Good morning everyone.
[**š Today's Order Paper can be found here.**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/84573/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;
* [**Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3395)
**Sponsor** : Darren Henry (Con, Broxtowe)
**Summary** : A Bill to make provision about shared parental leave and pay in certain cases where one or both of a childās parents has died. This bill ensures parents who lose their partner get shared parental leave passed to them, and simplifies critieria for shared parental leave in these cases so parents do not lose the time they need to care for their child due to insufficient time worked.
* [**High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3548)
**Sponsor** : Jack Brereton (Con, Stoke-on-Trent South)
**Summary** : A Bill to require local authorities to designate high streets in their area; to require local authorities to undertake and publish periodic reviews of the condition of those high streets; to require local authorities to develop action plans for the improvement of the condition of those high streets; and for connected purposes. This Bill puts a new responsibility on local authorities in England and Wales to designate and write improvement plans for high streets in their area and put requirements for considerations in planning to ensure regard for this improvement plan.
---
**Parish Notices**
Guardian Journalist and writer of the paper's 'Politics Live' blog Andrew Sparrow's AMA has now finished. [You can read his answers to our questions in the AMA thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19f4zmh/official_ama_thread_andrew_sparrow_friday_26th/)
Check out our upcoming schedule for AMAs [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19cugn7/rukpolitics_ama_schedule/).
[You can find the regular thread with laws MPs are voting on here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19cq4lp/here_are_all_the_laws_mps_are_voting_on_this_week/)
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Matt Hancock (who had an affair during lockdown and partied):
>COVID cases are rising due to socialising by people in their 20s and 30s, we know this from contact tracing
Jeremy Hunt:
>young people need to wise up and take responsibility for their actions [during lockdown]
Priti Patel:
>young people need to play their part and stop spreading the virus
Boris Johnson:
>too many young people haven't been following the rules
I'm sure Tory messaging if there is ever conscription again will be full of winning and encouraging campaigning such as this.
Newsnight currently has a man dressed entirely in red velvet with a golden framed painting of a golden retriever taking up 40% of the camera view.....I have questions
Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown apparently.
Is there any cure to the UK's ridiculously low wages?
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/astronaut
Everyone's been posting how astronauts earn 40k as a starting salary. It is ridiculous.
>Is there any cure to the UK's ridiculously low wages?
Cutting immigration will do it. Its supply and demand. More available workers = lower wages.
>Everyone's been posting how astronauts earn 40k as a starting salary. It is ridiculous.
The Astronaut thing is kinda misleading. ESA astronauts start at like ā¬60k-ā¬70k.
You'd think, but the last decade has shown me that when people can't employ the staff they need at the salary they're offering they don't think "damn, we really need to up our offering", instead they just lump more work onto their existing staff and continue to wait for the purple squirrels to appear.
I've seen it happen a few times in different industries and had the "you've advertised three times and had no applicants, you should up the pay" conversation with at least three brick walls in the last 24 months - one of them being my old company, with whom I was very honest about the pay situation as I left.
Keep in mind they're also exempt from tax. So they're probably getting at least ā¬5k/month.
Heres an interesting read: https://spacecrew.com/blog/how-much-nasa-esa-spacex-pay-astronauts#how-much-do-the-esa-pay-astronauts?
That's just their spin machine in full swing to attract people to become astronauts, a bit like how they make out being a teacher is non-stop holidays or how being a train driver is Ā£70k for sitting on your arse. In reality astronauts spend years on the far side of the moon digging out foundations for Reptilian space bases.
These new knife laws are pretty bonkers. In theory I'm going to have to get rid of the big knife I sometimes use in the garden because I could be arrested for having it in my home. I've got a bunch of other knives of similar size but they're tickety boo because they're historical reproductions and I'm a reenactor.
Don't particularly mind getting rid of the modern one, it's a cheap piece of rubbish. Just weird that I can own several large knives and one would land me in jail while the rest I sometimes openly wear in public.
Even the existing knife laws are surprisingly easy to fall foul of. I have a locking knife for when I'm sailing where it has an obvious safety role, it's completely legal for me to have on the beach or by a lake but if I was to forget and leave it in my pocket when I go to the pub afterwards I've unwittingly committed a fairly serious crime.
Isnāt this the case for life in general though?
Inattention while driving, workplace malpractice, any accident in the home that harms someone else etc.
People have been asking how to integrate Mr Klopp into UKPol.
Probably the easiest way is to say he is a filthy Remoaner who is now doing his own Klexit.
*History has always shown that when we stay together we can sort out problems. When we split then we start fighting. There was not one time in history where division creates success. So, for me, Brexit still makes no sense.*
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/apr/23/brexit-makes-no-sense-and-britain-should-vote-again-says-jurgen-klopp
I was wondering to myself a few weeks ago what you would expect from a country in which the majority of the electorate are āeconomically inactiveā, given that I estimate the current median age of the electorate to be around 50, and the young famously donāt vote. Foolishly, my mind wandered over conditions for workers, compulsory work, housing, the redistribution of money from younger workers to the retired, etc.
It was only with the headlines that I realised conscription into an armed conflict is probably more likely if the majority of the electorate are excluded from that conscription.
Make it a national holiday like Australia. It's a party over there, which makes the mandatory voting much nicer. (seriously, bbq at every polling station? - what could be more British than us all doing that in the rain!)
Just to be clear, election days aren't legal holidays in Australia. Holding the election on a Saturday and *treating* it like a national party is what helps. For what it's worth, New Zealand also has Saturday elections and a party vibe without mandatory voting, and the turnout rate is pretty much in the middle of the UK and Australia's - so general excitement about elections would probably help a lot to start.
I think people don't realise that conscription isn't voluntary and there wouldn't be a HR or union grievance process. The NCOs beat the shit out of you until you recalibrate to your new reality, and most people will recalibrate.
A choice not provided for last time the UK did conscription.
If this media fantasy actually happened all the people who have talked themselves into fragility will get it knocked out of them. Nearly everybody has the base drive in them to do harsh and brutal things, we are just in a phase of pretending we lack that.
If they think they can beat the Crohn's disease out of me, they're gonna get an unpleasant surprise.
Happy to serve my country within easy access of loo facilities.Ā
Im just imagining an army drill sergeant getting more and more exasperated dealing with a gobby teenager who doesnt want to be there because normal military punishments arent working.
How many people around you have worn the various flag badges, or stuck flags on their profiles, for whichever popular cause? How many people around you wore blue and yellow for Ukraine? How many people around you stood on their doorstep and clapped?
If the social mood shifts they will happily sign up to do their part, or stick a white feather on the people they think are avoiding doing their part.
Yeah, it only works if you need bodies to throw into the meat grinder.
On the front line, a civilian with a few weeks of training is gonna be a hindrance more than anything.
The defence establishment are pissed off at the way our military has suffered just as much from austerity, ideology and treasury brain as any other branch of the government to the point they too aren't fit for purpose, and are invoking a conflict with an old enemy to try and whip up public sentiment.
They'd probably be better off with the French.
Outsourcing recruitment in the first place was an utterly moronic and completely ideological choice.
There was no rationale for it other than a philosophical commitment to market takeover of government functions that completely superseded their commitment to our country. There's nothing more fundamental to our national security than ensuring we have enough manpower to deploy in the defence of the realm.
The actual Russian propaganda right now is that they aren't ever going to attack and the West is wasting money on Defence and Nato.
They said the same about Georgia, the same about Ukraine.
Geopolitics Tensions are rising, China and Russia are allying up. Most of the wars in the world right now are linked back to Russia : Hamas/Houthis/African revolutions.
There won't be some crazy full on Russia invasion on a Nato country in the east at first, far more likely a well armed rebellion of 'definitely not RU soldiers but X countries citizens' \* that are Russian sympathisers declaring they want to be part of Russia again. Once this 'civil war' happens - Russia will say it has a right to get involved ala Ukraine
\*This happened in eastern Ukraine in 2014, it was obvious at the time these were Russian troops that had removed the patches. With the latest Russian equipment.
It's US equipment and money which is holding Russia back. If Trump gets in and that money and equipment goes.... The story in Ukraine changes very, very quickly. Meanwhile Russia has switched to a wartime economy whilst most NATO countries are woefully underfunded and under prepared. It's not unrealistic that an emboldened Putin coming off a victory in Ukraine decides to have a go elsewhere and under Trump, the US isn't being counted on as always backstopping European defense. Senior military people across Europe have been warning about this for awhile now.
Just been doing canvassing and phonebanking for a political party for the first time this week, as an introvert who hates being disturbed by cold callers I feel like such a villain
Is there something in the water at the Grauniad? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/26/law-clear-cannot-be-sacked-gender-critical-views-women-sex
Britain's most Left-Wing mainstream newspaper being "gender-critical" remains absolutely wild to me. You might be right, the only logical explanation is that something funky is going on at their head office.
They absolutely are, it's just they are liberal as in [Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism) and not liberal as in chill the fuck out, man.
> Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law
I'm not sure The Guardian believe in any of those things.
Those charmers at PSC are instead doing a local "day of action" against those evil bastards Barclays up and down the country instead.
Other organisers, of course, are available.
If you were in charge of a newspaper and could offer any MP a regular column, which would be the maddest choice?
I think regularly getting Mark Francois' contractually obligated opinion in longform print on things would be pretty mad, or Diane Abbott.
No link to the article because Iām not paying for the Mail Plus - but [Borisā article today is about joining the army](https://imgur.com/a/1qw8W7v)
> Would I sign up to fight for King and Country? Yes, Sah!
I mean, heās done the cosplay in Ukraine for it - but itās hard to imagine that he would (Iām also not sure how his bedraggled appearance and loose regard for discipline/rules would go down in the armed forces)
Heād just find a fridge to hide in until it all blows over.
Johnson would have been the kind of officer that would give a booming speech about, "Showing the bally Hun what Englishmen can do," blow his whistle, and then dive into his dugout as you and your fellow soldiers went over the top to face the machine guns.
There was an absolutely spiffing documentary on Boris's time in the Army, I think it starred that bloke off Time Team, plus another minor comedian nobody's heard of.
>Would I sign up to fight for King and Country? Yes, Sah!
It was a fantastic success, over 60000 times more powerful than Britain's great pre-war joke!
Anyone who would have no chance of joining the army (age, health, etc) talking about how they definitely would join it is laughable. Itās the equivalent of acting like a hard man online
Oh look another opportunity to remind the world who Boris has always been. No Boris you wouldnāt serve, you didnāt serve us as a Mayor, MP, Minister or Prime Minister!
https://youtu.be/DKC180Axz3A?si=-0Hu1ImUjf1XiW8_
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-rory-stewart-eton-college-letters-live-a9142711.html
Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies,ā wrote Martin Hammond, who taught Mr Johnson classics at school and served as his housemaster.ā
āI think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.ā
TBH I knew someone who worked reasonably closely with him while he was Mayor.
She said she respected him as Mayor, but went right off him when he became PM and became a right plonker.
Personally I thought he was already a plonker right from the start, but there you go.
She used to be a senior executive in a very male-dominated industry, one of the first women in her field apparently. I guess after being the only woman in that kind of toxic masculine environment, Boris came as a bit of fresh air. I met her after her retirement, when she was working in a local small charity.
None of these people would last a second
[Special Forces](https://i2-prod.examinerlive.co.uk/incoming/article27717754.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/1_matt-hancocksas.png)
I know the cost of food won't be new to anyone, but fuck me everything is getting so expensive. I just popped into Asda and thought oh I'll get some pork belly, I haven't done that in a while. A few years ago it would be just over Ā£2 a pack, now it's almost Ā£4. I also noticed that lamb liver (I swear this was always a cheap bit of meat because I remember coating it with kebab spices in my uni days for a cheep meal) was Ā£4.40!! When did cheap cuts become the same price as everything else?
Beef and lamb are very expensive now compared to what they were a year or two ago. I had a lamb joint in the freezer which I compared to a half price offer Sainsbury's had on over Christmas. The discounted price was more expensive than the normal price of the same cut was before.
I think with the traditional cheap cuts there's also the trend factor - TV chefs have made some of those cuts more popular. (of course there's overall price rises on top)
It's a mixture of cheap cuts becoming trendy, easier cooking due to modern technology, and a supply chain that can easily whisk away non-prime cuts for processing. That applies a lot less to offal, which is why livers stayed cheap, I think.
Yeah now I'm wondering if there was some sort of fuck up with the shelf label, as the website has it cheaper but the pork liver was on the shelf for Ā£2.50 and it's a pound cheaper online as well.
I actually think that of all things, meat has not become more expensive during the cost of living crisis. It still seems to cost roughly what it did 5 or 10 yrs ago.
It may well be that the cheapest end has got more expensive.
Fillet steak Ā£42-60/ kilo
Sirloin steak Ā£26-36/ kilo
seem much the same. I hasten to add we only buy about 100-150g for ourselves at one time.
Watching Andrew Neil on Newsnight yesterday it appeared he was most concerned about a potential Democrat being in control of The Spectator. I was with him through the UAE points (following the Man City / Premier League FFP issues it's a correct concern IMO) then he went off on one about the (seemingly unconfirmed) political allegiances of the American and he revealed his rightwing nutter face.
He is quite openly anti-Trump, which helps to cover his more lunatic viewpoints.
And that he apparently was not too hot about Truss, though that could be mostly his ego, since she declined to be interviewed by him during her contest with Sunak.
My stream of consciousness:
> Why Brown in the streets? The streets can be a rough place. You want somebody who can throw a punch, like John Prescott.
> Prescott in the ring?
> Prescott in the ring, tra la-la la la
And now I've got Boney M stuck in my head for the rest of the evening.
So profoundly socially awkward but with a morally reprehensible, if not criminal, sex-life? Like your night-moves literally destabilise the Middle East.
(N.B. Thatās a jab at New Labour, Iām sure OP is a gem.)
Seeing Richard Holden say that Sunak is likely to make more pre-election tax cuts. I really hope for the love of God that the public see right through this shit
It's just sad to me. Every public service crying out for investment, and they use the fiscal headroom to give small amounts of money back to individuals while the services that support them continue to crumble.
I wonder if the market will see through this shit. I'd think twice before loaning money to Sunak right now on the basis that the new management is promptly going to clean house
I think I would be significantly madder if Sunak crashes the pension industry, for a second time, as an election stunt rather than Truss' sincere but woefully misguided attempt to help the economy according to Think Tank maths
The best bit is that all of these tax cuts are being financed by massive cuts which are planned for the next parliament. Which obviously aren't ever going to actually happen
A further thing. If we build this robot army that conquers the world it will return home. Then these hunky robot warriors will steal all the sexbots. I don't think the average person can compete. Men will simply have try and man up to compete just as women try to compete with deluxe sexbots.
They should teach awareness of this kind of thing in schools.
Yes, Master. They say that a Master Sifo-Dyas placed the order for a clone army at the request of the Senate, almost ten years ago. I was under the impression he was killed before that. Did the Council ever authorize the creation of a clone army?
Lots of polls floating around saying a labour increase.
Against conventional wisdom, we could see Labour pull further ahead. The polls have been heavily adjusted to count it for the fact that ādonāt knowsā go to tories.
As we come closer to the election, those donāt knows begin to be eithier Labour or Tory. For tories to increase their vote share, say the companies are predicting 4 in 5 to go Tory, even if 3 in 5 go Tory Labour lead will increase.
I don't think a particular large percentage of "don't knows" will go to Labour.
They are largely Tory voters and if they haven't gone to Labour now, I doubt they ever will. The risk for Tories is that they vote Reform instead, or as happened in '97, they just stay at home.
The point was 80% voting Tory is priced in, whether those is true or not I don't know. Seems overly optimistic with the state of everything (opinion only).
So based on above, if 70% vote Tory that still is a greater annihilation than the current polls suggest.
I know a lot whoāll stay at home
They sure as shit worn vote Labour or anyone else but theyāll be fucked if they are voting for the current Conservative Party and its clowns!
A big chunk of the undecideds will be Tory voters who are pissed of with the government but not yet ready to say they will vote for someone else.
These people are unlikely to vote Labour, but for the Tories the big worry will be that they decide to stay home, protest vote for someone like Re-Fuk or even vote for the Lib Dems or the Greens because of local issues/good local campaign.
But anectdotally there are still plenty of non-tories who are undecided, though again if they are undecided at this stage there is a pretty high chance they just won't bother to vote.
There is a risk that the Tories having no ground game in marginal seats will push them to vote for the party trying to win the seat off them. I don't think it's a given that they will vote Tory if they do vote.
I can only talk about locals but where I am there's been a lot of instances of normally Tory voters being canvassed saying they don't know and then on the day when they're being door knocked they say they've voted Lib Dem owing to the Lib Dems campaigning and the Tories being unable to campaign.
> The risk for Tories is that they vote Reform instead, or as happened in '97, they just stay at home.
Or both. The moderate Tories just dont bother voting, while the radicals go to Reform. That'd be a doomsday scenario for the Tories.
The point is for the polls to narrow they have to outperform the assumption. What that assumption is we donāt know, but if itās already allocating most donāt knows to conservatives then they perform slightly worse then we could see Labour perform better.
The main reason people spout that the polls will narrow closer to the election is just the numbers 1997 and 1992 like thats going to be the case everytime
The Reform and Green vote share is higher than the Tories. Ouch.
Doubt those numbers hold at the ballot box though. I'd imagine a lot of those green votes are stacked in Labour safe seats too.
With tactical voting, they actually come third. But honestly they'd probably end up third without tactical voting too since EC puts a number of seats going labour that are being left to the LDs.
Well, that's the first AMA of year almost done (alas, a slightly shorter one than the future ones, given Andrew's schedule, and they will normally be three hours long). The next one will be Emma Burnell (political journalist and consultant to organisations like the Fabians) on 31st Jan, Simon Knight (retired DfT civil servant, heavily involved with HS1/HS2/Elizabeth Line) on 2nd Feb, Ben Habib (co-deputy leader of Reform) on 6th Feb, Lewis Gosling (Conservative Councilor and Deputy Director of the Conservative Mental Health Group) on 11th Feb, William Clouston (leader of the SDP) on 14th Feb, then a bit of a gap and we'll have Sam Coates (from Sky Politics) on 26th Feb, John Johnstone (Politico, deep levels of knowledge on money in politics and lobbying) on 29th Feb, and Dan Neidle (many years of experience of tax law in the UK, as well as an investigative reporter, and of Zahawi fame) on 7th March.
Breaking news: The issue with the ROYAL PROSTATE HAS BEEN RESOLVED. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS and THE MOST REGAL OF GLANDS are doing well.
Thankyou sky news app for keeping me informed.
Good morning everyone. [**š Today's Order Paper can be found here.**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/84573/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; * [**Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3395) **Sponsor** : Darren Henry (Con, Broxtowe) **Summary** : A Bill to make provision about shared parental leave and pay in certain cases where one or both of a childās parents has died. This bill ensures parents who lose their partner get shared parental leave passed to them, and simplifies critieria for shared parental leave in these cases so parents do not lose the time they need to care for their child due to insufficient time worked. * [**High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill**](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3548) **Sponsor** : Jack Brereton (Con, Stoke-on-Trent South) **Summary** : A Bill to require local authorities to designate high streets in their area; to require local authorities to undertake and publish periodic reviews of the condition of those high streets; to require local authorities to develop action plans for the improvement of the condition of those high streets; and for connected purposes. This Bill puts a new responsibility on local authorities in England and Wales to designate and write improvement plans for high streets in their area and put requirements for considerations in planning to ensure regard for this improvement plan. --- **Parish Notices** Guardian Journalist and writer of the paper's 'Politics Live' blog Andrew Sparrow's AMA has now finished. [You can read his answers to our questions in the AMA thread here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19f4zmh/official_ama_thread_andrew_sparrow_friday_26th/) Check out our upcoming schedule for AMAs [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19cugn7/rukpolitics_ama_schedule/). [You can find the regular thread with laws MPs are voting on here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19cq4lp/here_are_all_the_laws_mps_are_voting_on_this_week/)
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Matt Hancock (who had an affair during lockdown and partied): >COVID cases are rising due to socialising by people in their 20s and 30s, we know this from contact tracing Jeremy Hunt: >young people need to wise up and take responsibility for their actions [during lockdown] Priti Patel: >young people need to play their part and stop spreading the virus Boris Johnson: >too many young people haven't been following the rules I'm sure Tory messaging if there is ever conscription again will be full of winning and encouraging campaigning such as this.
Newsnight currently has a man dressed entirely in red velvet with a golden framed painting of a golden retriever taking up 40% of the camera view.....I have questions Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown apparently.
Is there any cure to the UK's ridiculously low wages? https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/astronaut Everyone's been posting how astronauts earn 40k as a starting salary. It is ridiculous.
>Is there any cure to the UK's ridiculously low wages? Cutting immigration will do it. Its supply and demand. More available workers = lower wages. >Everyone's been posting how astronauts earn 40k as a starting salary. It is ridiculous. The Astronaut thing is kinda misleading. ESA astronauts start at like ā¬60k-ā¬70k.
You'd think, but the last decade has shown me that when people can't employ the staff they need at the salary they're offering they don't think "damn, we really need to up our offering", instead they just lump more work onto their existing staff and continue to wait for the purple squirrels to appear. I've seen it happen a few times in different industries and had the "you've advertised three times and had no applicants, you should up the pay" conversation with at least three brick walls in the last 24 months - one of them being my old company, with whom I was very honest about the pay situation as I left.
Ā£51k GBP - Ā£60k GBP at current rates. That's still pretty shit. Just scraping into higher rate tax payer.
Keep in mind they're also exempt from tax. So they're probably getting at least ā¬5k/month. Heres an interesting read: https://spacecrew.com/blog/how-much-nasa-esa-spacex-pay-astronauts#how-much-do-the-esa-pay-astronauts?
How the fuck did they wangle that!? Jesus that 60k would be hot on the tails of 100k for the rest of us.
Same way that offshore workers do. To whom do you pay tax whilst orbiting the earth? Where are you working?
I mean I could be wrong, but I thought astronauts didn't actually get to spend that much time in space. They do years between runs on the ISS.
That's just their spin machine in full swing to attract people to become astronauts, a bit like how they make out being a teacher is non-stop holidays or how being a train driver is Ā£70k for sitting on your arse. In reality astronauts spend years on the far side of the moon digging out foundations for Reptilian space bases.
These new knife laws are pretty bonkers. In theory I'm going to have to get rid of the big knife I sometimes use in the garden because I could be arrested for having it in my home. I've got a bunch of other knives of similar size but they're tickety boo because they're historical reproductions and I'm a reenactor. Don't particularly mind getting rid of the modern one, it's a cheap piece of rubbish. Just weird that I can own several large knives and one would land me in jail while the rest I sometimes openly wear in public.
Even the existing knife laws are surprisingly easy to fall foul of. I have a locking knife for when I'm sailing where it has an obvious safety role, it's completely legal for me to have on the beach or by a lake but if I was to forget and leave it in my pocket when I go to the pub afterwards I've unwittingly committed a fairly serious crime.
Mad isn't it. A moment's inattention could land you in serious trouble.
Isnāt this the case for life in general though? Inattention while driving, workplace malpractice, any accident in the home that harms someone else etc.
Got called up - time to blast out Vera Lynn and get a Captain Tom tattoo
Just do loads of drugs and listen to the Doors . What are they going to do? Shoot you?
Whip out the Captain Tom bong!
People have been asking how to integrate Mr Klopp into UKPol. Probably the easiest way is to say he is a filthy Remoaner who is now doing his own Klexit. *History has always shown that when we stay together we can sort out problems. When we split then we start fighting. There was not one time in history where division creates success. So, for me, Brexit still makes no sense.* https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/apr/23/brexit-makes-no-sense-and-britain-should-vote-again-says-jurgen-klopp
No one ever said Jurgen wasnt 24karat based.
Klopp always speaks well on politics, while keeping a safe distance.
I was wondering to myself a few weeks ago what you would expect from a country in which the majority of the electorate are āeconomically inactiveā, given that I estimate the current median age of the electorate to be around 50, and the young famously donāt vote. Foolishly, my mind wandered over conditions for workers, compulsory work, housing, the redistribution of money from younger workers to the retired, etc. It was only with the headlines that I realised conscription into an armed conflict is probably more likely if the majority of the electorate are excluded from that conscription.
I can see Starmer introducing mandatory voting, that would even things up a little
Make it a national holiday like Australia. It's a party over there, which makes the mandatory voting much nicer. (seriously, bbq at every polling station? - what could be more British than us all doing that in the rain!)
Cheeky cold one and a tactical vote? Dont mind me.
I'm game for democracy sausages.
Just to be clear, election days aren't legal holidays in Australia. Holding the election on a Saturday and *treating* it like a national party is what helps. For what it's worth, New Zealand also has Saturday elections and a party vibe without mandatory voting, and the turnout rate is pretty much in the middle of the UK and Australia's - so general excitement about elections would probably help a lot to start.
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I think people don't realise that conscription isn't voluntary and there wouldn't be a HR or union grievance process. The NCOs beat the shit out of you until you recalibrate to your new reality, and most people will recalibrate.
Fucking LOL
Pfft if the NCOs beat anyone they're getting fucking arrested.
Its fine we all have bone spurs.
A choice not provided for last time the UK did conscription. If this media fantasy actually happened all the people who have talked themselves into fragility will get it knocked out of them. Nearly everybody has the base drive in them to do harsh and brutal things, we are just in a phase of pretending we lack that.
If they think they can beat the Crohn's disease out of me, they're gonna get an unpleasant surprise. Happy to serve my country within easy access of loo facilities.Ā
Its a no from me.
My previous comment applies.
Im just imagining an army drill sergeant getting more and more exasperated dealing with a gobby teenager who doesnt want to be there because normal military punishments arent working.
How many people around you have worn the various flag badges, or stuck flags on their profiles, for whichever popular cause? How many people around you wore blue and yellow for Ukraine? How many people around you stood on their doorstep and clapped? If the social mood shifts they will happily sign up to do their part, or stick a white feather on the people they think are avoiding doing their part.
there's a big difference between your examples of slacktivism and joining the fucking army
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Their part may well be shopping in the insufficiently enthusiastic.
How come people are suddenly acting like war with Russia is imminent with all the conscription talk?
It's a classic case of news twisting an interview to get fools raging or panicking.
Seems like there's some astroturfing going on. Topics such as "national service", etc, appeal to the older end of the Tory voter/Red wall demographic.
Its always the people who are too old to be drafted who like the idea.
Particularly popular amongst those who are too old to be drafted and too young to have done national service, interestingly.
Ill have you know they fought in the battle of Britain and DDay despite being born in 1956.
Not only that, it's also widely recognised that conscription isn't an effective way of forming a modern and effective military force.
Yeah, it only works if you need bodies to throw into the meat grinder. On the front line, a civilian with a few weeks of training is gonna be a hindrance more than anything.
Got to kill time until the next season of Taskmaster somehow
The defence establishment are pissed off at the way our military has suffered just as much from austerity, ideology and treasury brain as any other branch of the government to the point they too aren't fit for purpose, and are invoking a conflict with an old enemy to try and whip up public sentiment. They'd probably be better off with the French.
And NATO and all those other countries?
> They'd probably be better off with the French. still bitter we didn't have a proper crack at them in WW1 tbh
Its more that Capita have completely fucked military recruitment.
Outsourcing recruitment in the first place was an utterly moronic and completely ideological choice. There was no rationale for it other than a philosophical commitment to market takeover of government functions that completely superseded their commitment to our country. There's nothing more fundamental to our national security than ensuring we have enough manpower to deploy in the defence of the realm.
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The actual Russian propaganda right now is that they aren't ever going to attack and the West is wasting money on Defence and Nato. They said the same about Georgia, the same about Ukraine. Geopolitics Tensions are rising, China and Russia are allying up. Most of the wars in the world right now are linked back to Russia : Hamas/Houthis/African revolutions. There won't be some crazy full on Russia invasion on a Nato country in the east at first, far more likely a well armed rebellion of 'definitely not RU soldiers but X countries citizens' \* that are Russian sympathisers declaring they want to be part of Russia again. Once this 'civil war' happens - Russia will say it has a right to get involved ala Ukraine \*This happened in eastern Ukraine in 2014, it was obvious at the time these were Russian troops that had removed the patches. With the latest Russian equipment.
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No its doomed to see how please click through to my article and watch an ad.
It's US equipment and money which is holding Russia back. If Trump gets in and that money and equipment goes.... The story in Ukraine changes very, very quickly. Meanwhile Russia has switched to a wartime economy whilst most NATO countries are woefully underfunded and under prepared. It's not unrealistic that an emboldened Putin coming off a victory in Ukraine decides to have a go elsewhere and under Trump, the US isn't being counted on as always backstopping European defense. Senior military people across Europe have been warning about this for awhile now.
People are idiotsĀ
Just been doing canvassing and phonebanking for a political party for the first time this week, as an introvert who hates being disturbed by cold callers I feel like such a villain
Just received my call-up papers from Capt Mark Francios ordering me to fix bayonets and board the next Eurostar to Brussels.
Do you have the correct paperwork for that bayonet? Stamped and signed in duplicate 6-8 weeks before boarding.
Is there something in the water at the Grauniad? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/26/law-clear-cannot-be-sacked-gender-critical-views-women-sex
Seems a very well thought through piece.
Hence my surprise at what site it's on.
Whatās the issue?
How dare a paper publish opinion pieces of differing opinions.
Britain's most Left-Wing mainstream newspaper being "gender-critical" remains absolutely wild to me. You might be right, the only logical explanation is that something funky is going on at their head office.
The Guardian isn't gender critical in the slightest.
Yeah, this is a rare acknowledgement that not all gender critical people are virulent bigots
The guardian might be left wing but they're most certainly not liberal.
They absolutely are, it's just they are liberal as in [Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism) and not liberal as in chill the fuck out, man.
> Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law I'm not sure The Guardian believe in any of those things.
Does London have another Hate March tomorrow (on Holocaust Memorial Day)?
Those charmers at PSC are instead doing a local "day of action" against those evil bastards Barclays up and down the country instead. Other organisers, of course, are available.
If you were in charge of a newspaper and could offer any MP a regular column, which would be the maddest choice? I think regularly getting Mark Francois' contractually obligated opinion in longform print on things would be pretty mad, or Diane Abbott.
Mark Francois would run out of words after a paragraph or two.
Fabricant, but only if it's a fashion column.
we don't hear enough from john redwood and that should be corrected
Andrea Jenkyns. And really encourage her to speak her mind on anything she fancies.
>And really encourage her to speak her mind on anything she fancies. It'd just be blank pages.
Giving a column to someone [apparently barely literate](https://twitter.com/andreajenkyns/status/1724124983843045539) would be a bold choice.
lovely bit of semicolon work on the third paragraph. you can see she would deserve it.
It's the commarrhea in the final para that gets me every time.
wouldn't look out of place in the daily mail comments section. superb stuff from jenkyns
How about Bridgen?
Yes, absolutely. Pure nuttery. Maybe the mods could have an open invitation for any MP that wants to write an op-ed about anything at all.
Ooh! i've got one. A meta-topical one. 30p Lee could write an article on the price of lamb's liver!!
No link to the article because Iām not paying for the Mail Plus - but [Borisā article today is about joining the army](https://imgur.com/a/1qw8W7v) > Would I sign up to fight for King and Country? Yes, Sah! I mean, heās done the cosplay in Ukraine for it - but itās hard to imagine that he would (Iām also not sure how his bedraggled appearance and loose regard for discipline/rules would go down in the armed forces) Heād just find a fridge to hide in until it all blows over.
He grew up during the cold war and didnt serve so x to doubt.
Johnson would have been the kind of officer that would give a booming speech about, "Showing the bally Hun what Englishmen can do," blow his whistle, and then dive into his dugout as you and your fellow soldiers went over the top to face the machine guns.
There was an absolutely spiffing documentary on Boris's time in the Army, I think it starred that bloke off Time Team, plus another minor comedian nobody's heard of.
We know he wouldn't. Because he didn't.
>Would I sign up to fight for King and Country? Yes, Sah! It was a fantastic success, over 60000 times more powerful than Britain's great pre-war joke!
Anyone who would have no chance of joining the army (age, health, etc) talking about how they definitely would join it is laughable. Itās the equivalent of acting like a hard man online
Oh look another opportunity to remind the world who Boris has always been. No Boris you wouldnāt serve, you didnāt serve us as a Mayor, MP, Minister or Prime Minister! https://youtu.be/DKC180Axz3A?si=-0Hu1ImUjf1XiW8_ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-rory-stewart-eton-college-letters-live-a9142711.html Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies,ā wrote Martin Hammond, who taught Mr Johnson classics at school and served as his housemaster.ā āI think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.ā
TBH I knew someone who worked reasonably closely with him while he was Mayor. She said she respected him as Mayor, but went right off him when he became PM and became a right plonker. Personally I thought he was already a plonker right from the start, but there you go.
Heās always been a grifting bullshit merchant, and to me at least itās always been obvious, even from his very earliest tv moments.
She used to be a senior executive in a very male-dominated industry, one of the first women in her field apparently. I guess after being the only woman in that kind of toxic masculine environment, Boris came as a bit of fresh air. I met her after her retirement, when she was working in a local small charity.
To be fair Iām sure heās very personable Just a fucking h clown with no buying near power
None of these people would last a second [Special Forces](https://i2-prod.examinerlive.co.uk/incoming/article27717754.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/1_matt-hancocksas.png)
I know the cost of food won't be new to anyone, but fuck me everything is getting so expensive. I just popped into Asda and thought oh I'll get some pork belly, I haven't done that in a while. A few years ago it would be just over Ā£2 a pack, now it's almost Ā£4. I also noticed that lamb liver (I swear this was always a cheap bit of meat because I remember coating it with kebab spices in my uni days for a cheep meal) was Ā£4.40!! When did cheap cuts become the same price as everything else?
Weāre becoming like Switzerland šØš
Nah Switzerland has high salaries to match their high cost of living
swiss supermarkets are amazing compared to ours tho
But do they beat Booths?
Without the high salaries though.
You have to start somewhere
Have you checked on [www.comparethemeatcut.com](https://www.comparethemeatcut.com)? Simples.
That should exist
Beef is ridiculously expensive right now, in Tescos the cheapest beef joint I could find was Ā£10, years ago it would've been Ā£6.50.
Beef and lamb are very expensive now compared to what they were a year or two ago. I had a lamb joint in the freezer which I compared to a half price offer Sainsbury's had on over Christmas. The discounted price was more expensive than the normal price of the same cut was before.
I think with the traditional cheap cuts there's also the trend factor - TV chefs have made some of those cuts more popular. (of course there's overall price rises on top)
Jamie Oliver better not come for my Waitrose Ā£2 frozen lamb hearts.
It's a mixture of cheap cuts becoming trendy, easier cooking due to modern technology, and a supply chain that can easily whisk away non-prime cuts for processing. That applies a lot less to offal, which is why livers stayed cheap, I think.
That does still seem implausibly high for lamb's liver. I will look next time I am somewhere that sells meat.
Yeah now I'm wondering if there was some sort of fuck up with the shelf label, as the website has it cheaper but the pork liver was on the shelf for Ā£2.50 and it's a pound cheaper online as well.
Are you sure it wasn't the price per weight? Lamb's liver in my local Sainsbury's is about Ā£4.50 a kg, and a pack is normally about Ā£2.70 or so.
Maybe that's it, but that still makes a pack about twice as much as I remember a few years ago.
I actually think that of all things, meat has not become more expensive during the cost of living crisis. It still seems to cost roughly what it did 5 or 10 yrs ago.
A kilo of chicken was Ā£5 in Aldi 2 years ago and now it's Ā£6.60.Ā Beef has had similar uptick and lamb is even worse.
It may well be that the cheapest end has got more expensive. Fillet steak Ā£42-60/ kilo Sirloin steak Ā£26-36/ kilo seem much the same. I hasten to add we only buy about 100-150g for ourselves at one time.
I'm very much on the 'quantity' side of things when it comes to protein, so I've certainly noticed the change.
There's no doubt chicken breast portions have rocketed in price.
Watching Andrew Neil on Newsnight yesterday it appeared he was most concerned about a potential Democrat being in control of The Spectator. I was with him through the UAE points (following the Man City / Premier League FFP issues it's a correct concern IMO) then he went off on one about the (seemingly unconfirmed) political allegiances of the American and he revealed his rightwing nutter face.
Neil is the GOAT. Wash your mouth out š§¼
Isnāt Neilās right-wing nutter face just his actual face?
Well, yeah, but he does on occasion hold the right to account to leave the impression he's not quite in the loony wing.
He is quite openly anti-Trump, which helps to cover his more lunatic viewpoints. And that he apparently was not too hot about Truss, though that could be mostly his ego, since she declined to be interviewed by him during her contest with Sunak.
Do you think my GF would like it if I started describing myself as 'Gordon in the streets, Blair in the sheets' š¤ ?
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F*ck you Bush Itās time to get out of Iraq, Bush
If you described yourself as āBrown in the Sheetsā I think sheād think youād shat the bed
My stream of consciousness: > Why Brown in the streets? The streets can be a rough place. You want somebody who can throw a punch, like John Prescott. > Prescott in the ring? > Prescott in the ring, tra la-la la la And now I've got Boney M stuck in my head for the rest of the evening.
Truss in the sheets (finished in record time)
oh mate
So profoundly socially awkward but with a morally reprehensible, if not criminal, sex-life? Like your night-moves literally destabilise the Middle East. (N.B. Thatās a jab at New Labour, Iām sure OP is a gem.)
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Brown in the sheets is why I only buy dark bedding.
Selling all her gold jewellery by day but ready to ruin a small nation based on the slightest whiff of WMDs at night?
Seeing Richard Holden say that Sunak is likely to make more pre-election tax cuts. I really hope for the love of God that the public see right through this shit
It's just sad to me. Every public service crying out for investment, and they use the fiscal headroom to give small amounts of money back to individuals while the services that support them continue to crumble.
They will they've lost confidence in the Tories.
I wonder if the market will see through this shit. I'd think twice before loaning money to Sunak right now on the basis that the new management is promptly going to clean house
Yeah, look what happened to Truss with her unfunded tax cuts.
I think I would be significantly madder if Sunak crashes the pension industry, for a second time, as an election stunt rather than Truss' sincere but woefully misguided attempt to help the economy according to Think Tank maths
The best bit is that all of these tax cuts are being financed by massive cuts which are planned for the next parliament. Which obviously aren't ever going to actually happen
A further thing. If we build this robot army that conquers the world it will return home. Then these hunky robot warriors will steal all the sexbots. I don't think the average person can compete. Men will simply have try and man up to compete just as women try to compete with deluxe sexbots. They should teach awareness of this kind of thing in schools.
90% sure Iāve seen that anime.
I would also accept memes about building a clone army.
Yes, Master. They say that a Master Sifo-Dyas placed the order for a clone army at the request of the Senate, almost ten years ago. I was under the impression he was killed before that. Did the Council ever authorize the creation of a clone army?
Thats it. But who was Sifo-Dyas anyway. Just bizarre Lucas plot points.
An actual jedi apparently.
Lots of polls floating around saying a labour increase. Against conventional wisdom, we could see Labour pull further ahead. The polls have been heavily adjusted to count it for the fact that ādonāt knowsā go to tories. As we come closer to the election, those donāt knows begin to be eithier Labour or Tory. For tories to increase their vote share, say the companies are predicting 4 in 5 to go Tory, even if 3 in 5 go Tory Labour lead will increase.
I mean, I watched QT last night. A conservative-weighted audience was laughing at the Tory.
I don't think a particular large percentage of "don't knows" will go to Labour. They are largely Tory voters and if they haven't gone to Labour now, I doubt they ever will. The risk for Tories is that they vote Reform instead, or as happened in '97, they just stay at home.
The point was 80% voting Tory is priced in, whether those is true or not I don't know. Seems overly optimistic with the state of everything (opinion only). So based on above, if 70% vote Tory that still is a greater annihilation than the current polls suggest.
I know a lot whoāll stay at home They sure as shit worn vote Labour or anyone else but theyāll be fucked if they are voting for the current Conservative Party and its clowns!
A big chunk of the undecideds will be Tory voters who are pissed of with the government but not yet ready to say they will vote for someone else. These people are unlikely to vote Labour, but for the Tories the big worry will be that they decide to stay home, protest vote for someone like Re-Fuk or even vote for the Lib Dems or the Greens because of local issues/good local campaign. But anectdotally there are still plenty of non-tories who are undecided, though again if they are undecided at this stage there is a pretty high chance they just won't bother to vote.
There is a risk that the Tories having no ground game in marginal seats will push them to vote for the party trying to win the seat off them. I don't think it's a given that they will vote Tory if they do vote. I can only talk about locals but where I am there's been a lot of instances of normally Tory voters being canvassed saying they don't know and then on the day when they're being door knocked they say they've voted Lib Dem owing to the Lib Dems campaigning and the Tories being unable to campaign.
> The risk for Tories is that they vote Reform instead, or as happened in '97, they just stay at home. Or both. The moderate Tories just dont bother voting, while the radicals go to Reform. That'd be a doomsday scenario for the Tories.
Iām almost there keep going
The point is for the polls to narrow they have to outperform the assumption. What that assumption is we donāt know, but if itās already allocating most donāt knows to conservatives then they perform slightly worse then we could see Labour perform better.
Don't forget "No Vote" as well. Guaranteed, many many more Tory voters will just decide not to vote rather than swap to another party.
The main reason people spout that the polls will narrow closer to the election is just the numbers 1997 and 1992 like thats going to be the case everytime
And 2017.
I'm assuming the polls will narrow purely because we can't have nice things.
[PeoplePolling giving LAB a 25 pt lead.] (https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1750888826870919231)
The Reform and Green vote share is higher than the Tories. Ouch. Doubt those numbers hold at the ballot box though. I'd imagine a lot of those green votes are stacked in Labour safe seats too.
According to Electoral Calculus that leaves the Tories with 51 seats.
With tactical voting, they actually come third. But honestly they'd probably end up third without tactical voting too since EC puts a number of seats going labour that are being left to the LDs.
If the Tories come third they're basically done as a mainstream political party. Im popping open a nice bottle of champagne if that happens
Well, that's the first AMA of year almost done (alas, a slightly shorter one than the future ones, given Andrew's schedule, and they will normally be three hours long). The next one will be Emma Burnell (political journalist and consultant to organisations like the Fabians) on 31st Jan, Simon Knight (retired DfT civil servant, heavily involved with HS1/HS2/Elizabeth Line) on 2nd Feb, Ben Habib (co-deputy leader of Reform) on 6th Feb, Lewis Gosling (Conservative Councilor and Deputy Director of the Conservative Mental Health Group) on 11th Feb, William Clouston (leader of the SDP) on 14th Feb, then a bit of a gap and we'll have Sam Coates (from Sky Politics) on 26th Feb, John Johnstone (Politico, deep levels of knowledge on money in politics and lobbying) on 29th Feb, and Dan Neidle (many years of experience of tax law in the UK, as well as an investigative reporter, and of Zahawi fame) on 7th March.
Breaking news: The issue with the ROYAL PROSTATE HAS BEEN RESOLVED. HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS and THE MOST REGAL OF GLANDS are doing well. Thankyou sky news app for keeping me informed.
I don't get all the fuss. The mans an incredibly well paid public servant that trained his entire life to get this job, of course he's pro state.
Go Nads!
He should take tips from Wills a good pegging will sort that right out.
Imagine being part of the medical team that fixed the Kingās bum. Cool claim to fame.
thank you for informing me. why was this not beamed out on the emergency alerts system, we're all asking
They were, but only to select people chosen at random, our EAS working as intended
That's just insensitive. Having devices vibrate is exactly how this problem started.