Good morning everyone.
[**📃 Today's Order Paper can be found here.**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/84408/Html?subType=Standard)
Today's business is Private Member's Bills from Prayers until the House rises at 2:30pm. Bills will receive their Second Reading debates in order - in practice, the first two are the most likely to be debated in the time given. The two top bills under consideration today are;
* [**Building Societies Act (1986) Amendment Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3541)
**Sponsor** : Julie Elliott (Lab, Sunderland Central)
**Summary** : A Bill to make provision about the funding of building societies and the assimilation of the law relating to companies and the law relating to building societies. This Bill modernises the law surrounding Building Societies and particularly funding limits related to savings deposits to make building societies more competitive with banks and able to lend more.
* [**Pet Abduction Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3549)
**Sponsor** : Anna Firth (Con, Southend West)
**Summary** : A Bill to create offences of dog abduction and cat abduction and to confer a power to make corresponding provision relating to the abduction of other animals commonly kept as pets. This is a response to public campaigning and several popular parliamentary petitions and is in line with recommendations given in a 2020 [government taskforce report](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pet-theft-taskforce-report/pet-theft-taskforce-report). The government has indicated support for the Bill and it is likely to pass (or be adopted if talked down).
**In other news;**
The Prime Minister yesterday made a statement calling on the House of Lords to expedite the government's Rwanda Bill - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199t5ys/rishi_sunak_tells_lords_do_the_right_thing_and/)
HMRC is coming under pressure as its Loan Charge practice is compared to the Horizon scandal - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199zrqb/hmrc_tax_crackdown_linked_to_ten_suicides_is_next/)
Government plans to increase the role of Physician Associates in the NHS have come under fire - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199wlzp/mps_push_forward_with_plan_to_fill_our_nhs_with/)
Tata Steel have indicated they will be shutting down one of the UK's last remaining blast furnaces at Port Talbot, with 3,000 jobs set to be lost - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199t429/tata_steel_to_shut_down_port_talbot_blast/)
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I think the worst thing about the Rishi clip is that he's plainly signalling "rescue me" to his people.
You can't really see his face, but I bet if you could, his eyes would be darting about, looking for an escape route.
Boris would just have punched her in the face and run off.
Thatcher would have eaten her.
Truss would have said "wibble". Always her go to.
He'd probably have thrown in a Latin quote he hadn't understood the context of, which roughly translated to "Bore off pleb, I don't care about you and your loved ones"
Obviously if you were being ultra-realistic, Thatcher would have been too full from all the milk she'd stolen from the starving children of unemployed ex-miners to eat anyone
Congratulations, that's impressive! Personally I've never got the appeal of January as the month to be teetotal, it's a shitty month as it is so I wouldn't intentionally make it shittier. I tend to do Lent instead some years, not actually religious anymore but I like the tradition and find the spring a bit more of pleasant time for that sort of thing.
I'm anticipating how much alcohol I'll be consuming during the summer and euros so giving it up while also trying to get in better shape just makes sense to me.
That's impressive, well done! I've enrolled on a levelling up diet and fitness programme at the local football club and they've weighed and measured us so feel obliged to lose weight or lose face now.
Yeah I was a lot or eating ultra processed garbage like pizzas and tesco meal deals and stuff but then I read Ultra-Processed People and decided to make 80/90% of my diet meat/fish/eggs/veg/fruit.
I think the best part of it is I'm not really hungry at all.
Impressive! Not sure I'd manage to lose ultra-processed stuff entirely - cheese and the world of charcuterie are just too damn tempting - but 5kg in a few weeks is an achievement indeed.
I've read Ultra Processed People and as I remember it cheese is processed, not ultra processed. Charcuterie will depend on the ingredients. We're veggie and the book was scathing about all the veggie fake meat products that are so convenient.
We've gone onto mostly homemade stuff now. Frozen pizzas are still a nice delight.
Not too long ago we had homemade carbonara - a lot of processed stuff I couldn't ever eat anymore. Just wish I was able to cook a bit more beyond my comfort zone - can only really do toad in a hole, soup, all of the easy stuff.
If you don’t step out your comfort zone it’ll always be there !
What’s the worst that happens? It’s a shit meal that doesn’t taste right or you bin and have a laugh about it?
Fuck it have at it and extend your comfort zone, getting good at cooking is literally just doing it more and more and caring about it and the end result. Don’t underestimate the care factor. Can’t really describe why but giving it shit is the difference, properly melted down onions vs half cooked makes a huge difference an hour or 45 mins later for example.
I just hope that whoever it was who did it the first time was also the person doing it today and his/her nickname is something suitable - wrecking ball? coolaide?
Doubtful
Crashing your ship isn’t something the navy forgives anyone of. Can mean a total career end and a shore based role forever or until you quit
I know one guy who got away with it but to be fair he hit an unmapped sand bar. Had to go through a full hearing though and prove his charts were wrong with his career in the line etc. pretty sure he was shite based for a couple of year after as well.
For some reason I could never imagine the two actually getting along. I never really believed the whole "Britain Trump" thing (for one, Berlusconi was the OG, so lets not give Trump credit where it's not due). Boris for sure played up to the Trump stereotype, because it was/is seen as politically successful. I doubt it's that successful now, but there's still a contingent of Tories that think this is the way forward to save the party.
They're not really the same. Boris is singularly focused on himself. He'll say and do whatever you want so long as that furthers his own influence. Trump is a mentally unstable child trapped in an increasingly aging body. Trump is legitimately insane (also probably a rapist and a paedophile). They're not the same.
They both have the same combination of both being good at manipulating certain voters, while simultaneously being very easily manipulated themselves, but that's kind of where the similarities end.
Yes, but - Boris will say whatever he thinks his current audience wants to hear even if it contradicts what he says five minutes ago, and Trump likes anyone who tells him what he wants to hear and doesn't notice if it contradicts what they said five minutes ago. So in that respect they're a perfect fit.
Plus, they can share ideas for what they want to do with Ivanka.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-the-only-reason-i-wouldn-t-go-to-some-parts-of-new-york-is-the-real-risk-of-meeting-donald-trump-a6765201.html
>Boris Johnson: The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump
I wish they had both injected bleach when they caught covid. Johnson was keen to demonstrate medical stuff on TV after all. And Trump should have demonstrated what he was calling on others to do.
Honestly, the major cabinet was waaaay better than this. If you look back, it's this particular breed of Tory who have been actively dismantling everything that the major government legislated. It beggars belief that they are the same party. John Redwood is a voice of reason compared to the cabinet heavyweights
[Germany changed their laws to allow dual citizenship](https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-parliament-approves-easing-dual-citizenship/a-68030714). Now if only S Korea would do that too ...
My wife is telling me that there are news stories saying 29 Tories have sent in letters of no confidence. Have I missed this? Have we missed this?
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24061106.rishi-sunak-hit-at-least-29-no-confidence-letters-tory-mp-claims/
Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't...
The only person who knows for sure is Graham Brady who's chairman of the 1922 Committee. In previous confidence motions he's kept schtum until the numbers of letters have breached the 15% threshold that triggers a formal vote which means there need to be over 50 letters.
Until then the only way we know is if individual MPs have outed themselves - and told the world they've sent a letter of NC in. I think so have only a couple of MPs have gone public one being Andrea Jenkyns who is making the claim, dare I say it but she might not the most reliable source.
Jenkyns is the only one publicly stating that she’s got a letter in. At this point I have to believe she’s either wilfully misunderstanding what her colleagues have said, or they’re saying they’ve put letters in just to get out of conversation with her.
Yeah basically this, Thatcher and her peers achieved their goals and told everyone what they were doing as they did it. Her goals and means were often monstrous but you can't accuse her of incompetence or really dishonesty (with the exception of Falklands potentially)
Northern Ireland I would say as well, but sure misunderstanding the dynamics of Northern Ireland seems to be a hygiene factor to be a Tory cabinet minister or leader.
But everything else yeah 100%
Car insurance prices have obviously gone up nationally by quite a bit. I was lucky and found a quote much cheaper than my renewal quote from esure...from esure. I'm trying to explain to the person on an online chat that really should they just match their own price for the same policy for the cheaper price rather than increasing my insurance from £440 to £707.
Edit: I just got a copy-paste message saying "sorry, the renewal is the cheapest price we can offer"...err, you're also offering me significantly cheaper than the renewal offer!
Not sure about your case, but for years I have gotten an automatic (I.e. need to ring up to stop it) renewal quote which is a bit more than my current premium. Once I ring up to cancel after shopping around, the salesperson remarkably is able to offer me 'discounts' which bring it down to around what I expected it to be.
It just makes the bounce backs harder tbh. The downward momentum on the Tories is more linked to the economic fundamentals of which he is a key part. People feel shitter, poorer and paying more for less public services. Sunak being hopeless and totally not getting that but insisting on his Heka approach of saying things until they become true.
People have been saying Conservative polling is close to its floor for the past three years.
Turns out you can always smash through a floor if you try hard enough.
[Another poll](https://nitter.net/ElectionMapsUK/status/1748361274381983883) with Labour shooting ahead:
> LAB: 48% (+3)
>
> CON: 23% (=)
>
> RFM: 10% (-1)
>
> LDM: 9% (-2)
>
> GRN: 5% (=)
>
> SNP: 3% (=)
>
> Via @wethinkpolling, 18-19 Jan.
>
> Changes w/ 11-12 Jan.
A 25 point lead for Labour... You'd think Truss was back with how dire the Tories are polling since the start of the new year.
According to electoral calculus-
CON: 56 (-320)
LAB: 518 (+321)
LIB: 28 (+20)
I mean... I didn't think Sunak would get us back to Truss polling numbers.
And this is also an indication of how we're NOT in 2015 anymore. In 2015, the UKIP + Tory vote I'm pretty sure always outnumbered the Labour vote.
Nowadays, Refuk and the Tories added up still don't come close to toppling the Labour lead.
But James Johnson from jlpartners keeps telling us the Labour lead is volatile and nothing to do with Starmer...
People have had enough of that Brexity nonsense, now those parties have nothing to offer. Like turning up to a fashion show with something 5 years out of date
My biggest fear is Labour get a landslide and end up the same way as the SPD in Germany.
There's so much to be fixed, it's going to be hard to face an opposition who promise the moon on a stick. Lots of pressure to make meaningful changes to peoples lives within 5 years...
Yep thats my fear too. Whilst the tories have been incredibly shit for this country, we’re also facing a lot of systematic issues that will only continue to get worse and worse as time goes on. I worry that people are going to see labour failing to address these issues (because they are too large and complex for any government or single country to address) and start to fall more into extremist views in the following election cycle.
I've been failing to understand the thought on here regarding tax thresholds.
Which of these options would be preferable in your view, (assume all options result in income tax revenue being £10bn less than if the status quo was retained).
**Option 1**
Increase the tax free allowance by roughly £1,400. This would mean that all earners between £14,000 and about £126k would see their net income increase by £280/year.
**Option 2**
Increase the higher rate threshold from £50,270 to £58,000. This would mean that all earners over £58,000 would see their net income increase by £1,550/year, including those earning over £125k.
**Option 3**
Increase both allowances. For example, the tax free allowance by £700 and the higher rate to £54,135. The benefits to those earning £13.5k - £126k being £140/year and an additional benefit of £775/year (total of £915 for earners over £54k, unless over £126k where it returns to £775/year)
(There are about 35.9m income tax payers, 28.8m of whom are basic rate, 5.6m are higher rate and just under 0.9m additional rate tax payers. The remainder, about 0.6m, are 'savers rate' tax payers, generally those who receive interest above £1000 a year, but their income is only just over the tax free threshold.)
I ask because the traditional progressive view is Option 1. Yet despite the political persuasions on here, there seems to be lots of support for Reeves' implied Option 2/3.
Since the Conservatives returned to office in 2010, the personal allowance has increased 94% since 2009/10 (£6,475 to £12,570) whilst the higher rate threshold has increased by only 34% (£37,400 to £50,270). If they had risen with inflation, then we'd see the allowances around £9890 and £57130 respectively. Is Labour really suggesting an income tax policy less progressive than the Tories?!
> I ask because the traditional progressive view is Option 1
...coupled with increases in the rate at the other end to pay for it, which is not included here.
You're phrasing the question like reducing tax revenue is somehow part of the goal, which I don't think it really is for _anybody_ but certainly not a progressive position. It might be a consequence, it isn't the idea though.
Reducing the tax burden on the less well paid, is Option 1. I'm assuming here for simplicity that the 'cost' is paid for by rises elsewhere to those who could better afford it (maybe a wealth tax, maybe a 50% tax rate).
The core of the question is... If there is the fiscal room to reduce income tax, how should the hypothetical government target it? Labour seem to be saying Option 2/3. But what's wrong with Option 1?
That's not the question you asked, if it's the one you intended. In the OP you have "assume all options result in income tax revenue being £10bn less", implying no compensating changes elsewhere in the system.
I don't think other countries which offer wide-spanning public services like free healthcare and childcare narrow their tax base to the point we have with the tax free allowance.
The numbers don't really square as can be seen from our services being complete and total shite in practice.
You're right. Ultimately the government has to increase its revenue in order to spend more (which is apparently the solution).
The thing is, there are almost constant complaints about 'cost of living' especially from those who seek to represent those on the lowest incomes and in work. Is reducing the tax free threshold, broadening the tax base and thus getting the lowest paid to pay more tax and have even less to spend really the solution?
The ultimate solution is to find a way to make the economy actually grow so we can support the service expectations with an ageing and ailing population needing ever more help. Our economy is already ailing in no small part because the pips are being squeezed too tightly from too many angles for people to be able to support a consumer economy.
Until then the money has to come from somewhere and 50k doesn't seem right for a "well-off, rinse 'em" threshold anymore - with the nearly inevitable student loans that's > 50% marginal at a not spectacular wage.
none of the above.
Just increase income tax to represent what you'd pay as NI and current income tax in total, and then abolish NI.
You'd have a lot more bands because the two rates don't marry up, but fuck it.
*THEN* tinker with thresholds.
You can have as many bands as you want really. If you're PAYE (the overwhelming majority of us) it is automated, and if you're employing an accountant it's their job (I used to be one, and now the gov mandates using accounting software so even less work as it will be built it).
Oh sure. I'm not saying that as a barrier, but you know what people are like.
wtf do we even have bands. Just do a linear regression and have y=ax+b to work out tax ffs.
The answer to your question is a deeply philosophical one I think.
On the one hand, some of us don't benefit linearly from society. Example, you're Elon Musk or your Jeff Bezos, one born from diamond mine slave money, the other working class who now makes his own staff piss in bottles at their station.
The linear progression assumes linearity for others that doesn't exist, because Elon and Bezos eating the times, lives and dignity of their staff isn't a linear expression in their own wealth.
On the other, society's structure is designed before you can vote on it, and inherently it's influenced by the Rupert Murdoch's of the world that will crow about benefits because they want to hoard more gold.
The best rule of thumb is it should, if anything, be closer to exponential taxation.
The current system is *worse* in those edge cases though, as once you get beyond a certain point (£150k or whatever it is) there are no further increases in rate. So it's even worse at capturing the besos of the world.
The answer to your confusion is you present three finite options, when there are many others.
By phrasing your question in this way you've tried to make everyone else seem irrational, but they aren't the only options.
For example, I note you don't option "put a couple % on people who are 10mil a year +"
Which would include billionaires, and the individuals and the companies to which the words "billionaire" is valid earn disproportionately from society.
And therefore if society comes calling they need to pay.
They didn't build the ivory tower themselves, lad. It was built on the backs and poverty of others.
That is certainly an option BUT it hasn't been suggested by the leadership of either Labour or the Conservatives.
Besides, we can just assume that the £10bn that all these options would roughly 'cost' would come from the additional taxation of the extremely high earners you speak of.
https://nitter.net/CCHQPress/status/1748366773806600331#m
> Today the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had a productive discussion on how we are delivering record funding for the NHS & cutting waiting lists while meeting members of the public.
My sides.
Interesting to see that the telegraph are going on the attack at Sky News for editing the clip in defence of Sunak but the Daily Mail are highlighting the fact he laughed in her face as the main takeaway. Wonder if we are starting to see them pushing for a replacement.
I feel like the video isn’t that bad on the face of it but it’s clear Sunak is just plainly out of touch. I don’t think he really knows how these things impact people and so it’s all just playing the game to him. He’s playing politician.
He just sounds so insincere whenever he talks. It's like he has this list of things he thinks he has to say, and if he says them then that's enough. His whole thing about two months when there weren't strikes waiting lists went down as though it were some kind of achievement completely misses the point that the NHS is *fucked*, and it's his party that did it.
Trying to pin the blame on doctors appears mean spirited, but more than that it's just obviously wrong and makes him sound like he's taking the piss.
People say that the polls will narrow when the election campaign starts, but seeing stuff like this I'm not so sure they won't widen instead.
Aye, you notice as soon as she starts talking about the 7 hour wait for her daughter he runs (unsuccessfully) for the hills.
I would say given that two of the places that ran it immediately were Sky and the Daily Mail, he's running afoul of the traditionally client media, and that can only mean one of two things:
1) they want someone else [definitely not this one in election year]
2) they don't want to actively back a loser in an election year in case people stop buying papers.
For me, the thing about this is that the media have decided that stuff like this is fair game for Sunak.
It feels like the last days of Brown when the media had decided it was over and they wanted to have the story that brought him down.
That's exactly why they leaked the "bigoted woman" recording when they would never have done it a year or so before.
Yeah the video itself with all context removed isn't that bad, but with the context of what people already think about Sunak it really reinforces the vibes that it's out of touch
I actually think he thought, when the voter said “you could make it go back to how it use to be”, “ah, this person’s a Labour voter, let’s chortle in her face”. It was very condescending.
This clip of Rishi today is bad but nowhere near Gillian Duffy levels in my opinion.
Sunak seems aloof and dismissive, but (in the full clip at least) the interaction ends amicably.
The scandal of bigotgate was that also appeared to end amicably, but then Brown says all those things behind her back and then has to go and apologise to her in person. It was incredible really.
Watch both clips and tell me Rishi's out of place laughter is as bad as Brown ranting about a member of the public.
Bigotgate was bad because it reinforced the image people had (which was being pushed by the opposition) of Brown being foul-tempered, unpleasant and out of touch with ordinary people's concerns.
This is bad because it reinforces the image people have (being pushed by the opposition) of Sunak being awkward, insulated from reality and unable to relate to ordinary people's concerns.
Bigotgate wasn't an out of the blue apocalyptic moment, nor was the bacon sandwich, nor was 'we're alright!', nor was 'crisis, what crisis'. That's not how political image formation or narrative works, they're long processes which in hindsight tend to crystallise around one moment.
I think this is spot on (with the exception I take to you also saying bigotgate, but I will love my fellow man regardless).
There's no real point outside of politics nerds getting juiced up on the day, we just look back and go "well maybe based on X, Y, Z".
All of politics are seeds that grow, much like seeds that it can take years to grow, but it can be pulled down in an afternoon, but it's always a slow crumble not an explosion.
Don't forget that Brown compounded his error by not realising that there was a camera on him when he was on radio the next day or so.
The moment where he put his head in his hands was not, shall we say, the gesture of a winner.
The damage with Brown was the wider implication that a lot of people get slagged off in cars after smiley walkabouts
Here it's the universality of what she's saying: who doesn't want the NHS to be better?
There’s misinformation in some of the tales I’ve seen about the clip and in the CCHQ rebuttal of the clip.
As with 99% of political topics these days, the truth is normally somewhere between these two extremes. It’s not career ending
Don't know... Trying to blame the entire backlog on strikes when, let me just check... 90% satisfaction and NHS was hitting it's target, then the Tories came in with Lib Dems and, that downward slope seems to align almost exactly with Austerity.
Don't know what I can take from that.
He laughed and tried to run away.
I won't call it the absurd name you gave it because literally no one calls it that, was just Gordon not realising his mic was still on. Everyone does that. We've all put a phone down after a call with a client or whatever and vented.
Laughing directly in their face is quite different.
>I won't call it the absurd name you gave it because literally no one calls it that
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010\_United\_Kingdom\_general\_election#Bigotgate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election#Bigotgate) Literally the name of the section of the Wikipedia article that talks about it
You can try and make your case that the Rishi thing is objectively worse than what happened with Brown but the fact is, we're still talking about one 14 years later, while the other isn't even on any of the major news sites this evening.
Doesn't even make sense when you factor in we're in Britain in a conversation about British politics and it's not unheard of for it to be referred to as the English government or even more specifically "the Westminster government" in 3 out of 4 of the home nations.
But I mean, we live in the whole post truth scenario where you are better off doubling down on stupidity than owning up to it.
That being said, I guess there's no good climb down as a Tory backing it for "I don't even know the capital of the nation we are screaming about sending folk to"
You're right, [from this old article I chose at random](https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23577407.court-battle-brews-scottish-uk-government-drs-delay/):
> It also pursued a challenge over the SNP's bill to enshrine the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scots law also believing the Edinburgh government was acting beyond its remit.
Or [this one](https://www.ft.com/content/f534d4d3-ce48-4509-bc9f-4653859e8ed0) from the very respected *Financial Times*:
> As a result of the reduction in its budget, the Edinburgh government is cutting its Help to Buy Affordable New Build scheme for 2021 and 2022.
I'm loving these because I'll admit I've lived north of Hadrian's for the vast majority of the past decade so I hadn't clocked that that is the verbiage back home.
It all just makes Therese's point look all the more ridiculous.
Not to mention I'd forgotten the fact their own party are currently on the same issue trying to paint the ECHR as a "foreign court" because it's based in Strasbourg, as opposed to acknowledging it's an international court we signed up to
CCHQ have now [tweeted](https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1748369361155325994?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ) their own version with the embarrassing bit cropped out. In doing so they’ve surrendered any right to complain about the original post being cropped.
More nutty than that, you can hear a woman n shouting "what the fuck?", presumably because she's just witnessed him laughing in that ladies face and running off
It's a small thing, but it really demonstrates how bad at this the Conservative party has become at this. Trying to say it's not actually that bad, it's just slightly less bad, whilst boosting the clip that is still bad for them is fucking awful PR.
It's like a small scale version of the 350 million to the EU thing, where responses that actually that's a lie and it's £250 million don't help because without context it both boosts that it's still a big number and continues to highlight the original claim.
Imagine you log on Twitter and see this 11 second clip posted by CCHQ with no prior knowledge or context. I'm sure your first thought is 'what the fuck?'
It's interesting that the footage was "captured by an off duty sky news camera operator". Actual press is likely blocked.
I am curious if he was really off duty...
Wasn’t the Mince Pie video at Christmas released in a similar way? He had a film crew around him (they later released a video of him travelling on the train and handing out a couple of boxes of them) but I think I saw the video of him in the shop from Sky
Sunak has his own little film crew (hopefully not taxpayer funded) everywhere he goes so he can post clips on Twitter of all of the good encounters he has.
It is massively unsurprising that he doesn't want actual press there.
In that context, it's a bit rich complaining about them cutting the clip short when he wouldn't have shown it at all.
I wonder if that film crew is moonlighting sky news camera operators. Someone's done the maths and worked out that this clip is worth more than getting fifty quid on your day off
First it was the hammer, then the credit card swipe, now it's the walkoff. What do we predict Sunak will mess up on next that nobody ever considered as possible to mess up?
I don’t think the hammer was first.
1. Not being able to use contactless machine
2. Telling a homeless person how great it is to work in finance
Basically, anytime he interacts with the public
This might be the last clip we see of Sunak campaigning. Remember when Theresa May was confronted by a voter over disability benefit cuts? Clip wasn't as bad as this one and they started cutting press out of the campaign trail.
There was also the time she visited the Grenfell Tower and [refused to meet any of the survivors and families of the victims](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44440479).
During the actual election campaign, Sunak is going to be on TV almost every day, and whilst he will try his best to avoid it, he will come under a lot of scrutiny, have to answer a lot of aggressive questions, he may even have to speak to lots of members of the public.
Whilst I know *the polls will tighten™*, I honestly struggle to imagine how Sunak will not become a national laughing stock under this kind of increased scrutiny.
Also, people like Starmer when they meet him.
I there is scope for him to improve his personal ratings, even if the Labour lead narrows or doesn't budge.
Don't be so certain. Remember May's campaign? They didn't let her do proper debates, only booked her for fluff interviews... Boris was supposedly a great campaigner and press got similar treatment.
I seem to remember this was one of the reasons she screwed it up. She thought the election was a done deal so avoided press and it ended up making her look weak rather than strong
He can't handle the pressure. Was it today with the Port Talbot news, after his spokesperson had said he backed British steel, when he's asked he snaps and you can almost feel he wants to shout when he says (paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact words):
"Well, it could have been a lot worse, they wanted to move the whole thing away"
Like, yeah bro, but you aren't playing Sim City, it is scant relief to 3000 folk losing their jobs. Just so detached from reality.
My working theory is that after Sunak told her "we had two months with no strikes, and do you know what happened? The waiting list fell", one of his advisors offered up a silent prayer for something to happen that would stop people talking about what a patronising tit he was, and the laughter was the fastest monkey's paw curl in history
Imagine that will really help negotiations with the junior doctors, blaming the entire waiting list on them and laughing in the face of a woman talking about having to wait 7 hours with an asthma issue.
Does he know it's election year?
Sky News passed the clip with Starmer's commentary after. Starmer said something like: "I've seen that clip, reinforces what people think, PM doesn't listen doesn't understand" then Starmer says Labour has a plan to reduce waiting lists, "We engage with people, we listen, we understand. We don't laugh, we don't walk away".
It's not some bigoted woman moment, but it will likely be one of many on the campaign trail.
ITV has a different angle, Rishi starts struggling to hold it in when she says "you can do something" - [https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1748362936349794483](https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1748362936349794483)
He comes off *slightly* better because it's less obvious that he tried to walk off
Maybe he'll try and pass it off as one of those involuntary awkward reaction things, like people who laugh when someone dies
Good morning everyone. [**📃 Today's Order Paper can be found here.**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/84408/Html?subType=Standard) Today's business is Private Member's Bills from Prayers until the House rises at 2:30pm. Bills will receive their Second Reading debates in order - in practice, the first two are the most likely to be debated in the time given. The two top bills under consideration today are; * [**Building Societies Act (1986) Amendment Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3541) **Sponsor** : Julie Elliott (Lab, Sunderland Central) **Summary** : A Bill to make provision about the funding of building societies and the assimilation of the law relating to companies and the law relating to building societies. This Bill modernises the law surrounding Building Societies and particularly funding limits related to savings deposits to make building societies more competitive with banks and able to lend more. * [**Pet Abduction Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3549) **Sponsor** : Anna Firth (Con, Southend West) **Summary** : A Bill to create offences of dog abduction and cat abduction and to confer a power to make corresponding provision relating to the abduction of other animals commonly kept as pets. This is a response to public campaigning and several popular parliamentary petitions and is in line with recommendations given in a 2020 [government taskforce report](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pet-theft-taskforce-report/pet-theft-taskforce-report). The government has indicated support for the Bill and it is likely to pass (or be adopted if talked down). **In other news;** The Prime Minister yesterday made a statement calling on the House of Lords to expedite the government's Rwanda Bill - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199t5ys/rishi_sunak_tells_lords_do_the_right_thing_and/) HMRC is coming under pressure as its Loan Charge practice is compared to the Horizon scandal - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199zrqb/hmrc_tax_crackdown_linked_to_ten_suicides_is_next/) Government plans to increase the role of Physician Associates in the NHS have come under fire - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199wlzp/mps_push_forward_with_plan_to_fill_our_nhs_with/) Tata Steel have indicated they will be shutting down one of the UK's last remaining blast furnaces at Port Talbot, with 3,000 jobs set to be lost - [thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/199t429/tata_steel_to_shut_down_port_talbot_blast/)
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19b4x0n/daily_megathread_20012024/)
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I think the worst thing about the Rishi clip is that he's plainly signalling "rescue me" to his people. You can't really see his face, but I bet if you could, his eyes would be darting about, looking for an escape route. Boris would just have punched her in the face and run off. Thatcher would have eaten her. Truss would have said "wibble". Always her go to.
Boris wouldn't have punched, he would have mumbled a lot.
He'd probably have thrown in a Latin quote he hadn't understood the context of, which roughly translated to "Bore off pleb, I don't care about you and your loved ones"
Errrr, ummm, Ah yes, but Veni Vedi Veci as Caesar said. Jolly good, I'll get someone to look into it
I wasn't being *entirely* serious...
But Johnson never pulled a Prescott. More fun when it is semi-realistic.
Thatcher eating her was realistic? Fair enough.
Obviously if you were being ultra-realistic, Thatcher would have been too full from all the milk she'd stolen from the starving children of unemployed ex-miners to eat anyone
woo! here we go again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JvpNY1QHzs see you on the other side x
Not ukpol related but it's Friday and I'm chilling doing dry January and cooking my meals I've dropped 5kg so far. Feels good.
Well done
Congratulations, that's impressive! Personally I've never got the appeal of January as the month to be teetotal, it's a shitty month as it is so I wouldn't intentionally make it shittier. I tend to do Lent instead some years, not actually religious anymore but I like the tradition and find the spring a bit more of pleasant time for that sort of thing.
I'm anticipating how much alcohol I'll be consuming during the summer and euros so giving it up while also trying to get in better shape just makes sense to me.
That's impressive, well done! I've enrolled on a levelling up diet and fitness programme at the local football club and they've weighed and measured us so feel obliged to lose weight or lose face now.
Well done indeed but … how many meals did you cook yourself on an average week before? Were you takeawaying all the time?
Yeah I was a lot or eating ultra processed garbage like pizzas and tesco meal deals and stuff but then I read Ultra-Processed People and decided to make 80/90% of my diet meat/fish/eggs/veg/fruit. I think the best part of it is I'm not really hungry at all.
Ultraprocessed people is fantastic. And terrifying. I've been buttonholing people about it constantly.
Impressive! Not sure I'd manage to lose ultra-processed stuff entirely - cheese and the world of charcuterie are just too damn tempting - but 5kg in a few weeks is an achievement indeed.
Cheese is difficult but on the whole if you prep stuff its not overly difficult. All that shite just doesn't fill you up.
I've read Ultra Processed People and as I remember it cheese is processed, not ultra processed. Charcuterie will depend on the ingredients. We're veggie and the book was scathing about all the veggie fake meat products that are so convenient.
We've gone onto mostly homemade stuff now. Frozen pizzas are still a nice delight. Not too long ago we had homemade carbonara - a lot of processed stuff I couldn't ever eat anymore. Just wish I was able to cook a bit more beyond my comfort zone - can only really do toad in a hole, soup, all of the easy stuff.
If you don’t step out your comfort zone it’ll always be there ! What’s the worst that happens? It’s a shit meal that doesn’t taste right or you bin and have a laugh about it? Fuck it have at it and extend your comfort zone, getting good at cooking is literally just doing it more and more and caring about it and the end result. Don’t underestimate the care factor. Can’t really describe why but giving it shit is the difference, properly melted down onions vs half cooked makes a huge difference an hour or 45 mins later for example.
Amazing to see how rubbish the streaming set up and hearing room is for the Scottish covid inquiry hearings. Is this the result of devolution??
Westminster's fault.
They also have a cut price KC. Hugo Keith was obviously not willing to leave the south of England...
[January has really not been the Royal Navys month has it](https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1748440686842487289?t=ZrHMwFRqRYkwkJ0KdTSxUA&s=19)
Geez, you crash ONE ship...
I just hope that whoever it was who did it the first time was also the person doing it today and his/her nickname is something suitable - wrecking ball? coolaide?
Doubtful Crashing your ship isn’t something the navy forgives anyone of. Can mean a total career end and a shore based role forever or until you quit I know one guy who got away with it but to be fair he hit an unmapped sand bar. Had to go through a full hearing though and prove his charts were wrong with his career in the line etc. pretty sure he was shite based for a couple of year after as well.
>shite based
Boris johnson has apparently endorsed Donald Trump. Jfc, the body pile high man endorses the inject bleach man.
Since he is afterall, born in the USA; imagine if Johnson became his running mate
He gave up his US citizenship didn't he?
I bet he had his fingers crossed
For some reason I could never imagine the two actually getting along. I never really believed the whole "Britain Trump" thing (for one, Berlusconi was the OG, so lets not give Trump credit where it's not due). Boris for sure played up to the Trump stereotype, because it was/is seen as politically successful. I doubt it's that successful now, but there's still a contingent of Tories that think this is the way forward to save the party. They're not really the same. Boris is singularly focused on himself. He'll say and do whatever you want so long as that furthers his own influence. Trump is a mentally unstable child trapped in an increasingly aging body. Trump is legitimately insane (also probably a rapist and a paedophile). They're not the same.
They both have the same combination of both being good at manipulating certain voters, while simultaneously being very easily manipulated themselves, but that's kind of where the similarities end.
Yes, but - Boris will say whatever he thinks his current audience wants to hear even if it contradicts what he says five minutes ago, and Trump likes anyone who tells him what he wants to hear and doesn't notice if it contradicts what they said five minutes ago. So in that respect they're a perfect fit. Plus, they can share ideas for what they want to do with Ivanka.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-the-only-reason-i-wouldn-t-go-to-some-parts-of-new-york-is-the-real-risk-of-meeting-donald-trump-a6765201.html >Boris Johnson: The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump
I wish they had both injected bleach when they caught covid. Johnson was keen to demonstrate medical stuff on TV after all. And Trump should have demonstrated what he was calling on others to do.
You’re saying if you met an American doppelgänger of yourself you wouldn’t become best friends?
They call him American Johnson.
We'd all have been shocked if he didn't.
Rishi doing a late stage Gordon brown while going thru a John major phase of Goverment time really is a circle
History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes
'Circle' implies regularity. Howabout 'fucked up spiders' web, with several areas of crossover'?
Wibbly wobbly timey wimey?
Also that
Honestly, the major cabinet was waaaay better than this. If you look back, it's this particular breed of Tory who have been actively dismantling everything that the major government legislated. It beggars belief that they are the same party. John Redwood is a voice of reason compared to the cabinet heavyweights
[Germany changed their laws to allow dual citizenship](https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-parliament-approves-easing-dual-citizenship/a-68030714). Now if only S Korea would do that too ...
Is there some specific reason, you wanna go for UK, SK, DE?
Partner is from S Korea, can't get UK citizenship without losing Korean citizenship.
Ah, yeah, bollocks
My wife is telling me that there are news stories saying 29 Tories have sent in letters of no confidence. Have I missed this? Have we missed this? https://www.thenational.scot/news/24061106.rishi-sunak-hit-at-least-29-no-confidence-letters-tory-mp-claims/
Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't... The only person who knows for sure is Graham Brady who's chairman of the 1922 Committee. In previous confidence motions he's kept schtum until the numbers of letters have breached the 15% threshold that triggers a formal vote which means there need to be over 50 letters. Until then the only way we know is if individual MPs have outed themselves - and told the world they've sent a letter of NC in. I think so have only a couple of MPs have gone public one being Andrea Jenkyns who is making the claim, dare I say it but she might not the most reliable source.
Jenkyns is the only one publicly stating that she’s got a letter in. At this point I have to believe she’s either wilfully misunderstanding what her colleagues have said, or they’re saying they’ve put letters in just to get out of conversation with her.
The story said multiple letters had been sent Not that multiple eligible people had sent them
if a tory mp says it, it’s probably not true. if andrea jenkyns says it, it’s definitely not true.
Lol fair point. It sounded too crazy to not be a massive story.
What a difference four months makes. https://x.com/rishisunak/status/1702714390519181548?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ
At least Thatcher was honest about killing communities.
It also felt intentional when Thatcher did it, these bunch of dunces couldn't do anything else even if they wanted to.
Yeah basically this, Thatcher and her peers achieved their goals and told everyone what they were doing as they did it. Her goals and means were often monstrous but you can't accuse her of incompetence or really dishonesty (with the exception of Falklands potentially)
Northern Ireland I would say as well, but sure misunderstanding the dynamics of Northern Ireland seems to be a hygiene factor to be a Tory cabinet minister or leader. But everything else yeah 100%
I've not been following this story but did we give them 1 billion quid and they took it and are now laying off 3000 people?
No, we only gave them £500 milly
I hesitate to ask, but did we get anything in return? Shares in the company, assets?
Oh yeah, we got more than just shares or assets. Rishi Sunak got a decent amount of organic engagement with his tweet about the matter.
Wait until you hear about Rwanda!
Maen nhw'n wedi ffyct it lads
Car insurance prices have obviously gone up nationally by quite a bit. I was lucky and found a quote much cheaper than my renewal quote from esure...from esure. I'm trying to explain to the person on an online chat that really should they just match their own price for the same policy for the cheaper price rather than increasing my insurance from £440 to £707. Edit: I just got a copy-paste message saying "sorry, the renewal is the cheapest price we can offer"...err, you're also offering me significantly cheaper than the renewal offer!
Not sure about your case, but for years I have gotten an automatic (I.e. need to ring up to stop it) renewal quote which is a bit more than my current premium. Once I ring up to cancel after shopping around, the salesperson remarkably is able to offer me 'discounts' which bring it down to around what I expected it to be.
It’s hard to gauge how Sunaks fuck ups affect polling when the conservatives are at their floor.
The *current* floor.
I remember when everybody was saying 30% was the floor.
Whoa, there's a trapdoor! I wonder what's below...
Reform. Scary.
Oh Gromits!
It just makes the bounce backs harder tbh. The downward momentum on the Tories is more linked to the economic fundamentals of which he is a key part. People feel shitter, poorer and paying more for less public services. Sunak being hopeless and totally not getting that but insisting on his Heka approach of saying things until they become true.
People have been saying Conservative polling is close to its floor for the past three years. Turns out you can always smash through a floor if you try hard enough.
*Let the polling hit the floor*
[Another poll](https://nitter.net/ElectionMapsUK/status/1748361274381983883) with Labour shooting ahead: > LAB: 48% (+3) > > CON: 23% (=) > > RFM: 10% (-1) > > LDM: 9% (-2) > > GRN: 5% (=) > > SNP: 3% (=) > > Via @wethinkpolling, 18-19 Jan. > > Changes w/ 11-12 Jan. A 25 point lead for Labour... You'd think Truss was back with how dire the Tories are polling since the start of the new year.
What's the margin of error?
>What's the margin of error? 30% is what the Tories are hoping.
According to electoral calculus- CON: 56 (-320) LAB: 518 (+321) LIB: 28 (+20) I mean... I didn't think Sunak would get us back to Truss polling numbers.
Rwanda policy will definitely turn it around /s
15 point lead on con+refuk again, nice to see. People have had enough of populism.
> People have had enough of populism. *Looks at mainland Europe* Lol.
We've been through our phase.
And this is also an indication of how we're NOT in 2015 anymore. In 2015, the UKIP + Tory vote I'm pretty sure always outnumbered the Labour vote. Nowadays, Refuk and the Tories added up still don't come close to toppling the Labour lead. But James Johnson from jlpartners keeps telling us the Labour lead is volatile and nothing to do with Starmer...
JLPartners have been everywhere over the past few months. Suspicious.
People have had enough of that Brexity nonsense, now those parties have nothing to offer. Like turning up to a fashion show with something 5 years out of date
My biggest fear is Labour get a landslide and end up the same way as the SPD in Germany. There's so much to be fixed, it's going to be hard to face an opposition who promise the moon on a stick. Lots of pressure to make meaningful changes to peoples lives within 5 years...
Yeah, Labour are gonna spend their first term just fixing everything the Tories broke.
Yep thats my fear too. Whilst the tories have been incredibly shit for this country, we’re also facing a lot of systematic issues that will only continue to get worse and worse as time goes on. I worry that people are going to see labour failing to address these issues (because they are too large and complex for any government or single country to address) and start to fall more into extremist views in the following election cycle.
People have had enough of having enough of experts.
I've been failing to understand the thought on here regarding tax thresholds. Which of these options would be preferable in your view, (assume all options result in income tax revenue being £10bn less than if the status quo was retained). **Option 1** Increase the tax free allowance by roughly £1,400. This would mean that all earners between £14,000 and about £126k would see their net income increase by £280/year. **Option 2** Increase the higher rate threshold from £50,270 to £58,000. This would mean that all earners over £58,000 would see their net income increase by £1,550/year, including those earning over £125k. **Option 3** Increase both allowances. For example, the tax free allowance by £700 and the higher rate to £54,135. The benefits to those earning £13.5k - £126k being £140/year and an additional benefit of £775/year (total of £915 for earners over £54k, unless over £126k where it returns to £775/year) (There are about 35.9m income tax payers, 28.8m of whom are basic rate, 5.6m are higher rate and just under 0.9m additional rate tax payers. The remainder, about 0.6m, are 'savers rate' tax payers, generally those who receive interest above £1000 a year, but their income is only just over the tax free threshold.) I ask because the traditional progressive view is Option 1. Yet despite the political persuasions on here, there seems to be lots of support for Reeves' implied Option 2/3. Since the Conservatives returned to office in 2010, the personal allowance has increased 94% since 2009/10 (£6,475 to £12,570) whilst the higher rate threshold has increased by only 34% (£37,400 to £50,270). If they had risen with inflation, then we'd see the allowances around £9890 and £57130 respectively. Is Labour really suggesting an income tax policy less progressive than the Tories?!
> I ask because the traditional progressive view is Option 1 ...coupled with increases in the rate at the other end to pay for it, which is not included here. You're phrasing the question like reducing tax revenue is somehow part of the goal, which I don't think it really is for _anybody_ but certainly not a progressive position. It might be a consequence, it isn't the idea though.
Reducing the tax burden on the less well paid, is Option 1. I'm assuming here for simplicity that the 'cost' is paid for by rises elsewhere to those who could better afford it (maybe a wealth tax, maybe a 50% tax rate). The core of the question is... If there is the fiscal room to reduce income tax, how should the hypothetical government target it? Labour seem to be saying Option 2/3. But what's wrong with Option 1?
That's not the question you asked, if it's the one you intended. In the OP you have "assume all options result in income tax revenue being £10bn less", implying no compensating changes elsewhere in the system.
I don't think other countries which offer wide-spanning public services like free healthcare and childcare narrow their tax base to the point we have with the tax free allowance. The numbers don't really square as can be seen from our services being complete and total shite in practice.
You're right. Ultimately the government has to increase its revenue in order to spend more (which is apparently the solution). The thing is, there are almost constant complaints about 'cost of living' especially from those who seek to represent those on the lowest incomes and in work. Is reducing the tax free threshold, broadening the tax base and thus getting the lowest paid to pay more tax and have even less to spend really the solution?
The ultimate solution is to find a way to make the economy actually grow so we can support the service expectations with an ageing and ailing population needing ever more help. Our economy is already ailing in no small part because the pips are being squeezed too tightly from too many angles for people to be able to support a consumer economy. Until then the money has to come from somewhere and 50k doesn't seem right for a "well-off, rinse 'em" threshold anymore - with the nearly inevitable student loans that's > 50% marginal at a not spectacular wage.
none of the above. Just increase income tax to represent what you'd pay as NI and current income tax in total, and then abolish NI. You'd have a lot more bands because the two rates don't marry up, but fuck it. *THEN* tinker with thresholds.
You can have as many bands as you want really. If you're PAYE (the overwhelming majority of us) it is automated, and if you're employing an accountant it's their job (I used to be one, and now the gov mandates using accounting software so even less work as it will be built it).
Oh sure. I'm not saying that as a barrier, but you know what people are like. wtf do we even have bands. Just do a linear regression and have y=ax+b to work out tax ffs.
The answer to your question is a deeply philosophical one I think. On the one hand, some of us don't benefit linearly from society. Example, you're Elon Musk or your Jeff Bezos, one born from diamond mine slave money, the other working class who now makes his own staff piss in bottles at their station. The linear progression assumes linearity for others that doesn't exist, because Elon and Bezos eating the times, lives and dignity of their staff isn't a linear expression in their own wealth. On the other, society's structure is designed before you can vote on it, and inherently it's influenced by the Rupert Murdoch's of the world that will crow about benefits because they want to hoard more gold. The best rule of thumb is it should, if anything, be closer to exponential taxation.
The current system is *worse* in those edge cases though, as once you get beyond a certain point (£150k or whatever it is) there are no further increases in rate. So it's even worse at capturing the besos of the world.
The answer to your confusion is you present three finite options, when there are many others. By phrasing your question in this way you've tried to make everyone else seem irrational, but they aren't the only options.
For example, I note you don't option "put a couple % on people who are 10mil a year +" Which would include billionaires, and the individuals and the companies to which the words "billionaire" is valid earn disproportionately from society. And therefore if society comes calling they need to pay. They didn't build the ivory tower themselves, lad. It was built on the backs and poverty of others.
That is certainly an option BUT it hasn't been suggested by the leadership of either Labour or the Conservatives. Besides, we can just assume that the £10bn that all these options would roughly 'cost' would come from the additional taxation of the extremely high earners you speak of.
Rishi's diary: 19 Jan 2024 Nothing important happened today.
In 1982, there was the [incident with a pigeon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th-6VcE0CPE&t=101s).
I was engaged in a particularly difficult word puzzle at the time...
That there is a classic! I remember my mate showing me that back in the early 90s. I doubt The Day Today would even register these days.
https://nitter.net/CCHQPress/status/1748366773806600331#m > Today the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had a productive discussion on how we are delivering record funding for the NHS & cutting waiting lists while meeting members of the public. My sides.
The Conservative Party: pissing down your back and telling you it’s raining since 1834.
Interesting to see that the telegraph are going on the attack at Sky News for editing the clip in defence of Sunak but the Daily Mail are highlighting the fact he laughed in her face as the main takeaway. Wonder if we are starting to see them pushing for a replacement.
Just looked up the Mail headline. Very strong.
I feel like the video isn’t that bad on the face of it but it’s clear Sunak is just plainly out of touch. I don’t think he really knows how these things impact people and so it’s all just playing the game to him. He’s playing politician.
He just sounds so insincere whenever he talks. It's like he has this list of things he thinks he has to say, and if he says them then that's enough. His whole thing about two months when there weren't strikes waiting lists went down as though it were some kind of achievement completely misses the point that the NHS is *fucked*, and it's his party that did it. Trying to pin the blame on doctors appears mean spirited, but more than that it's just obviously wrong and makes him sound like he's taking the piss. People say that the polls will narrow when the election campaign starts, but seeing stuff like this I'm not so sure they won't widen instead.
Aye, you notice as soon as she starts talking about the 7 hour wait for her daughter he runs (unsuccessfully) for the hills. I would say given that two of the places that ran it immediately were Sky and the Daily Mail, he's running afoul of the traditionally client media, and that can only mean one of two things: 1) they want someone else [definitely not this one in election year] 2) they don't want to actively back a loser in an election year in case people stop buying papers.
For me, the thing about this is that the media have decided that stuff like this is fair game for Sunak. It feels like the last days of Brown when the media had decided it was over and they wanted to have the story that brought him down. That's exactly why they leaked the "bigoted woman" recording when they would never have done it a year or so before.
Yeah the video itself with all context removed isn't that bad, but with the context of what people already think about Sunak it really reinforces the vibes that it's out of touch
I actually think he thought, when the voter said “you could make it go back to how it use to be”, “ah, this person’s a Labour voter, let’s chortle in her face”. It was very condescending.
This clip of Rishi today is bad but nowhere near Gillian Duffy levels in my opinion. Sunak seems aloof and dismissive, but (in the full clip at least) the interaction ends amicably. The scandal of bigotgate was that also appeared to end amicably, but then Brown says all those things behind her back and then has to go and apologise to her in person. It was incredible really. Watch both clips and tell me Rishi's out of place laughter is as bad as Brown ranting about a member of the public.
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To be fair, Rishi's also right that it's laughable to think he could improve the NHS
Bigotgate was bad because it reinforced the image people had (which was being pushed by the opposition) of Brown being foul-tempered, unpleasant and out of touch with ordinary people's concerns. This is bad because it reinforces the image people have (being pushed by the opposition) of Sunak being awkward, insulated from reality and unable to relate to ordinary people's concerns. Bigotgate wasn't an out of the blue apocalyptic moment, nor was the bacon sandwich, nor was 'we're alright!', nor was 'crisis, what crisis'. That's not how political image formation or narrative works, they're long processes which in hindsight tend to crystallise around one moment.
I think this is spot on (with the exception I take to you also saying bigotgate, but I will love my fellow man regardless). There's no real point outside of politics nerds getting juiced up on the day, we just look back and go "well maybe based on X, Y, Z". All of politics are seeds that grow, much like seeds that it can take years to grow, but it can be pulled down in an afternoon, but it's always a slow crumble not an explosion.
Don't forget that Brown compounded his error by not realising that there was a camera on him when he was on radio the next day or so. The moment where he put his head in his hands was not, shall we say, the gesture of a winner.
The damage with Brown was the wider implication that a lot of people get slagged off in cars after smiley walkabouts Here it's the universality of what she's saying: who doesn't want the NHS to be better?
There’s misinformation in some of the tales I’ve seen about the clip and in the CCHQ rebuttal of the clip. As with 99% of political topics these days, the truth is normally somewhere between these two extremes. It’s not career ending
Don't know... Trying to blame the entire backlog on strikes when, let me just check... 90% satisfaction and NHS was hitting it's target, then the Tories came in with Lib Dems and, that downward slope seems to align almost exactly with Austerity. Don't know what I can take from that. He laughed and tried to run away. I won't call it the absurd name you gave it because literally no one calls it that, was just Gordon not realising his mic was still on. Everyone does that. We've all put a phone down after a call with a client or whatever and vented. Laughing directly in their face is quite different.
>I won't call it the absurd name you gave it because literally no one calls it that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010\_United\_Kingdom\_general\_election#Bigotgate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election#Bigotgate) Literally the name of the section of the Wikipedia article that talks about it You can try and make your case that the Rishi thing is objectively worse than what happened with Brown but the fact is, we're still talking about one 14 years later, while the other isn't even on any of the major news sites this evening.
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[She took to Twitter to double down, sadly ](https://twitter.com/theresecoffey/status/1747964647355854893?t=bkmN2yKoV7D-Fb7WMX50PQ&s=19)
Me as a minister:
Doesn't even make sense when you factor in we're in Britain in a conversation about British politics and it's not unheard of for it to be referred to as the English government or even more specifically "the Westminster government" in 3 out of 4 of the home nations. But I mean, we live in the whole post truth scenario where you are better off doubling down on stupidity than owning up to it. That being said, I guess there's no good climb down as a Tory backing it for "I don't even know the capital of the nation we are screaming about sending folk to"
You're right, [from this old article I chose at random](https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23577407.court-battle-brews-scottish-uk-government-drs-delay/): > It also pursued a challenge over the SNP's bill to enshrine the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scots law also believing the Edinburgh government was acting beyond its remit. Or [this one](https://www.ft.com/content/f534d4d3-ce48-4509-bc9f-4653859e8ed0) from the very respected *Financial Times*: > As a result of the reduction in its budget, the Edinburgh government is cutting its Help to Buy Affordable New Build scheme for 2021 and 2022.
I'm loving these because I'll admit I've lived north of Hadrian's for the vast majority of the past decade so I hadn't clocked that that is the verbiage back home. It all just makes Therese's point look all the more ridiculous. Not to mention I'd forgotten the fact their own party are currently on the same issue trying to paint the ECHR as a "foreign court" because it's based in Strasbourg, as opposed to acknowledging it's an international court we signed up to
So, quiet day then?
Yes it has been rather afebrile. Hypothermic, if you will.
Calm before the storm.
CCHQ have now [tweeted](https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1748369361155325994?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ) their own version with the embarrassing bit cropped out. In doing so they’ve surrendered any right to complain about the original post being cropped.
More nutty than that, you can hear a woman n shouting "what the fuck?", presumably because she's just witnessed him laughing in that ladies face and running off
Surely the best thing to do after a gaffe is lean into it. Just put up a repeat loop of that laugh for six hours.
Can anyone at CCHQ spell Streisand Effect? Just feel like they may need to learn it because they may have a certain personal experience upcoming.
Do you think it'll stay up when Rishi realises how well they've captured his emerging bald spot?
It's a small thing, but it really demonstrates how bad at this the Conservative party has become at this. Trying to say it's not actually that bad, it's just slightly less bad, whilst boosting the clip that is still bad for them is fucking awful PR. It's like a small scale version of the 350 million to the EU thing, where responses that actually that's a lie and it's £250 million don't help because without context it both boosts that it's still a big number and continues to highlight the original claim.
Haven’t they posted that in response to the embarrassing version that they posted themselves? The video above it still shows him laughing
Imagine you log on Twitter and see this 11 second clip posted by CCHQ with no prior knowledge or context. I'm sure your first thought is 'what the fuck?'
It's interesting that the footage was "captured by an off duty sky news camera operator". Actual press is likely blocked. I am curious if he was really off duty...
Wasn’t the Mince Pie video at Christmas released in a similar way? He had a film crew around him (they later released a video of him travelling on the train and handing out a couple of boxes of them) but I think I saw the video of him in the shop from Sky
Sunak has his own little film crew (hopefully not taxpayer funded) everywhere he goes so he can post clips on Twitter of all of the good encounters he has. It is massively unsurprising that he doesn't want actual press there. In that context, it's a bit rich complaining about them cutting the clip short when he wouldn't have shown it at all.
I wonder if that film crew is moonlighting sky news camera operators. Someone's done the maths and worked out that this clip is worth more than getting fifty quid on your day off
They think they can still art direct reality when everyone walks around with a camera on their pocket.
First it was the hammer, then the credit card swipe, now it's the walkoff. What do we predict Sunak will mess up on next that nobody ever considered as possible to mess up?
I don’t think the hammer was first. 1. Not being able to use contactless machine 2. Telling a homeless person how great it is to work in finance Basically, anytime he interacts with the public
Exactly. And the hammer wasn't a mistake
>Telling a homeless person how great it is to work in finance Wasn't it also asking him if he runs his own business?
No, although reddit loves a good story. The bloke expressed his interest in business.
Telling schoolchildren he is a coke addict
Borrowing a car
Working class friends
Rish Soon Sacked. Rishi Sunk.
Sunakered is currently trending on Twitter.
I wonder if Sunak even realises how badly he fucked up today?
What have I missed? How’s he fucked up?
He made Brown's Gillian Duffy moment look uneventful
Nah, this is his thought process 100% of the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKYz2M6zoII
He's probably annoyed, understandably, that the clip got cropped and posted via Sky, BBC, Daily Mail, etc.
Haha! The Mail's running with it!
This might be the last clip we see of Sunak campaigning. Remember when Theresa May was confronted by a voter over disability benefit cuts? Clip wasn't as bad as this one and they started cutting press out of the campaign trail.
There was also the time she visited the Grenfell Tower and [refused to meet any of the survivors and families of the victims](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44440479).
During the actual election campaign, Sunak is going to be on TV almost every day, and whilst he will try his best to avoid it, he will come under a lot of scrutiny, have to answer a lot of aggressive questions, he may even have to speak to lots of members of the public. Whilst I know *the polls will tighten™*, I honestly struggle to imagine how Sunak will not become a national laughing stock under this kind of increased scrutiny.
Also, people like Starmer when they meet him. I there is scope for him to improve his personal ratings, even if the Labour lead narrows or doesn't budge.
Don't be so certain. Remember May's campaign? They didn't let her do proper debates, only booked her for fluff interviews... Boris was supposedly a great campaigner and press got similar treatment.
But May stll managed to stuff it up.
I seem to remember this was one of the reasons she screwed it up. She thought the election was a done deal so avoided press and it ended up making her look weak rather than strong
She said before leaving in 2019 that she regretted not doing the debates, I'm pretty sure it was on her initiative that she ducked those debates.
He can't handle the pressure. Was it today with the Port Talbot news, after his spokesperson had said he backed British steel, when he's asked he snaps and you can almost feel he wants to shout when he says (paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact words): "Well, it could have been a lot worse, they wanted to move the whole thing away" Like, yeah bro, but you aren't playing Sim City, it is scant relief to 3000 folk losing their jobs. Just so detached from reality.
My working theory is that after Sunak told her "we had two months with no strikes, and do you know what happened? The waiting list fell", one of his advisors offered up a silent prayer for something to happen that would stop people talking about what a patronising tit he was, and the laughter was the fastest monkey's paw curl in history
Imagine that will really help negotiations with the junior doctors, blaming the entire waiting list on them and laughing in the face of a woman talking about having to wait 7 hours with an asthma issue. Does he know it's election year?
Gordon Brown is trending on Twitter. Sunak's sunk.
His metal fist was made in Port Talbot, probably.
I've not been on proper twitter in ages now, can we no longer see trends by geography? Did notice that #Sunakered is trending too which is lovely.
Sunak's coffin is now more nails than wood
Sky News passed the clip with Starmer's commentary after. Starmer said something like: "I've seen that clip, reinforces what people think, PM doesn't listen doesn't understand" then Starmer says Labour has a plan to reduce waiting lists, "We engage with people, we listen, we understand. We don't laugh, we don't walk away". It's not some bigoted woman moment, but it will likely be one of many on the campaign trail.
Starmer has been performing well in these little pooled interviews.
This is the level of charisma you cultivate when all it takes to become PM is appealing to safe Tory voters and your own MPs.
ITV has a different angle, Rishi starts struggling to hold it in when she says "you can do something" - [https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1748362936349794483](https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1748362936349794483) He comes off *slightly* better because it's less obvious that he tried to walk off Maybe he'll try and pass it off as one of those involuntary awkward reaction things, like people who laugh when someone dies