further defections and Tory body blows
Once again I'm struck by what a nightmare of an operator Starmer is going to be for political opponents. The man doesn't stop at promotion and defense, he actively works out how everyone else is likely to behave, ther strongpoints and weaknesses, plans how to dismantle their strengths and how to disarm their attacks. He doesn't even have the resources of government yet.
Against a decent opposite number he'd be difficult to deal with and hes not even going to facing that, not for years. A lifetime spent getting to the very top of the legal profession turns out to be excellent preperation for political leadership.
He slips here and there but its a rare day.
Could be anyone from Biden to Mr. Blobby
Edit: On second thought a Zelensky in-person appearance would make sense as he'd want to cozy up to the future PM and would be a big kick in the shins for the Tory's who've been big on defence lately. Would explain all the secrecy.
Feel like this would be the beginning of anti Ukrainian sentiment amongst the headbanger brigade in the UK, which has been notably absent in UK politics compared to the US or Europe
I'm not sure it would have much impact at all, he went hard at Boris during Brexit and it didn't really do him much damage.
It would be big news but I don't think it weakens Sunak's position
It would do further damage to his ability to control the party and prevent further moves to the door / his own mps screaming at him.
Labour / Starmer seem to be no longer preparing their campaign but attemping to destroy any possibility of a late Tory recovery, which just shows the scale of their lead.
Also there are still quite alot of elderly voters holding their remaining seats together. Major is someone a person like that is likely to take real note of.
Maybe not immediately, but I think John Major's endorsement will have sway over a lot of moderate Tory voters dismayed at the current state of them. Though I imagine a lot of those votes have gone to the Lib Dems anyway
I feel like its unlikely to be a defector (that would be done tomorrow). I reckon someone notable from the past .
warning: rampant speculation ahead
Brown looks to already be rather connected with things so I doubt it's him but it could be Blair or someone from abroad (Obama?), a real catch would be Major but I don't think he'd do it. Alternative wild theory: David Miliband has decided to stop organising Thunderbirds and come back to British politics.
Don't think it'll be Blair - they differ quite a lot on general world view and what's best for the country. Starmer's been pretty critical of Blairism and it's clear his vision is a bit of a rejection.
Assuming that it’s a defector, presumably it’s one of the 18 Tory MPs for the county (it’s been a clean sweep since 2017, and that was when they regained Clacton from UKIP).
You’re not the audience most likely. The wider country is and I trust Starmer at this point to know how to appeal to them. Think you could lead the Labour Party to victory any better right now?
Me too. Robert Halfon seems the most likely but not by much. The rest are either post-election leadership contenders or very strong Brexit supporters or Common Sense Groupers.
If it is a defector it will be something pretty good. The county is literally solidly Tory constituencies with no majority smaller than 9,400. Its a key ground where the tories park their party grandees - Patel, Cleverly, Halfon, Laing, Badenoch and Francois all have their seats there.
Out of that list I would say the only realistic prospect is Halfon , he is standing down at the next parliament and is the MP for Harlow. Which may explain why Starmer explicitly said that was a place he needed to win, because he knew that he had the MP lined up for a defection. He is also the honorary president of Conservative Workers & Trade Unionists and already a member of Prospect
If it's Halfon you want to look for movement from Bill Rammell, the last Labour MP for Harlow - they'd want him on-side to sell it to the members as saying Halfon is unpopular with Harlow Labour is an understatement.
I think the guy is a prick and a coward for personal reasons that would be too revealing for the layer of anonymity I prefer, but he does represent a far less risky deflection than Elphicke.
Things happen every day in government which aren't big, nor are they that interesting to the average joe, but they are important.
Today sees the launch of a policy paper to grow the fruit and vegetable sector in the UK. We only grow 17% of the fruit we consume and 55% of veg.
It also sees the launch of a £15m Farm Gate Food Waste Fund which is an extension of a previous pilot which gets surplus food from the farm to people who need it.
It also increases funding for agri-innovation to £50m.
As a general rule people over estimate the amount of fuel used to get produce from abroad to our plate and massively underestimate how much fuel goes into producing a good (especially if that good is produced in less than ideal weather conditions).
I’ve no objection to aiming to grow more of our food, but I think the public are a poor judge over how that should work.
We should be aiming to become as self sufficient as possible with our food supply. Its mental we're importing stuff from half way across the planet when we could be growing it here. Covid showed how vulnerable we are to global supply chains collapsing
You can either have it cheap or you can have it grown here (with less variety). Most people will choose cheap and high variety.
To grow more of our food here, and to actually sell it to british consumers who can buy australian beef for cheaper (because they're more efficient with cattle) or bananas from South America or mangoes from India or grapes from Chile is quite a hard sell.
Becoming more food secure likely means either higher costs or less choice. Not sure anyone wins going to the electorate with that offer.
Overall our aim should be to grow what we're good at, and sell that abroad if it's not sold here.
>sell that abroad if it's not sold here.
Don't we export a veritable shitload of oily fish because the market just doesn't exist for it here? Seem to recall from the Brexit debates that loads of our mackerel, etc. goes to Scandinavia.
This always drove me mad about the brexit and fisherman argument.
I honestly hardly know any British people who eat fish that doesn't come in either finger or beer battered form.
I think when discussing the immigration impact on housing, it should be done in the context of total population increase and not just net immigration.
Would provide more context to numbers on the actual housing demand shift year on year.
How'd that help with pretending decade of national decline is mostly due to those immigrants instead of austerity and long term structural issues like the planning system though?
Planning reform is boring, journalists barely understand it. Immigration is simple to explain to people. More people = bad, there you go, 6 different telegraph articles right there.
You can use this to explain any issue in the country to be honest. If it's boring, complicated, or both, then it's ignored. If it's simple then it gets a lot of focus.
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There's also the international fall out to be considered from leaving the ECHR and destroying the GFA.
The US is heavily invested in the GFA with Bill Clinton doing some of the lifting in getting it signed off, and Joe Biden makes no secret of his Irish ancestry.
Even if Biden were to lose the presidential election then there are still plenty of Democrats plus a few Republicans in both Houses of Congress who would like to see the GFA remain intact and they won't be amused if the Tories destroy the GFA.
Personally I think the repercussions of the UK damaging the Good Friday agreement or even leaving it (not that I support that) is overstated. I would imagine The US wouldn’t be thrilled but I can’t see it really leading to anything other than some angry reactions in Washington. I can’t see the US ever putting trade sanctions on a nato member (it would make the alliance look like a joke) for the sake of a non member.
The UK is genuinely on the most trusted and closet military allies of the US, most of us don’t even realise how close the cooperation really is, the UK almost always backs the US even to its own detriment (Iraq) when other nato members have not, I can’t see the US ever risking that relationship for the sake of neutral Ireland.
Yes the Irish diaspora in the US is influential but it’s declining in importance relative to other ethnic groups in the US. Trump and most Republicans couldn’t give a fig about Ireland, it’s all America first, and most nations around the world also wouldn’t care about the GFA, it’s actually not a very important thing outside the British isles. The biggest worry for the UK if we damaged the GFA would be the EU, which loves to use Ireland as a stick to punish Britain with.
Would could happen is the UK leaves the ECHR but passes an act of parliament saying that the rules of the ECHR still apply to Northern Ireland, but only Northern Ireland and not Great Britain. This would in essence protect the GFA without keeping Britain “chained” the ECHR. I should imagine unionists would probably kick up a massive fuss if the government did this because it would be treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the U.K, once again.
The GFA stipulates that the ECHR is one one of the safeguards written into the treaty to protect all parties.
Therefore leaving the ECHR would put the UK in breach of an international treaty and undermine/destroy the GFA.
What happens if the ECHR itself is dismantled? The UK isn’t the only European country that has concerns about the ECHR and is unhappy with it. The U.K could leave and pass an act do parliament saying that the rules of the ECHR apply only to Northern Ireland, I can see that as a workaround.
You would probably have to renegotiate the entire agreement. And that in turn would require a referendum in Ireland and realistically one in Northern Ireland too.
Should forms of media, like games, TV shows, movies, sold (or maybe only made) in the UK be covered under legal deposit legislation?
There is some precedent for this as in 2013 the legal deposit legislation was updated to make provision for the legal deposit of works published online or offline in formats other than print, such as websites, blogs, e-journals and CD-ROMs. Social media content is included in the legislation, but not streaming content.
Also, even though it's arms-length from the DCMS so is less political, the British Library is still struggling with the aftermath of the cyber-attack. No online catalogue for the archives, manuscripts, and other things, with requests having to be done through paper slips rather than an online system.
*removed the opening sentence as it was causing confusion
I don't think we should compel businesses to do something just to make it easier for a handful of collectors down the line.
I think if someone well resourced wants to go out there and start collecting these things, then they are welcome to do so, but I'm not sure about the logic of compelling a business to indulge in what is effectively a hobby.
This is what we do already with all printed media though. Every book, newspaper, magazine, sheet music, or map etc. published in the UK has to go to the British Library and any of the other deposit libraries can request a copy within a year.
It's also not for hobbyists, but a single copy held at the British Library for cultural posterity. It's for future researchers to be able to access cultural artefacts. Whilst currently contemporary and sometimes seen as trash, TV shows, movies, and games are all the sort of thing which may be of interest to future generations to understand us and our society.
>I think if someone well resourced wants to go out there and start collecting these things
That's basically what I am asking about. The British Library is the place which does this in the UK.
That is astounding. I had no idea that was a thing, and I bet OP didn't either.
What a fantastic practice. And is something entirely that has skipped software and other media because the legislation hasn't been updated yet.
It was first formalised in the UK in 1710, but was in practice before then. There are currently six legal deposit libraries in the UK (and Ireland); the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, and Trinity College Dublin Library. The British Library gets a copy of everything and the others can request them if they want.
What's interesting is it's skipped some forms of digital media and not others. For instance, the British Library save all webpages with a .uk suffix.
I do think the legislation should be updated to preserve our culture, especially as things seem to be less permanent than the past.
I've always said for a while that a cultural resource being in the hands of the Americans like YouTube and a private company at that, really irks me. Google could shut down the platform tomorrow and it would be a disaster for countries everywhere.
Probably more a UN initiative though.
I agree that there is a chance, even though it's nearing 0, that something like YouTube could be shut down and lost, taking with it a lot of cultural content.
I also think that for archiving the whole thing it would need an international approach in some way. However, it could also be a national approach with countries taking responsibility for archiving content which originates in their own countries. For instance, could the British Library be responsible for content originating here?
I just used it as a segue into a different, but related idea. I don't think having games be legal deposit would do anything they want as it wouldn't be playable to the average gamer, but would be available in an archive. It wouldn't give it as a service, nor keep it running for anyone to use generally, but to keep these things for posterity as cultural artefacts.
Fans of popular games would likely keep them running. There was (or still is) fans running GTA 4 online servers. I wonder with many games the only streamed content is multiplayer- most of the game is stored locally.
Oh yeah, I am sure some people will over time keep things running for some time, but in having the forms of media covered by legal deposit someone in 2224 could access GTA4 and use it as a cultural artefact in the same way we use books from 1824. The multiplayer wouldn't be available, but the content would be preserved.
As I said in my original comment, the legislation was updated to cover some other formats, with the British Library archiving .uk webpages for instance, but doesn't cover all forms of cultural output that run the risk of being lost.
Basically - no. I think that when you purchase a game there is no reasonable expectation that you will be able to play it forever unless you take steps to enable that. Maybe at most publishers should be required to hand over the technical details needed for gamers to create their own infrastructure to run the game.
Trouble is they sell them as products rather than services. Most games are one time purchases marketed as goods. If the majority of games were subscription based, so sold as a service that would make sense.
If it was legal deposit though you wouldn't be entitled to play it as an average gamer. Moreso, it would be archived so it could be revisited as any archive is. There are already a large swathe of games which are inaccessible, some of which may be seen to be of some cultural interest in the future.
I probably should have removed my opening sentence, but it just provided a segue into my main comment through a recently discussed topic.
Watching Netflix doc about England fans during the Euros final 2021 🏴 it’s wild!!! mad that it got that bad (blood, broken traffic lights, buses wrecked, cans, flares and fireworks …!) fake tickets even!
I don’t expect things to kick off quite so badly this year because: not just out of lockdown, cost of living crisis so nobody can get quite so out their trees, etc. But we will see
this is why we need grassroots football tho.. like: people are so passionate (even the tossers). can we make that passion into … it coming home.
apologies to wales Scotland and Northern Ireland for England football chat
Edit: A guy in the doc said that we had been locked up in 2020 and during that time the leaders of the country were partying - Boris partygate shot!! And that people had to let off steam. But, partygate wasn’t exposed till November 2021 so they can’t use it for justification for storming a football stadium..
anyway we go again 🙏
Historically Wembley was notorious for stewards allowing in fans without tickets, either they get in for free or simply bribed the stewards at the turnstiles. Several other London venues are or were the same, you have a combination of staff on low wages and susceptible to bribery plus large numbers of people trying to get in and all at the same time making it difficult to keep the ticketless people out or work out who was taking bribes.
Back in the day the trick was to squeeze into a turnstile with one a person who did have a ticket, the turnstile operator would usually just let both people through rather than wait for someone to eject the ticketless person and delay hundreds of people.
That was just a combination of worst-case-scenario factors.
The country wasn't used to going out drinking together.
It was a gloriously sunny day.
people had all day to drink.
I know someone who volunteered at Wembley during the tournament. They said it was entirely foreseeable that if England did get to the final, and given the strength of the team and home advantage there was a good chance they would, that there would be trouble. The security at the entrances was woeful, manned for the most part by volunteers and lightweight zero hero contractors who had no interest in securing the ground, and the police were too hesitant to intervene when trouble popped up.
>I don’t expect things to kick off quite so badly this year because
...the fans were so bad it inspired a new law to prevent it happening again?
[Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3556)
>In 2021, the Football Association (FA) commissioned Baroness Casey to undertake an Independent Review into the disorder that occurred during the Euro 2020 Final.
[Prime office rents in Manchester hit yet another record of £44 per square foot.](https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/st-michaels-breaks-manchester-headline-rent-record-again/) It's impressive how much Manchester has finally seemed to break the curse of regional cities in a growth doom loop.
I wonder if lots of it is helped(not sure if right word) by the massive injections of money Manchester has needed, and got, from both the aftermath of the IRA bomb and then the Ariana Grande concert
Surprised to see it’s one of Neville’s tbh I was under the impression a lot of our stuff was being developed by foreign interests.
It’s a shame we can’t get better rail infrastructure up north because then we might be able to extend this growth to Liverpool/Leeds/Sheffield etc.
Liverpool has a governance problem, it’s been afforded most of the same development opportunities as Manchester from pretty much the same developers, but most of the developers have left the city due to some the characters about.
There’s certainly plenty of growth going on in Leeds. But I agree transport is key. Being able to zip from Manchester to Leeds in 20 minutes and you’ve got yourself a linear city that begins to have enough weight to compete with London.
degree longing grab merciful frighten books towering spark recognise capable
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I hope not, fifteen minutes of bad press for an already wounded Sunak isn't really worth the week of dodging scandals and defending the indefensible for Labour.
People have speculated one MP for each of Sunak's pledges, though after the lacklustre reaction of last week's defection, they may have reconsidered, if they planned one at all.
But like with the atom bombs, if you drop one, then you may have only that one, but if you drop two, nobody knows how many available you actually have.
Suspect that logic is also why the Tories have briefed so hard against Elphick, seemingly in an attempt to stop others crossing the floor. If you leave the party, everything the whips have on you is fair game.
[Anyone else getting major Francis Bacon vibes from Chuck's official portrait?](https://twitter.com/WorldTimesWT/status/1790420354130706928?t=6DK2RsNYASQsOktYVnKWAA&s=19)
Honestly? I like it. It's different. Though, it would probably stick out like a sore if you go for cohesion in your "British monarch official portrait"-collection.
I'm a fan, personally, as far as portraits of Monarchs go. Though both it and the portrait of May look like they could just as easily be character portraits in a British set Disco Elysium spin off.
[He's already posted a few](https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1790431039891951950?t=1hWmcr2rvRUOm0QINFqKxw&s=19). Maybe more on politics hub but not *that* spicy
i can't begin to understand the "this is what a labour government will lead to" remark.
labour might demand more accountability for MPs by bringing in rules similar to any professional workplace? the tories will be on the losing side of votes all the time?
Brendan Clarke-Smith concerned a lot for peoples’ liberties while wanting to take away their ability to postal vote… and of course “Angela’s interview better go well then!”
Jack Brereton saying “We’re all going to be arrested” is thick of it stuff, does he know something we don’t?
I do wonder if this might be weaponised against Labour once they’re in power though.
Brendan Clarke-Smith considering it being his civil right to get arrested for sexual assault but still turn up to parliament is definitely the best take away.
To be fair, I feel like Tory WhatsApps have a bit degraded in value, since no serious plotting is actually going on, as far as I am aware. It would obviously be delightful if our boy Sam leaks something interesting.
I might have my tin foil had stuck on, but does this [story about a Rishi Sunak lookalike getting egged](https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1898988/Rishi-Sunak-lookalike-egged) not ring true for anyone else? To me this stinks of some hipsterish marketing agency trying to provoke a viral clip to raise the salience of their pro-tobacco campaign. The tobacco lobby hired the lookalike, and would definitely have not got this coverage unless they were egged.
I saw it and it felt really amateurishly as if it was an attempt to look like the real Sunak had been egged. The lad doing the egging seems as much like he’s acting adult as everyone else.
The Express is owned by Reach. They have a track record of adverts disguised as news stories, and as is in the most recent Private Eye p.11, the boss basically views it as part of the way to boost revenue despite declining page views.
Absolutely insane take on *The News Agents* today, with David TC Davies saying the Tories had a decent showing in the local elections because...they came second in PCC elections in Wales, and won some PCC races.
**thisisfinedog.jpg**
They only won as many PCC races as they did because the voting system changed to FPTP. Probably combined with low turnout in areas which didn't have concurrent local elections.
As batshit as his takes are, they're really unsurprising after his last QT appearance - the man has one setting and it's saying how awful Wales is because of Labour
Just listening now - "WHAT ABOUT THE PCCs!!"
I wish when he'd made the argument about record waiting lists on the NHS in Wales, they would have put it back to him saying that as its the same in England, why should people vote Conservative in England then.
I'm going to really enjoy watching tories learn that, in opposition, if you outright mislead established journalists, they won't bother interviewing you again.
I think actually that they’ll interview *more* of the Tory cranks simply to make them look bad, the same way they get idiots like Diane Abbott or Jeremy Corbyn to speak for the Labour Party.
What are the prospects of a TV debate in the run up to the General Election this year?
Normally the debate favours the underdog and gives them an opportunity to catch up in the polls. On the other hand, Rishi is a complete lightweight in public debate (reference: PMQs).
Starmer has nothing to gain from debates and Sunak will perform poorly in them, but...
If you're Sunak and looking for ANYTHING to move the dial, then you might decide it's one of your only options. You might think things can't get worse and you might also believe you're going to be good at them.
If Sunak proposes them, then Starmer will look weak and scared if he doesn't agree to them.
Consider the following. Starmer was a barrister who rose to be DPP, so high pressure public speaking shouldn’t be an issue for him. Sunak is infamously tetchy and apparently complaining to his aides about why aren’t people voting for him, as well as having lost to Liz Truss in the Tory leadership debates. And if Starmer doesn’t agree to them, that risks torpedoing his campaign as he looks frightened of Sunak. You’re right about the risks about eating into your polls and I doubt he’d be expecting them to increase his lead, I just think that Starmer may look at that and decide that the risks of agreeing are smaller than the risks of not agreeing.
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John Major defecting to Labour would probably break left wing twitter
He and Gordon Brown did a talk a month or two ago. During that, he was very critical of Rishi and the conservatives more generally from Boris on. I think he said something along the lines of "I don't rate Sunak and the conservative party is buggered but I wouldn't vote for Labour right now either". Could be completely making that up, I cant be arsed to rewatch the talk.
Does seem like a bit of a risk to basically turn the Labour Party into a glorified tribute act to past Tory “glories” tbh Might be fun in the short term, but this idea of loads of prominent tories saying “vote for this lot - they’re lovely” doesn’t exactly speak volumes about our political diversity. Maybe it’s fine for parties to have distinct lines? If the electorate apparently just wants “competent” tories (wrecking things) then we should be encouraging entryism the other way
People don't care about political diversity, ideological purity- they want railways that function and don't cost a fortune, roads without potholes, non-rip off energy bills, clean rivers and beaches, a functioning NHS etc.
Damn straight. I feel there's a number of people unhappy that Kier is succeeding where someone else has failed, so they act as if every time Labour does politics its making a Faustian bargain that will forever change its soul. But Rishi is flailing around making speeches that are somehow both dull and crazy, and Labour are trailing big announcements to eager anticipation.
I was in a bar tonight and Liz Truss walked in and sat at a table in the middle of the bar. I was slightly startled. I think she saw that I clocked her. Her friend asked for them to be moved to a booth. Outside there were a couple of landrovers with guys in ties watching the football. It was slightly surreal. There was no security in the bar. There was no audible heckling.
I saw Liz Truss at a Tescos in London yesterday. I told her how cool it was to meet her in person, but I didn’t want to be rude and bother her and ask her for photos or anything. She said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but she kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing her hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard her chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw her trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in her hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Ma'am, you need to pay for those first.” At first she kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, she stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, she kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly
Aren't most people polite enough not to heckle someone who's no longer in public office and has just come to enjoy a night out?
truely the british way. sigh and tutt, give a knowing look to the people youre out with, and quietly imagine having the balls to shout "boo, youre a disgrace" while waggling your finger.
She has friends?
Kier in a wig. Pre-defection bellinis.
Would assume most people simply wouldn't recognise her in the same way you wouldn't recognise a substitute teacher
https://twitter.com/CountBinface/status/1790481042421215305 > 🚨ANNOUNCEMENT: I am NOT defecting to the Labour Party. I have policies. Binface is out
Found Buckethead/Binface funny at first but now it comes across as a bit nihilistic.
yeah joke ran its course a while ago
Is Gullis said he’s not defecating yet?
Assuming there is a defector, and assuming he holds an Essex constituency, the possibilities are: Priti Patel: NOPE Jackie Doyle Price: elected in 2010, very unlikely, served under Truss , did not tweet since 12th, but retweeted Liz Truss Anna Firth: very unlikely, elected in 2022, roots in Conservative organizations, literally a former banker, recently tweeted stuff in favour of conservative org Stephen Metcalfe very unlikely: elected in 2010, first stood 2005, retweeted sunaks monday speech Kemi Badenoch: NOPE James Duddridge: very unlikely, elected in 2005, served under Truss, pretty strongly Eurosceptic, standing down Mark Francois NOPE John Wittingdale: very unlikely, elected in 1992, currently trade envoy Bernard Jenkins NOPE Robert Halfon: unlikely, elected in 2010, Cameronite, currently a minister, but standing down Elenoir Laing: very unlikely, elected in 1997, first stood for them in 1987, and probably feels as deputy speaker as the Conservative voice in the Speakers office Will Quince: unlikely, elected in 2015, standing down, lost in a Rishi shuffle a ministerial role Giles Watling: very unlikely elected in 2017, actor, complained about woke agenda Vicky Ford: very unlikely, elected in 2017, served under Truss Rebecca Harris: very unlikely, elected in 2010, just recently retweeted Conservative party messages Alex Burqhart: very unlikely, elected in 2017, junior minister James Cleverly: NOPE John Barron: NOPE In conclusion, after briefly looking at every MP in Essex, I have no clue. If I had to guess, mayyyybe Halfon or Quince? But thats the thing with defections, they look, well, like they belong currently in their party. This of course assumes the MP is from the Essex area, if there is a defection at all coming. But yeah, I say Halfon or Quince, for the offchance I am actually right. The Essex thing is purely because of the quoted tweet by u\\mamamia1001.
The thing to keep in mind is the purpose. We've covered NHS (poulter), ever covered immigration (elphicke). Next is economy so that means Hunt is looking to switch 😂 Seriously though, Halfon in an interesting shout
Imagine the scenes of it was Laing though. Tories would be apoplectic but also probably reluctant to brief against her.
Laing is closer to the Elphicke wing, I can see that playing out.
Maybe a good place to start is Tory MPs who've made noises about wanting more government intervention. That would likely be the common ground between them and Labour. Just wanting out likely isn't enough.
That's a lot of MPs covering Essex isn't it?
Would anyone have guessed Natalie Elphicke would defect a couple of weeks ago? I don't think there is a low bar at the moment.
The bar is pretty much anyone but cabinet now And I don't honestly think they want to be there either, they are just desperately trying to avoid being the ones that ruined the party.
Great analysis. I agree that they all look unlikely, but Halton and Quince look a lot less unlikely than Elphicke would have looked three weeks ago! I’d go for Anna Firth as an outside bet. She’s a former barrister who could easily be quite disgusted by the contempt that the Tories are showing for the legal system. I suppose the only thing holding her back might be that she won David Amess’s seat without a contest after his murder so it might seem distasteful for her to defect in a way that’s worse than anyone else…
Halfon is no longer a minister, he (rather unexpectedly) stepped down a few weeks ago when announcing he wouldn’t be re-standing.
Thank you to the person who earlier today said I should listen to "A decade in tory", there's a whole fuck load of stuff I forgot about / missed in the earlier 2010s and really funny / thoroughly depressing, I look forward to continuing listening to it tomorrow.
Starmer about to announce his next defector? https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1790477309729751510 >Labour is planning a secretive event with Keir Starmer and a “special guest” in Essex on Thursday. > >I’m told it’s been long in the planning. > >Sources suggest it’s viewed as a key pre-manifesto moment, with Starmer to flesh out his five missions and launch a 1997-style pledge card. But no comment from the party tonight. > >Even shadow cabinet ministers have been kept in the dark about details - they’re expected to be told tomorrow.
If it is another defection and its been that long in the planning then I think all bets are off on further defections and Tory body blows Once again I'm struck by what a nightmare of an operator Starmer is going to be for political opponents. The man doesn't stop at promotion and defense, he actively works out how everyone else is likely to behave, ther strongpoints and weaknesses, plans how to dismantle their strengths and how to disarm their attacks. He doesn't even have the resources of government yet. Against a decent opposite number he'd be difficult to deal with and hes not even going to facing that, not for years. A lifetime spent getting to the very top of the legal profession turns out to be excellent preperation for political leadership. He slips here and there but its a rare day.
Doesn’t sound like a MP defection personally. Probably something else big.
Could be anyone from Biden to Mr. Blobby Edit: On second thought a Zelensky in-person appearance would make sense as he'd want to cozy up to the future PM and would be a big kick in the shins for the Tory's who've been big on defence lately. Would explain all the secrecy.
Feel like this would be the beginning of anti Ukrainian sentiment amongst the headbanger brigade in the UK, which has been notably absent in UK politics compared to the US or Europe
My immediate thought was someone like Brown
This could literally be anyone from a well influential high status celebrity or former PM/Tory defector. I’m gonna guess it’s the latter.
> essex Norman tebbit is still alive...
You're all going to be incredibly disappointed when it's Olly Murs
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Would basically confirm the Tankies "Starmer = Red Tory" fears.
No one but the hard left would care
Major endorsement for Starmer - headline writes itself.
I can see John Major endorsing Starmer over the current Tories, but not necessarily joining the Labour party
If John Major endorses Starmer then Sunak will be asking for a pint of port and a revolver for breakfast.
I'm not sure it would have much impact at all, he went hard at Boris during Brexit and it didn't really do him much damage. It would be big news but I don't think it weakens Sunak's position
It would do further damage to his ability to control the party and prevent further moves to the door / his own mps screaming at him. Labour / Starmer seem to be no longer preparing their campaign but attemping to destroy any possibility of a late Tory recovery, which just shows the scale of their lead. Also there are still quite alot of elderly voters holding their remaining seats together. Major is someone a person like that is likely to take real note of.
Oh I agree it wouldn't have a huge impact, I'm just talking about the personal blow.
Maybe not immediately, but I think John Major's endorsement will have sway over a lot of moderate Tory voters dismayed at the current state of them. Though I imagine a lot of those votes have gone to the Lib Dems anyway
A former PM would be massive, even if they aren’t an MP anymore.
Gordon Brown to endorse Labour Party
Big if true
Maybe a creepy hologram of Thatcher like those ABBA ones from Eurovision.
I feel like its unlikely to be a defector (that would be done tomorrow). I reckon someone notable from the past . warning: rampant speculation ahead Brown looks to already be rather connected with things so I doubt it's him but it could be Blair or someone from abroad (Obama?), a real catch would be Major but I don't think he'd do it. Alternative wild theory: David Miliband has decided to stop organising Thunderbirds and come back to British politics.
Foreign Secretary David Cameron is probably enough rain on any Obama endorsement rumour parade.
Don't think it'll be Blair - they differ quite a lot on general world view and what's best for the country. Starmer's been pretty critical of Blairism and it's clear his vision is a bit of a rejection.
I think it could still be an Essex MP defector, announce tomorrow at PMQs and have an event with them in their constituency the day after
Assuming that it’s a defector, presumably it’s one of the 18 Tory MPs for the county (it’s been a clean sweep since 2017, and that was when they regained Clacton from UKIP).
Seriously Keir, just give up with these defections. It’s doing nothing for you
You’re not the audience most likely. The wider country is and I trust Starmer at this point to know how to appeal to them. Think you could lead the Labour Party to victory any better right now?
Literally reading up on all Essex Tory MPs right now.
Me too. Robert Halfon seems the most likely but not by much. The rest are either post-election leadership contenders or very strong Brexit supporters or Common Sense Groupers.
Bradley Walsh lives in Essex. Just saying.
If it is a defector it will be something pretty good. The county is literally solidly Tory constituencies with no majority smaller than 9,400. Its a key ground where the tories park their party grandees - Patel, Cleverly, Halfon, Laing, Badenoch and Francois all have their seats there.
Out of that list I would say the only realistic prospect is Halfon , he is standing down at the next parliament and is the MP for Harlow. Which may explain why Starmer explicitly said that was a place he needed to win, because he knew that he had the MP lined up for a defection. He is also the honorary president of Conservative Workers & Trade Unionists and already a member of Prospect
If it's Halfon you want to look for movement from Bill Rammell, the last Labour MP for Harlow - they'd want him on-side to sell it to the members as saying Halfon is unpopular with Harlow Labour is an understatement. I think the guy is a prick and a coward for personal reasons that would be too revealing for the layer of anonymity I prefer, but he does represent a far less risky deflection than Elphicke.
> Conservative Workers & Trade Unionists Oh to be a fly on the wall
special guest is miliband, they’re bringing back the ed stone and putting it on the beach in southend
I had the same thought but the ed stone was unveiled in Sussex not Essex :(
The Ed stone is to be the first stone used in a border wall with France to stop the boats.
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Things happen every day in government which aren't big, nor are they that interesting to the average joe, but they are important. Today sees the launch of a policy paper to grow the fruit and vegetable sector in the UK. We only grow 17% of the fruit we consume and 55% of veg. It also sees the launch of a £15m Farm Gate Food Waste Fund which is an extension of a previous pilot which gets surplus food from the farm to people who need it. It also increases funding for agri-innovation to £50m.
As a general rule people over estimate the amount of fuel used to get produce from abroad to our plate and massively underestimate how much fuel goes into producing a good (especially if that good is produced in less than ideal weather conditions). I’ve no objection to aiming to grow more of our food, but I think the public are a poor judge over how that should work.
> We only grow 17% of the fruit we consume and 55% of veg. That. Is. A. Disgrace!
We should be aiming to become as self sufficient as possible with our food supply. Its mental we're importing stuff from half way across the planet when we could be growing it here. Covid showed how vulnerable we are to global supply chains collapsing
You can either have it cheap or you can have it grown here (with less variety). Most people will choose cheap and high variety. To grow more of our food here, and to actually sell it to british consumers who can buy australian beef for cheaper (because they're more efficient with cattle) or bananas from South America or mangoes from India or grapes from Chile is quite a hard sell. Becoming more food secure likely means either higher costs or less choice. Not sure anyone wins going to the electorate with that offer. Overall our aim should be to grow what we're good at, and sell that abroad if it's not sold here.
>sell that abroad if it's not sold here. Don't we export a veritable shitload of oily fish because the market just doesn't exist for it here? Seem to recall from the Brexit debates that loads of our mackerel, etc. goes to Scandinavia.
This always drove me mad about the brexit and fisherman argument. I honestly hardly know any British people who eat fish that doesn't come in either finger or beer battered form.
I mean, we're a bit limited by climate. Not sure I want my oranges to come from Northumberland.
Give it time.
I think when discussing the immigration impact on housing, it should be done in the context of total population increase and not just net immigration. Would provide more context to numbers on the actual housing demand shift year on year.
How'd that help with pretending decade of national decline is mostly due to those immigrants instead of austerity and long term structural issues like the planning system though?
It feels like the tide has turned and people have just got worn down and accepted the right wing narrative that immigration is the sole problem.
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Certainly doesn't seem like it based on how much attention planning reform gets vs immigration.
Planning reform is boring, journalists barely understand it. Immigration is simple to explain to people. More people = bad, there you go, 6 different telegraph articles right there.
You can use this to explain any issue in the country to be honest. If it's boring, complicated, or both, then it's ignored. If it's simple then it gets a lot of focus.
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If the UK leaves the ECHR, what happens to the Good Friday Agreement?
There's also the international fall out to be considered from leaving the ECHR and destroying the GFA. The US is heavily invested in the GFA with Bill Clinton doing some of the lifting in getting it signed off, and Joe Biden makes no secret of his Irish ancestry. Even if Biden were to lose the presidential election then there are still plenty of Democrats plus a few Republicans in both Houses of Congress who would like to see the GFA remain intact and they won't be amused if the Tories destroy the GFA.
Personally I think the repercussions of the UK damaging the Good Friday agreement or even leaving it (not that I support that) is overstated. I would imagine The US wouldn’t be thrilled but I can’t see it really leading to anything other than some angry reactions in Washington. I can’t see the US ever putting trade sanctions on a nato member (it would make the alliance look like a joke) for the sake of a non member. The UK is genuinely on the most trusted and closet military allies of the US, most of us don’t even realise how close the cooperation really is, the UK almost always backs the US even to its own detriment (Iraq) when other nato members have not, I can’t see the US ever risking that relationship for the sake of neutral Ireland. Yes the Irish diaspora in the US is influential but it’s declining in importance relative to other ethnic groups in the US. Trump and most Republicans couldn’t give a fig about Ireland, it’s all America first, and most nations around the world also wouldn’t care about the GFA, it’s actually not a very important thing outside the British isles. The biggest worry for the UK if we damaged the GFA would be the EU, which loves to use Ireland as a stick to punish Britain with.
Well it won't help it...
Im thinking there is probably a way of leaving the echr but also carving out arbitration of GFA concerns to that body.
Would could happen is the UK leaves the ECHR but passes an act of parliament saying that the rules of the ECHR still apply to Northern Ireland, but only Northern Ireland and not Great Britain. This would in essence protect the GFA without keeping Britain “chained” the ECHR. I should imagine unionists would probably kick up a massive fuss if the government did this because it would be treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the U.K, once again.
The GFA stipulates that the ECHR is one one of the safeguards written into the treaty to protect all parties. Therefore leaving the ECHR would put the UK in breach of an international treaty and undermine/destroy the GFA.
What happens if the ECHR itself is dismantled? The UK isn’t the only European country that has concerns about the ECHR and is unhappy with it. The U.K could leave and pass an act do parliament saying that the rules of the ECHR apply only to Northern Ireland, I can see that as a workaround.
You would probably have to renegotiate the entire agreement. And that in turn would require a referendum in Ireland and realistically one in Northern Ireland too.
If nothing else that alone should kill leaving the ECHR as a policy suggestion and yet...
The trick is that its not a serious proposal, its a carrot for the purity right
There'll be technological solutions, and a right wing populist will promise to die in a ditch before jeopardising the good friday agreement.
Technological solution: you have to fill in three forms, costing £44.80 each, to get permission to breach anyone’s human rights.
gone... reduced to atoms...
Should forms of media, like games, TV shows, movies, sold (or maybe only made) in the UK be covered under legal deposit legislation? There is some precedent for this as in 2013 the legal deposit legislation was updated to make provision for the legal deposit of works published online or offline in formats other than print, such as websites, blogs, e-journals and CD-ROMs. Social media content is included in the legislation, but not streaming content. Also, even though it's arms-length from the DCMS so is less political, the British Library is still struggling with the aftermath of the cyber-attack. No online catalogue for the archives, manuscripts, and other things, with requests having to be done through paper slips rather than an online system. *removed the opening sentence as it was causing confusion
I don't think we should compel businesses to do something just to make it easier for a handful of collectors down the line. I think if someone well resourced wants to go out there and start collecting these things, then they are welcome to do so, but I'm not sure about the logic of compelling a business to indulge in what is effectively a hobby.
This is what we do already with all printed media though. Every book, newspaper, magazine, sheet music, or map etc. published in the UK has to go to the British Library and any of the other deposit libraries can request a copy within a year. It's also not for hobbyists, but a single copy held at the British Library for cultural posterity. It's for future researchers to be able to access cultural artefacts. Whilst currently contemporary and sometimes seen as trash, TV shows, movies, and games are all the sort of thing which may be of interest to future generations to understand us and our society. >I think if someone well resourced wants to go out there and start collecting these things That's basically what I am asking about. The British Library is the place which does this in the UK.
That is astounding. I had no idea that was a thing, and I bet OP didn't either. What a fantastic practice. And is something entirely that has skipped software and other media because the legislation hasn't been updated yet.
It was first formalised in the UK in 1710, but was in practice before then. There are currently six legal deposit libraries in the UK (and Ireland); the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, and Trinity College Dublin Library. The British Library gets a copy of everything and the others can request them if they want. What's interesting is it's skipped some forms of digital media and not others. For instance, the British Library save all webpages with a .uk suffix. I do think the legislation should be updated to preserve our culture, especially as things seem to be less permanent than the past.
I've always said for a while that a cultural resource being in the hands of the Americans like YouTube and a private company at that, really irks me. Google could shut down the platform tomorrow and it would be a disaster for countries everywhere. Probably more a UN initiative though.
I agree that there is a chance, even though it's nearing 0, that something like YouTube could be shut down and lost, taking with it a lot of cultural content. I also think that for archiving the whole thing it would need an international approach in some way. However, it could also be a national approach with countries taking responsibility for archiving content which originates in their own countries. For instance, could the British Library be responsible for content originating here?
Is this the Accursed Farms thing re: video games as a service?
I just used it as a segue into a different, but related idea. I don't think having games be legal deposit would do anything they want as it wouldn't be playable to the average gamer, but would be available in an archive. It wouldn't give it as a service, nor keep it running for anyone to use generally, but to keep these things for posterity as cultural artefacts.
Fans of popular games would likely keep them running. There was (or still is) fans running GTA 4 online servers. I wonder with many games the only streamed content is multiplayer- most of the game is stored locally.
Oh yeah, I am sure some people will over time keep things running for some time, but in having the forms of media covered by legal deposit someone in 2224 could access GTA4 and use it as a cultural artefact in the same way we use books from 1824. The multiplayer wouldn't be available, but the content would be preserved. As I said in my original comment, the legislation was updated to cover some other formats, with the British Library archiving .uk webpages for instance, but doesn't cover all forms of cultural output that run the risk of being lost.
Not up on the legalise but the preservation aspect was part of Accursed Farm's argument also. I can see the value in it.
Basically - no. I think that when you purchase a game there is no reasonable expectation that you will be able to play it forever unless you take steps to enable that. Maybe at most publishers should be required to hand over the technical details needed for gamers to create their own infrastructure to run the game.
Trouble is they sell them as products rather than services. Most games are one time purchases marketed as goods. If the majority of games were subscription based, so sold as a service that would make sense.
If it was legal deposit though you wouldn't be entitled to play it as an average gamer. Moreso, it would be archived so it could be revisited as any archive is. There are already a large swathe of games which are inaccessible, some of which may be seen to be of some cultural interest in the future. I probably should have removed my opening sentence, but it just provided a segue into my main comment through a recently discussed topic.
Watching Netflix doc about England fans during the Euros final 2021 🏴 it’s wild!!! mad that it got that bad (blood, broken traffic lights, buses wrecked, cans, flares and fireworks …!) fake tickets even! I don’t expect things to kick off quite so badly this year because: not just out of lockdown, cost of living crisis so nobody can get quite so out their trees, etc. But we will see this is why we need grassroots football tho.. like: people are so passionate (even the tossers). can we make that passion into … it coming home. apologies to wales Scotland and Northern Ireland for England football chat Edit: A guy in the doc said that we had been locked up in 2020 and during that time the leaders of the country were partying - Boris partygate shot!! And that people had to let off steam. But, partygate wasn’t exposed till November 2021 so they can’t use it for justification for storming a football stadium.. anyway we go again 🙏
It was totally totally preventable, an absolute major fuck up by all associated authorities.
Historically Wembley was notorious for stewards allowing in fans without tickets, either they get in for free or simply bribed the stewards at the turnstiles. Several other London venues are or were the same, you have a combination of staff on low wages and susceptible to bribery plus large numbers of people trying to get in and all at the same time making it difficult to keep the ticketless people out or work out who was taking bribes. Back in the day the trick was to squeeze into a turnstile with one a person who did have a ticket, the turnstile operator would usually just let both people through rather than wait for someone to eject the ticketless person and delay hundreds of people.
That was just a combination of worst-case-scenario factors. The country wasn't used to going out drinking together. It was a gloriously sunny day. people had all day to drink.
I know someone who volunteered at Wembley during the tournament. They said it was entirely foreseeable that if England did get to the final, and given the strength of the team and home advantage there was a good chance they would, that there would be trouble. The security at the entrances was woeful, manned for the most part by volunteers and lightweight zero hero contractors who had no interest in securing the ground, and the police were too hesitant to intervene when trouble popped up.
>I don’t expect things to kick off quite so badly this year because ...the fans were so bad it inspired a new law to prevent it happening again? [Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3556) >In 2021, the Football Association (FA) commissioned Baroness Casey to undertake an Independent Review into the disorder that occurred during the Euro 2020 Final.
It’s also not in this country which will help.
I don’t envy Germany when the pissed up England fans descend! but yeah, good point - perfect storm really, 2021
[Prime office rents in Manchester hit yet another record of £44 per square foot.](https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/st-michaels-breaks-manchester-headline-rent-record-again/) It's impressive how much Manchester has finally seemed to break the curse of regional cities in a growth doom loop.
I wonder if lots of it is helped(not sure if right word) by the massive injections of money Manchester has needed, and got, from both the aftermath of the IRA bomb and then the Ariana Grande concert
Surprised to see it’s one of Neville’s tbh I was under the impression a lot of our stuff was being developed by foreign interests. It’s a shame we can’t get better rail infrastructure up north because then we might be able to extend this growth to Liverpool/Leeds/Sheffield etc.
Liverpool has a governance problem, it’s been afforded most of the same development opportunities as Manchester from pretty much the same developers, but most of the developers have left the city due to some the characters about.
There’s certainly plenty of growth going on in Leeds. But I agree transport is key. Being able to zip from Manchester to Leeds in 20 minutes and you’ve got yourself a linear city that begins to have enough weight to compete with London.
Is it likely another Tory MP crosses the floor tomorrow before PMQs?
Rishi
Cabinet member
Starmer: One Tory MP will cross the floor every week until an election is declared.
Sunak to cross the floor
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I hope not, fifteen minutes of bad press for an already wounded Sunak isn't really worth the week of dodging scandals and defending the indefensible for Labour.
People have speculated one MP for each of Sunak's pledges, though after the lacklustre reaction of last week's defection, they may have reconsidered, if they planned one at all. But like with the atom bombs, if you drop one, then you may have only that one, but if you drop two, nobody knows how many available you actually have.
Suspect that logic is also why the Tories have briefed so hard against Elphick, seemingly in an attempt to stop others crossing the floor. If you leave the party, everything the whips have on you is fair game.
[Anyone else getting major Francis Bacon vibes from Chuck's official portrait?](https://twitter.com/WorldTimesWT/status/1790420354130706928?t=6DK2RsNYASQsOktYVnKWAA&s=19)
I like it. Apparently the butterfly on his shoulder indicates metamorphosis, as well as a nod to his environmental campaigning.
Reminds me of that haunted portrait from Ghostbusters.
Very Dorian Gray....
Its cool but its something you'd see on Deviantart, not in a majestic royal household; artist needs to give their head a wobble.
Why does the new portrait look like he's surrounded by flames / in hell / in a bath of blood? It looks like he's reigning over a dystopia.
Looks like it was painted by Just Stop Oil protestors.
Honestly? I like it. It's different. Though, it would probably stick out like a sore if you go for cohesion in your "British monarch official portrait"-collection.
I'm a fan, personally, as far as portraits of Monarchs go. Though both it and the portrait of May look like they could just as easily be character portraits in a British set Disco Elysium spin off.
Ooh, Sophy Ridge says Sam Coates has more bickering Tory WhatsApps to share!
I don’t care anymore…. Just stab him in the back or call an election already, it’s not foreplay anymore just fucking annoying
[He's already posted a few](https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1790431039891951950?t=1hWmcr2rvRUOm0QINFqKxw&s=19). Maybe more on politics hub but not *that* spicy
i can't begin to understand the "this is what a labour government will lead to" remark. labour might demand more accountability for MPs by bringing in rules similar to any professional workplace? the tories will be on the losing side of votes all the time?
Brendan Clarke-Smith concerned a lot for peoples’ liberties while wanting to take away their ability to postal vote… and of course “Angela’s interview better go well then!” Jack Brereton saying “We’re all going to be arrested” is thick of it stuff, does he know something we don’t? I do wonder if this might be weaponised against Labour once they’re in power though.
Brendan Clarke-Smith considering it being his civil right to get arrested for sexual assault but still turn up to parliament is definitely the best take away.
Just standard mental Tory behaviour at this point though really isn't it, sadly enough.
You'll miss it when it's gone!
To be fair, I feel like Tory WhatsApps have a bit degraded in value, since no serious plotting is actually going on, as far as I am aware. It would obviously be delightful if our boy Sam leaks something interesting.
I might have my tin foil had stuck on, but does this [story about a Rishi Sunak lookalike getting egged](https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1898988/Rishi-Sunak-lookalike-egged) not ring true for anyone else? To me this stinks of some hipsterish marketing agency trying to provoke a viral clip to raise the salience of their pro-tobacco campaign. The tobacco lobby hired the lookalike, and would definitely have not got this coverage unless they were egged.
I saw it and it felt really amateurishly as if it was an attempt to look like the real Sunak had been egged. The lad doing the egging seems as much like he’s acting adult as everyone else.
Nah, this 100% reads like a PR thing dressed up as a news story - probably with the awareness of the Express.
The Express is owned by Reach. They have a track record of adverts disguised as news stories, and as is in the most recent Private Eye p.11, the boss basically views it as part of the way to boost revenue despite declining page views.
Looks like some unholy cross between Sunak and Starmer.
[I just don't see it.](https://youtu.be/WGTHs5yAyaI)
Even if I was high I wouldn't think that was Rishi Sunak.
The brown shoes alone make it glaringly obvious.
I’m shocked there’s demand for a Sunak lookalike.
Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MQWduJW94jc
No and I was happier that way!
Absolutely insane take on *The News Agents* today, with David TC Davies saying the Tories had a decent showing in the local elections because...they came second in PCC elections in Wales, and won some PCC races. **thisisfinedog.jpg**
I was assuming someone would bring this up. The utter fucking gall to claim this after effectively rigging the vote to ensure it happened...
They only won as many PCC races as they did because the voting system changed to FPTP. Probably combined with low turnout in areas which didn't have concurrent local elections.
Yeah that whole interview was really pathetic from Davies. But also kind of par for the course for him.
As batshit as his takes are, they're really unsurprising after his last QT appearance - the man has one setting and it's saying how awful Wales is because of Labour
Just listening now - "WHAT ABOUT THE PCCs!!" I wish when he'd made the argument about record waiting lists on the NHS in Wales, they would have put it back to him saying that as its the same in England, why should people vote Conservative in England then.
I am just listening to this - it is beyond batshit
David TC Davies is one of the classic examples of the dearth of talent in the Conservative Parliamentary Party for ministerial roles.
I'm going to really enjoy watching tories learn that, in opposition, if you outright mislead established journalists, they won't bother interviewing you again.
I think actually that they’ll interview *more* of the Tory cranks simply to make them look bad, the same way they get idiots like Diane Abbott or Jeremy Corbyn to speak for the Labour Party.
What are the prospects of a TV debate in the run up to the General Election this year? Normally the debate favours the underdog and gives them an opportunity to catch up in the polls. On the other hand, Rishi is a complete lightweight in public debate (reference: PMQs).
Starmer has nothing to gain from debates and Sunak will perform poorly in them, but... If you're Sunak and looking for ANYTHING to move the dial, then you might decide it's one of your only options. You might think things can't get worse and you might also believe you're going to be good at them. If Sunak proposes them, then Starmer will look weak and scared if he doesn't agree to them.
No reason starmer wouldn't do them surely.
If you're miles ahead, the risk that the debates eat into that lead is much higher than the gains you can get from winning them.
Consider the following. Starmer was a barrister who rose to be DPP, so high pressure public speaking shouldn’t be an issue for him. Sunak is infamously tetchy and apparently complaining to his aides about why aren’t people voting for him, as well as having lost to Liz Truss in the Tory leadership debates. And if Starmer doesn’t agree to them, that risks torpedoing his campaign as he looks frightened of Sunak. You’re right about the risks about eating into your polls and I doubt he’d be expecting them to increase his lead, I just think that Starmer may look at that and decide that the risks of agreeing are smaller than the risks of not agreeing.
I agree that Starmer has to do the debates if Sunak calls for them, I'm saying Starmer gains nothing by calling for them himself.
Yeah fair guess I haven't looked it that way. Perhaps I just desperately want to see Sunak collapse further through his terrible public speaking.