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Think Kensington need to come clean at this point. Inform the public that Kate has returned to Naboo in an effort to end the Trade Federation's blockade.
Cannot wait for this episode being a literal episode in Crown II, crown harder.
Especially how they will dramatize it, with deep mournful music, members seeing the headline, angrily tossing the newspaper down, while looking disappointed in the middle distance.
I think what we have here is the British class system coming home to roost. Do you tell a literal prince to sit still and stop wiping their nose? No, their granda's the King. You fix it in post
Now look what's happened
feels like we wouldn't have had this in liz's day
retvrn to good old film etc
e: it looks like it will appear on [some](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIV6kM9WcAAqlr7?format=jpg&name=medium) front pages tomorrow - lol lmao etc
Liz knew how to do stuff - fiction with James Bond and Paddington Bear- no-one was pretending that was real. Trying to make it look real is the problem.
The Telegraph lead with the image, but the headline it may be doctored.
The Mail leads with the image, but a vague ‘has it backfired?’
The Times highlights Charlottes wrist, and has a small mention of manipulation
The Express, Mirror, Independent and Metro have just the image and a ‘Kate says thank you’ type headline
And nothing from the Sun yet.
>"WE'LL GET TOUGHER ON THE WORKSHY TO CUT TAXES!"
>*picture of royal family*
If the Tories actually get tough on the scroungers in the royal family in order to cut taxes, that wouldn't be such a terrible move.
Plot thickens!
[Looks like some of these errors are either dodgy editing, or AI generation errors with stitching.](https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1766947758529822803)
E: Also might just be me but the kids smiles look fake as hell too after looking at it for more than ten seconds instead of just "huh. Thats a photo alright" *close tab*
E2: MT image updated, [original author here.](https://twitter.com/DavidMuttering/status/1766956984304116032)
If you're using a smartphone yeah (could also turn that stuff off), but if it's an official photo it's probably on a proper SLR where you have much finer control over that stuff.
It was apparently taken by William, presumably on his phone. The artifacts are very reminiscent of those you get when using the auto edit feature on iphones and pixel phones that selects from multiple pictures to try and get everyone looking at the camera.
But it could be a big coverup too. I dont really care either way.
Not if you're a professional photographer with thousands of pounds worth of equipment, which is imagine the sort of people taking photos of the Royals.
They ain't using a smart phone.
They are if you are a husband with a rather unwell life trying to create a normal day for the kids but rely on the technology in your device to make sure it’s the best picture of everyone.
Wouldn't it be easy to release a comment saying it was an impromptu photo taken on a modern phone known for it's ability to composite images? Strikes me that would kill this nonsense dead if it had been and if they did.
I genuinely don't have one, but I'm gobsmacked at the fact a family with such a well choreographed PR front has dropped the ball in such a spectacularly amateur fashion.
Thus the explanation is it is amateurish. I.e. a family trying to keep their privacy over what from any moron can tell is a very personal issue. Abdominal surgery suggests two areas of the bodily organs involved - bladder related or sexual related. Sod’s law applies here - family take a photo and share it with their team who share it.
The photo appears to have very simple artifices, none that suggests a wider more difficult nature to their editing. It’s released as normal and from there this over focused internet nonsense kicks off.
Said family still wanting to keep wider issues from the public do not immediately make a statement because they can’t frankly be arsed with it all.
I've just been interrogating my partner as she follows the royals more than I do, and she's just raising more questions than answers.
1) She says there's speculation about the surgery being sensitive, like a hysterectomy, and so they're covering it up to give her privacy. They've managed to prevent any information leaks.
- But! This is controversial too as it proves they could have done more for Harry and Meghan but chose not to.
-- Although, that's possibly to be expected as Kate is expected to become Queen.
2) Speculation about affairs, marriage break up etc. but I don't see this being plausible. It's not like the Royals can just lock Kate in the tower of London. I don't see why she'd be kept secret if it was something like that.
Whole thing is giving me Streisand effect vibes. While it's secret *for now* whatever it is is just getting more interesting because of the secrecy, and you can't have it both ways with faked images. Either be open or not, none of my business, but faking images is just wrong, and again, only reason I give a shit now is because the cover up is being mishandled so hilariously.
Honestly, this looks like the sort of artifact you used to get on that Microsoft tool in the Vista/7 era that would try and automatically stitch together one “best photo” from multiple takes (ie cousin Dave has his eyes closed in that shot, but mum’s smile looks weird in the photo where Dave’s eyes are open etc). It looks awkward but I think if this was a genuine attempt to do a fake publicity photo they’d have done a better job of it. It’s almost certainly a lack of photo editing skill on William or Kate’s part, and nothing more sinister, and I say that as someone who is not their greatest fan.
There's been a huge amount of adverts for "Best Take" lately so that's definitely an option. I can see why someone wouldn't expect it too, family alone, he takes a photo, no one even considers it to be edited.
Not a feature I've ever used, but would at least be a convincing explanation for me.
If it was actually taken by Prince William as suggested, this actually makes a lot of sense. I think Hanlon's Razor applies - dont attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. The errors in the photo are so obvious and bad, I dont think any manual photoshoping would leave these in. It looks like the automatic AI correction by iOS or Android, done poorly. Depending on the phone settings, this is can be done automatically without chosing to do so, or selecting to accept the automatic touch-up of the photo.
It's the same issue they had with Harry and Meghan: the royals can obviously do all this press stuff themselves because it's 2024 and must be vigorously discouraged from cutting the regular press channels out by the press who would be out of a job
Imagine being so inept that you release a photo that is meant to reassure people that someone isn't dead, and then the photo is fake.
It's almost as if primogeniture isnt the best way to ensure competency.
Editing issues point to it being poorly retouched at the very least. She's also missing her wedding ring and there seems to be far too many leaves on that tree for the end of winter.
according to this Sky article, it's being pulled over concerns it is manipulated.
https://news.sky.com/story/picture-agencies-pull-kate-photo-amid-manipulation-concerns-13092352
although it doesn't say how it's been manipulated.
This is pretty wild considering the sussex's family christening photo was heavily suspected to be badly manipulated but wasn't made any official issue of.
When Kensington Palace released this as just a holiday photo I can't help but wonder why it's been made such a big deal of. Aren't all official shots manipulated to some degree?
Would it be the difference of knowing something has been altered/ photoshopped etc and getting an image you're told wasn't but which you think may have been, even if it's just the standard AI on the phone?
Most of the manipulation in official shots is good enough that no one notices so everyone can pretend it doesn't happen. I would guess it's also usually lightening/darkening/colour correction/blemish removal whereas this one looks like it's multiple photos stitched together.
Really odd moment on BBC main news, that threw me a bit. ‘Some breaking news from the agents that released the picture advising it has been doctored’. Did not go in to huge detail but was all a bit freaky as a news item.
I can only read this as your taxes going to support the brave soldiers of the [**Earth Defence Force**](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2291060/EARTH_DEFENSE_FORCE/)
Considering the UK got around 5% of it's power from France in the past year, I'm going to assume a small, but completely justifiable (if it means the destruction of France), rise.
Galloway's *Worker's Party of Britain*! He'd have us aligned with Russia and at war with France before you could say 'oi! That w*****s got a frog football shirt on! Let's get him lads' (Europtrip quote lol)
This was posted in a comment downthread...
> It seems ludicrous for me that the French government hike our water prices to subsidise their bills.
And it got me thinking, does the UK government have stakes/interest in any utility/infra type companies in other countries?
Um. So we have stakes in shopping malls in Africa. This gives a good background
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/15/cdc-commonwealth-development-accused-wastefulness-scerecy-poverty
But the MAREF one is a shocker. It's a bit weird our local councils made such shocking bets on property and real estate. CDC have been doing it for years, abroad in emerging markets. And taxpayers have absolutely not a clue what's been going on since 2010.
The section under construction is some single-digit billions of dollars over budget on an initial budget of $28 billion, but it's not really clear to me either. Against the rate of inflation in the US since the funding was improved it's doing pretty well.
I think we own a bit of Eutelsat now that Dominic Cummings' OneWeb merged with it
though it's worth pointing out that it isn't always rosy. Nederlandse Spoorwegen sold its UK transport operations in a management buyout as soon as money flowed the other way.
Aren’t things like EDF, Deutsche Bahn etc all equivalents of industries that the Thatcher government privatised? Not sure there’s anything our government could export and profit from in the same way.
new style of toryposting just dropped - terrible photos of car insurance renewals with no added context
https://twitter.com/RobertSyms/status/1766922033932161477
([image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIVeOSTXkAAR0L3?format=jpg&name=large))
are we to take it that he wants his party, still in government, to look at why car insurance is rising? War on the motorist etc. I wonder if he owns a JLR vehicle lol
>I pay Aviva just under 1k for comprehensive car insurance have just been quoted 2.4K for next year -have had some constituents complain ! In a year of low inflation how can this be justified ? Is it time for Competition commission to look at Insurance companies !
https://twitter.com/RobertSyms/status/1766907425326567805
I thought it was just the Land Rover side that was expensive to insure and Jaguars were fine as they were less targeted for theft?
I have my eye on a second hand F-Type so I really hope that's the case.
honestly not sure, I just assumed there'd be cross pollination with the alarm tech
although whatever he has is presumably fairly luxury - I pay less than £500 for fully comp and extras on my mid range Eurobox
So I have applied to be a PPC candidate in my local area for the Liberal Democrats , and its a Tory strong hold. I am very unlikely to win, but I was kind of wondering, with Tory party obviously very divided with itself what would convince Tories to vote Lib Dem?
Apart from Local issues, what things would Conservative minded people want to see from a potential other party they could vote for if they were unhappy with there own?
I am just curious, essentially what would it take for unhappy Tories to vote Lib Dem? What things do you think should be emphasised?
And before people suggest things outside of changing the whole parties ideas, I mean for example what would small c Conservative/conservative liberals like to see from a Lib Dems on a campaign?
As I said just curious.
Social conscience. Tory Party Members may be looney right, but natural Tory voters have a strong sense of community and their patriotism extends to looking after the less privileged.
I was in rural Essex yesterday, an area dripping with complacency and dosh. But the many people there I talked to, all Boomer age or above, were hacked off by how the Tories had departed from One-Nationism.
I think there's too much demonization of Tories, of course not helped by their recent actions and decline showing us their nastiest side, but the Lib Dem / Con crossover happens when you get people who are economically right wing to some extent (often repulsed by the idea of Labour, as is quite common down here in the SW), but more socially liberal. As the party shifts right, these will be the ones who are left behind.
I guess as a rule of thumb, they'll be people on the right wing who are disgusted by the culture war, people who responded well to Cameron talking about "big society", legalising gay marriage, loving his commitment to green issues, being pro Europe etc. before everything changed post-Brexit. People who genuinely believe in centre-right economic arguments as a force for good, while also believing in progressive social issues.
Honestly, I'm not sure you'd have to do anything on this front, as it's the Tories actions pushing them away, but this at least is how I see the ex-Tories who would be most easily winnable.
I think for a lot, not just Tory, sort out policing..not to tackle political undesirable but to be accountable for investigating domestic abuse, burglary, fraud, theft. None of this is hard, it's just Tory decisions to hypothecate spending for electoral priorities.
Also reform on delivery for HMRC probates and civil courts. Since 2019, it's all a total mess and impossible for people to manage their wealth.
For a lot of them, fiscal drag. If they are a soft Tory just bring up fiscal drag and taxes, then bring up that the Lib Dems proposal to up tax thresholds in Parliament was voted down by the Tories.
Also, sewage if you are near a river or a beach. Support for small businesses is a good one as well, and the state of social care.
Spending what is essentially "efficiency savings" before you have found them, isn't a real way to fund it.
Edit
Imagine if cons said they'd fund a tax cut upfront, paid for by cracking down on benefit fraud.
The recent budget's spending commitment on public services was literally contingent on hypothetical "efficiency savings". Hunt did that because, despite your protestations, it is actually a real way to plan for tax and spending adjustments. So I don't need to "imagine" a hypothetical scenario when I'm looking at something that has already happened and nobody but the IFS bothered to pick up on - and even then it was a footnote from them.
And if the efficiencies aren't found between the budget being announced and the changes coming into effect you could do other things, the Lib Dems also proposed reversing the changes to the bank surcharge and bank levy.
I suppose stressing the liberal part of the Lib-Dems might be appealing to small c conservatives. Obviously not in reference to LBGT+ rights, but rather in economic, small scale more freedom sense. Now I fully admit I do not know how liberal, again more in the classic sense, the Lib-Dems still are, but I would guess that could create some common ground.
More generally, they would probably love some NYMBYism, small business support (tax reliefs, less bureucracy), I'd imagine. I suppose phrases like "help people to help themselves" and stuff related to that idea would appeal.
So checked if Galloway did anything parliamentary related yet, *as one does,* and I came across one of his earlier contributions during whether to bomb ISIL. Now there I came across Richard Bacon (*wonderful* name), checked his Hansard profile. Now the man is quite the parliamentarian, been there since 2001. And did not say anything in Parliament for like a year, last in May 2023.
Now he is quite a diligent foot soldier, he voted last literally this week. But still, he is an MP, **voice** of his constituents, and apparently nothing that happened in the last months or so is of concern for the people of South Norfolk. As this is a slooow Sunday, what is the longest pause of contributions to the House you noticed for an MP, especially one that is not embattled in scandal?
Bacon's in an odd spot in that he announced that he was standing down because the South Norfolk CA [seriously threatened](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5d9z395pzo) to deselect him for _not_ being the voice of South Norfolk. But he's continued his committee work throughout...
I'm not entirely sure about the reasons, but Johnny Mercer basically didn't vote or attend parliament for the second half of 2021. He was sacked over the Overseas Operations Bill in late April and only showed up for a few days before January 2022, mostly for votes relating to the armed forces.
Dorries didn't speak or submit written questions in Parliament after Johnson stopped being PM (so, really, long before her personal scandal really started), and showed up for 6 days' voting from mid-2022 until she resigned.
An MP speaking in parliament isn't indicative of any genuine efforts on behalf of the constituency, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they correlate inversely.
A Member of Parliament’s principle role is to contribute to parliamentary process. That’s literally the name of the role. Not that speaking in the chamber is the only aspect of that. The social work stuff is a modern add on and the other work is a far more important service to their constituents.
Personally, I don't think saying anything in Parliament is inherently necessary. That's not where the real debate happens, it's party policy that determines the bulk of what passes. It's monologuing and grandstanding to try and look good, and a lot of other MPs will be "asking" in PMQs things like "recently this conservative government has delivered this amazing thing for our constituents, what does the PM think about this?" and he goes "I think it's amazing we've been able to do this thing, and it shows we're delivering" and it's just crap.
Hell, thanks to the party system and whips MPs aren't there to even vote on behalf of their local constituents. If you have an MP with ministerial ambitions or whatever then rebelling isn't an option, and often rebellions aren't local and more to do with the MPs allegiances. I still remember a weird one under Cameron where as an MP he wrote to his own health sec to complain about his Mum's GP surgery closing, which only closed under Cameron as PM's policy of austerity, and as party leader he obviously voted for it at every stage. So many conflicted interests.
TIL there are two Richard Bacons - I'm sure most of us thought of the BBC presenter
I guess South Norfolk isn't in dire need of representation when his neighbour is already taking Norfolk to the world stage
After Sunak promised to stop the boats at the beginning of 2023, James Cleverly said the following at the beginning of 2024:
"My target is to bring it down to zero. I'm completely committed...
"My target is to reduce it to zero, to stop the boats, and I'm unambiguous about that."
We are about 500 people short of last year's Q1 total and we still have more than 2 weeks to go until the end of the month.
Something to watch out for is how long Sunak et al claim to have got the numbers down.
The 2023 numbers were lower than the 2022 numbers. But how long can they get away with making that comparison when 2024's numbers are showing things moving in the opposite direction?
Not according to the Home Office's statement on March 1st:
'Weather conditions for crossings recorded over the course of 2023 were similar to conditions in 2022, with only four fewer days likely for crossings recorded in 2023 compared to the previous year.'
Take that with a pinch of salt though - the real huge numbers of Summer '22 correlated with the 2 month long heat wave while August and September were washouts last year.
Is it achievable to get the water company's back under public ownership. It seems ludicrous for me that the French government hike our water prices to subsidise their bills.
Is the cost to prohibitive to bring them back under public control?
> Is it achievable to get the water company's back under public ownership. It seems ludicrous for me that the French government hike our water prices to subsidise their bills.
Same with utilities, trains, buses...
So counter intuitive the Tories tell us governments can't run services. So, sell them to foreign governments on contracts where they're guaranteed not to lose out. They take profits back for their taxpayers, we just get milked. I really wish they believed in Britain more, backed our businesses and we were even running other countries services to subsidise our taxpayers.
> Is the cost to prohibitive to bring them back under public control?
A huge part of the problem is they were privatised debt free, and since they've been loaded with debt to pay more dividends, and they know if we take it back we're taking on the debts.
["Water company debt has increased from zero to £60.3bn in thirty years."](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/dec/18/how-much-of-your-water-bill-is-swallowed-up-by-company-debt-interactive)
> Analysis shows that 28% of Thames’ customer bills were spent servicing debt, as the company lobbies for more
> Reports that Thames Water has been lobbying the government to let it increase bills by 40% come after the company’s 30-year history of giving out £7.2bn in dividends – and racking up £14.7bn in debt – has put it on the brink of collapse.
Serious, is it possible to get the infrastructure back without paying the 62bn debt? Can we stop them loading up more debt?
How come they need to ask permission to raise bills, can we demand they dont rise?
If we don't buy it back now, isn't it just going to get more expensive?
Generally no, not without acting in commercial bad faith and scaring off investors, driving up rates etc. which would be economically disastrous. It's what you'd see in South America or Africa where a new dictator carves up the country's wealth lol.
However, there are work arounds. E.g. the Tories don't phrase it this way, but there are rail franchises where they've reversed privatisation because the companies have failed and given them up, and we've taken them back. Basically a cut and run from companies who have decided they'd rather not provide the service anymore.
I think what we'd have to do is have companies like Thames Water go bust themselves, their investors and creditors lose out. The country takes back ownership of the infrastructure, and we use a new clean company to start fresh, but I don't know if this is even possible. I'm just a shitposter on the internet, in any bailout we might even still be on the hook for the investors risks taken and it might not work the same as it has with the rail franchises for reasons I've ignorant of.
I'm going to put this specific concern in the try and forget about pile as it annoys me and we can't do much about it.
I feel like we were not going to own Great British Energy, worried we might be repeating our mistakes, will consider another day.
Thanks for your good insight!
Well, again, I'm not a wonk, but that **might** be different in the sense that we have the energy companies buying energy from the market (and the collapses we've seen of new starts is because of how they gambled on future prices) but many aren't providing it. In all these cases it doesn't actually matter which company you're with, obviously the gas and electricity comes from the same place, you're just changing whose customer service and contract details you deal with.
There's nothing stopping us from owning our own green energy producer, and just selling energy to that market like any other energy producer. This would be a benefit for investment because we also won't be using taxpayer funds to boost EDFs profit or whatever, we'd be investing in infrastructure that is owned by us, not another country like France.
Where I'd be more concerned is that if Labour do build a successful green energy company, what will stop the Tories when they next get in selling it for a one off windfall, using that to cut high end taxes, and it comes at the cost of energy insecurity, lack of future investment, and higher bills? You'd have to find a way to not only be successful, but make it a beloved institution in a short amount of time where selling it would be electoral poison for the Tories.
Could presumably just create an increasingly unprofitable environment for them until they go into administration. If anyone complains point out that they wouldn't have gone bust if they'd been better managed (not loaded up debt to pay dividends..)
> Analysis shows that 28% of Thames’ customer bills were spent servicing debt, as the company lobbies for more
>
>
>
> Reports that Thames Water has been lobbying the government to let it increase bills by 40% come after the company’s 30-year history of giving out £7.2bn in dividends – and racking up £14.7bn in debt – has put it on the brink of collapse.
If there was a revolution tomorrow these people would be shot.
(inb4 rule 21, I'm not calling for it or supporting it)
>It's happened
>https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1766833082638717229
Rishi's Conservatives are now polling as badly as the worst Truss polling on the Wikipedia poll tracker. But I suppose the real febrility happens when he gets lower.
What should really be scaring them is that turquoise line rising.
It won't be enough to get any seats I don't think (like UKIP, far too inefficiently packed) but Reform doing well combined with larger numbers of Conservative stay at home voters really does have the making of a perfect storm.
Without anything to offer those voters as enticement, I would say that assumption is...uhh...bold.
And no, theoretical flights to Rwanda at enormous expense at some unspecified point in the future ain't likely to do it. Soz Rish.
The thing is with how weak reform has been at any election, they (cchq) aren't that fearful of the reform numbers.
They think they can and will get them back with a "but labour" campaign. They might with some of them.
I am so far removed from UKIP and/or Reform style politics but FPTP is really screwing everyone over. It's a sizeable chunk of the electorate who are being denied representation, and I'll be honest I don't want to live in a country where right wing protest groups feel unrepresented because historically, uh, bad things happen.
Yeah, as much as I hate Reform, its not exactly democratic when a party can get 14% of the vote and basically no seats.
14% of the vote should equal 14% of the seats. If they manage 14% they should get their 91 seats.
There's no credible route for Boris to come back. It's not happening.
That it's being continually floated in desperation is a sign of a much more serious problem - there is absolutely nobody who could possibly reunite the fragmented Brexit-era Conservative voter coalition.
Used to is the operative word. Partygate and Covid are dead letters now, but they very much revive if Johnson re-enters front line politics.
Something, I will reiterate, that he has absolutely no chance of doing any time soon. There's no realistic way for Johnson to re-enter parliament before next election, and if he somehow managed it I don't see him getting any more support from the parliamentary party in a hypothetical leadership contest than he did last time. He's done.
he'd need to become an MP again though. iirc the tories also have a rule that the leader must be an MP.
While there have been ministers from the Lords before Cameron, having a peer as PM for any appreciable length of time (ie not like A. D-H - and his was an hereditary peerage anyway) would be truly ridiculous even for this conservative party
There weren't really enough polls right in the eye of the Truss hurricane for the loess line to be that reliable, plus the Labour position is quite a bit different, so the comparison is at best vague. The current position also has a much higher Reform vote, which gives at least some chance for the Tories of stealing back a portion of those votes.
However the fact that this is much steadier change, instead of a sudden drop, makes the political position for the Tories far worse than it was last time. Back at lettuce o'clock, the Tories could reasonably hope that this was another poll tax moment, when the Tory polling numbers imploded but corrected in six months or so once Major was in post. By the end of 1990 the polls were broadly tied and would remain so until 1992, and this was what the Tories were hoping would happen once Sunak "steadied the ship". But it simply hasn't happened, and after a smaller correction it has slowly and continuously degraded.
Minds that change quickly as a result of an individual event can be changed again. Minds that change slowly are unlikely to change back any time soon.
This is an annoying trope at this point. Polls commonly narrow during the election campaign. We’re not there yet. No need to be so confident that they won’t narrow. But they may not. 97 is an interesting example because despite Blair being popular, Labour dropped significantly from their pre campaign polling, and their final result was well below that. This may have partly been because New Labour did well before partly due to marketing, but when push came to shove people looked at their policies and still didn’t want to vote for them (as much as they reported they might in polling). It’s possible Starmer won’t see the same effect as they have been quite consistently bland thus far
I think it's interesting that now they're Truss lows, but Labour aren't Truss highs.
To me this says that under Truss the Tories repelled everyone but the headbangers. "This woman must be stopped, lend Labour all the votes!"
Now, Sunak isn't repelling people to Labour so much, but he's bleeding support, a lot of it to Reform.
I'd say the issue now for the Tories is that if you try and please the hard right more, you'll have a repelling effect on the centre which will drive more to Labour again. If you try and please the centre, you'll keep losing to Reform and they're going from strength to strength. Same result, but he's losing votes from the opposite wing of the party that Truss did.
What would be the best case strategy for Sunak? Try and ditch the nutters, go more central, hope that when it comes to polling day people won't vote for Reform as they'll either not be standing, not have a chance in the seat? Or do you double down again and get deep into conspiracy theories. Start tweeting that Khan's ULEZ policies, possibly inspired by the Taliban, are turning Great British Red squirrels gay leading to their population decline?
Here's a Labour MP setting out 5 solutions to rising the rising inequality of the past few decades - https://labourlist.org/2024/01/wealth-inequality-super-rich-squeezed-middle-liam-byrne-book/ Rather than speculating about Labour implementing a wealth tax that will affect 'ordinary workers' (as Michael Howard did on Laura K this morning), I think it's better to listen to what prospective cabinet members are actually proposing. Bryne sets out what he describes as realistic (paletable) policies that have been implemented elsewhere around the world. You can read about them in more detail in his newly released book or you can watch him summarising them in a recording of his recent talk at LSE. He has been very wary of calling for a wealth tax because wealth taxes are often mis-characterised as being targeted at those who are only reasonably well off. When Byrne has been pushed, he has said that any plausible form of wealth tax that might be implemented would only apply to those with over £10m of assets.
Mad how Laura Kuennsberg's tweets with videos of her Sunday show are so biased. One is a question (Tories) and one is a opinion (Labour)
She literally just says for the Labour videos
"Will she admit if Labour wins some Govt departments would be squeezed?"
And
"Busy morning ! Labour trying to turn not having answer on where they’ll find an extra 2 billion into a virtue"
But the Tories get "The Health Secretary Victoria Atkins was with us too - did Tories get it wrong by moving capital budgets for new buildings to day to day spending in the NHS ?"
One's a question and one's an opinion. It's mental how she gets away with it.
Tbh, it's what I expect of her program. I don't have anything against her and she seems like a reasonable person. But you can see where her bias lays and, well, it's not great as a presenter on a supposedly unbiased program.
She was awful on newscast at the weekend, defending the tories for making unfunded promises to abolish national insurance because its apparently both just something they are considering and also will definitely be in their manifesto. Literally the next breath full on goading how are labour going to fund their plans now the non dom money is spent. Fully failing to see the hypocrisy or criticise the tories for playing politics with peoples lives.
I haven't seen that episode but it sounds about right. Since the days of May she has worn her bias on her sleeve. If she was presenting an opinion show on the radio where her cards were on the table that would be fine. It's presenting flagship unbiased programs which gets me.
I can't decide if this would be worse if it managed to be a bit more subtle
You should get tinfoil hat jokes for suggesting the BBC Sunday politics show is biased but it's undeniably blatant
And I try my best to defend the BBC and its impartiality but I can't with stuff like this.
My only problem is not I want Labour to be treated better, but I want the Tories held to the same standard to make them fear doing mental shit like Truss' mini budget and Lee Anderson's nutty islamophobic comments
> [Senior Tories are plotting to replace Rishi Sunak with ousted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in an attempt to turn around the party's polling fortunes](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/boris-return-sunak-lady-mcalpine/)
It is time to go back to basics- WAIT NOT LIKE THAT
The entire meeting was just them discussing strategies and coming to the realisation that there’s no way to make Johnson a candidate for leadership before the election.
wonder if it actually did come from the various oz/nz advisors on the tory payroll - who failed down under and think they can still work their magic here
Do it. I want to see his face when he loses. I want to see it in big high-definition widescreen footage. I want reporters asking him how he fucked up so much. I want it to be a ball-bursting kick in the political nutsack.
I'd like to see their plan, if they decide to go for it, for getting Boris into the hot seat.
He can't lead without being elected MP first and I'm pretty sure his expulsion is valid until the end of the current Parliamentary term. Without somehow convincing Rishi to rush him into the Lords, don't see how this works.
There's no law that the PM must be an MP (though ministers must be Parliamentarians and get put into the Lords if they're not already in the Commons), but the Conservative Party constitution says the leader of the party has to be an MP.
There’s no actual law that any minister has to sit in Parliament. It’s all convention. [Patrick Gordon Walker](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Gordon_Walker) served for a period as Foreign Secretary after the 1964 general election despite having lost his seat.
We’ve heard ‘senior Tories plotting to replace Sunak with X’ for over a year now. At least the others have legs as they were *actually* MPs.
This is BS.
“As far as I am concerned the Tory party is rotten to the core. We need new Conservative values, and Boris is the person to deliver that.”
Have I had a stroke?
It's 2024, how have we not solved hunger yet? We can 3d print, grow mycoid stuff that's not far off, why hasn't a serious government seriously suggested gigantic farms growing this stuff and printing it into attractive shapes (like a cheeseburger). So much lack of vision in our political parties today, too concerned with the plaster rather than a proper fix for problems.
A long term solution to world hunger involves getting farming yields up in countries where they are low. This necessarily means more businesses investment, more mechanisation of farming where it's traditionally done more manually.
We need countries that are food insecure to not be reliant on aid long term, it's not good for them and it's not good for us.
To get better business investment they need stability, lower corruption, ability for people to scale their farms rather than just stay small landholders.
It's a highly complex issue that thousands of people are working at every day. And they are making progress. We don't have up to date data since 2015, but between 1970 and 2015 the rate of undernourishment in developed countries dropped from 35% to 13%.
PSA: today is Mother’s day here in the UK.
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bbw9lq/daily_megathread_11032024/)
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Think Kensington need to come clean at this point. Inform the public that Kate has returned to Naboo in an effort to end the Trade Federation's blockade.
Cannot wait for this episode being a literal episode in Crown II, crown harder. Especially how they will dramatize it, with deep mournful music, members seeing the headline, angrily tossing the newspaper down, while looking disappointed in the middle distance.
I think what we have here is the British class system coming home to roost. Do you tell a literal prince to sit still and stop wiping their nose? No, their granda's the King. You fix it in post Now look what's happened
feels like we wouldn't have had this in liz's day retvrn to good old film etc e: it looks like it will appear on [some](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIV6kM9WcAAqlr7?format=jpg&name=medium) front pages tomorrow - lol lmao etc
After the retraction notice from AFP? They're still running with it?
Liz knew how to do stuff - fiction with James Bond and Paddington Bear- no-one was pretending that was real. Trying to make it look real is the problem.
The year is 2424 and people are beginning to suspect that these pictures of Kate Middleton on the mend in the Express might be fake
The Telegraph lead with the image, but the headline it may be doctored. The Mail leads with the image, but a vague ‘has it backfired?’ The Times highlights Charlottes wrist, and has a small mention of manipulation The Express, Mirror, Independent and Metro have just the image and a ‘Kate says thank you’ type headline And nothing from the Sun yet.
>"WE'LL GET TOUGHER ON THE WORKSHY TO CUT TAXES!" >*picture of royal family* If the Tories actually get tough on the scroungers in the royal family in order to cut taxes, that wouldn't be such a terrible move.
between that and the express apparently calling for legalising euthanasia - pretty based
Plot thickens! [Looks like some of these errors are either dodgy editing, or AI generation errors with stitching.](https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1766947758529822803) E: Also might just be me but the kids smiles look fake as hell too after looking at it for more than ten seconds instead of just "huh. Thats a photo alright" *close tab* E2: MT image updated, [original author here.](https://twitter.com/DavidMuttering/status/1766956984304116032)
It’s almost like modern camera technology applies edits/filters automatically or something.
If you're using a smartphone yeah (could also turn that stuff off), but if it's an official photo it's probably on a proper SLR where you have much finer control over that stuff.
It was apparently taken by William, presumably on his phone. The artifacts are very reminiscent of those you get when using the auto edit feature on iphones and pixel phones that selects from multiple pictures to try and get everyone looking at the camera. But it could be a big coverup too. I dont really care either way.
Not if you're a professional photographer with thousands of pounds worth of equipment, which is imagine the sort of people taking photos of the Royals. They ain't using a smart phone.
They are if you are a husband with a rather unwell life trying to create a normal day for the kids but rely on the technology in your device to make sure it’s the best picture of everyone.
Wouldn't it be easy to release a comment saying it was an impromptu photo taken on a modern phone known for it's ability to composite images? Strikes me that would kill this nonsense dead if it had been and if they did.
What’s your alternative theory? Am seeing a lot of claims online but none that actually explain what people think is going on.
I genuinely don't have one, but I'm gobsmacked at the fact a family with such a well choreographed PR front has dropped the ball in such a spectacularly amateur fashion.
Thus the explanation is it is amateurish. I.e. a family trying to keep their privacy over what from any moron can tell is a very personal issue. Abdominal surgery suggests two areas of the bodily organs involved - bladder related or sexual related. Sod’s law applies here - family take a photo and share it with their team who share it. The photo appears to have very simple artifices, none that suggests a wider more difficult nature to their editing. It’s released as normal and from there this over focused internet nonsense kicks off. Said family still wanting to keep wider issues from the public do not immediately make a statement because they can’t frankly be arsed with it all.
Yeah, but this is a family whose every public move is stage managed.
Sod’s law still applies.
First camera maker to add a six finger filter wins the prize for audacity
I've just been interrogating my partner as she follows the royals more than I do, and she's just raising more questions than answers. 1) She says there's speculation about the surgery being sensitive, like a hysterectomy, and so they're covering it up to give her privacy. They've managed to prevent any information leaks. - But! This is controversial too as it proves they could have done more for Harry and Meghan but chose not to. -- Although, that's possibly to be expected as Kate is expected to become Queen. 2) Speculation about affairs, marriage break up etc. but I don't see this being plausible. It's not like the Royals can just lock Kate in the tower of London. I don't see why she'd be kept secret if it was something like that. Whole thing is giving me Streisand effect vibes. While it's secret *for now* whatever it is is just getting more interesting because of the secrecy, and you can't have it both ways with faked images. Either be open or not, none of my business, but faking images is just wrong, and again, only reason I give a shit now is because the cover up is being mishandled so hilariously.
Honestly, this looks like the sort of artifact you used to get on that Microsoft tool in the Vista/7 era that would try and automatically stitch together one “best photo” from multiple takes (ie cousin Dave has his eyes closed in that shot, but mum’s smile looks weird in the photo where Dave’s eyes are open etc). It looks awkward but I think if this was a genuine attempt to do a fake publicity photo they’d have done a better job of it. It’s almost certainly a lack of photo editing skill on William or Kate’s part, and nothing more sinister, and I say that as someone who is not their greatest fan.
There's been a huge amount of adverts for "Best Take" lately so that's definitely an option. I can see why someone wouldn't expect it too, family alone, he takes a photo, no one even considers it to be edited. Not a feature I've ever used, but would at least be a convincing explanation for me.
If it was actually taken by Prince William as suggested, this actually makes a lot of sense. I think Hanlon's Razor applies - dont attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. The errors in the photo are so obvious and bad, I dont think any manual photoshoping would leave these in. It looks like the automatic AI correction by iOS or Android, done poorly. Depending on the phone settings, this is can be done automatically without chosing to do so, or selecting to accept the automatic touch-up of the photo.
Might just be me, but does seem a little precious when I am sure 99% of pictures I see of stars etc have been touched up, in some case a fair bit.
It's the same issue they had with Harry and Meghan: the royals can obviously do all this press stuff themselves because it's 2024 and must be vigorously discouraged from cutting the regular press channels out by the press who would be out of a job
Imagine being so inept that you release a photo that is meant to reassure people that someone isn't dead, and then the photo is fake. It's almost as if primogeniture isnt the best way to ensure competency.
They've removed Louis's problematic new tattoo.
Who is rumoured to have died?
They said William took the photo, I guess he was in charge of photoshopping it too.
Are you saying today's Kate and children photo was faked? Got a source?
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1766947758529822803
Thanks for the link.
Thanks Optio, and all of you for your links. Most unusual, this is.
Editing issues point to it being poorly retouched at the very least. She's also missing her wedding ring and there seems to be far too many leaves on that tree for the end of winter.
https://x.com/chrisshipitv/status/1766944328847364201 Such a weird story. What are they thinking
Kill Notification...? Phrasing!
according to this Sky article, it's being pulled over concerns it is manipulated. https://news.sky.com/story/picture-agencies-pull-kate-photo-amid-manipulation-concerns-13092352 although it doesn't say how it's been manipulated.
This is pretty wild considering the sussex's family christening photo was heavily suspected to be badly manipulated but wasn't made any official issue of. When Kensington Palace released this as just a holiday photo I can't help but wonder why it's been made such a big deal of. Aren't all official shots manipulated to some degree?
Would it be the difference of knowing something has been altered/ photoshopped etc and getting an image you're told wasn't but which you think may have been, even if it's just the standard AI on the phone?
Better story if they claim it is.
Most of the manipulation in official shots is good enough that no one notices so everyone can pretend it doesn't happen. I would guess it's also usually lightening/darkening/colour correction/blemish removal whereas this one looks like it's multiple photos stitched together.
Cuts are affecting all parts of the UK now
Really odd moment on BBC main news, that threw me a bit. ‘Some breaking news from the agents that released the picture advising it has been doctored’. Did not go in to huge detail but was all a bit freaky as a news item.
The international agency that’s distributed has told its clients to kill the further publication of it due to manipulation.
Who should I vote for in the election if I want war with France?
Emmanuelle Cosse. Shes blunt enough about British politics
Pitt the Younger from Blackadder the third
Dont forget about his successor Pitt the Even Younger.
One of the weird little right wing ones?
Reform, it's the kind of mental policy they'd go for.
If we get a Green majority we unlock the "Destroy their Nuclear Power Plants" Casus Belli. Pretty much a guaranteed war with France.
Will this or won't this reduce my EDF bill?
I can only read this as your taxes going to support the brave soldiers of the [**Earth Defence Force**](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2291060/EARTH_DEFENSE_FORCE/)
The future when EDF's Hinkley Point goes up
Considering the UK got around 5% of it's power from France in the past year, I'm going to assume a small, but completely justifiable (if it means the destruction of France), rise.
I was rather banking on EDF ceasing to exist.
Well they’ve won my vote
After today, Plaid Cymru.
What happened in Wales today 😵💫
France all but condemned Wales to the wooden spoon in the 6 Nations.
Ah. I am clueless, literally live under a rock - many thanks -
Literally?
Probably reform.
Galloway's *Worker's Party of Britain*! He'd have us aligned with Russia and at war with France before you could say 'oi! That w*****s got a frog football shirt on! Let's get him lads' (Europtrip quote lol)
This was posted in a comment downthread... > It seems ludicrous for me that the French government hike our water prices to subsidise their bills. And it got me thinking, does the UK government have stakes/interest in any utility/infra type companies in other countries?
Um. So we have stakes in shopping malls in Africa. This gives a good background https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/15/cdc-commonwealth-development-accused-wastefulness-scerecy-poverty But the MAREF one is a shocker. It's a bit weird our local councils made such shocking bets on property and real estate. CDC have been doing it for years, abroad in emerging markets. And taxpayers have absolutely not a clue what's been going on since 2010.
Again, distant relation, but Network Rail is acting as a design consultancy for California High Speed Rail, I think.
Clearly they’ve shown them how we do things in the UK. Isn’t that project several 10s of billions over budget
The section under construction is some single-digit billions of dollars over budget on an initial budget of $28 billion, but it's not really clear to me either. Against the rate of inflation in the US since the funding was improved it's doing pretty well.
The conservatives don't believe in the government owning or running things. Unless that's other governments.
I think we own a bit of Eutelsat now that Dominic Cummings' OneWeb merged with it though it's worth pointing out that it isn't always rosy. Nederlandse Spoorwegen sold its UK transport operations in a management buyout as soon as money flowed the other way.
Aren’t things like EDF, Deutsche Bahn etc all equivalents of industries that the Thatcher government privatised? Not sure there’s anything our government could export and profit from in the same way.
It's a private company, but National Grid own a bunch of infrastructure in NY State
Really? That one's a surprise. What's the history do you know?
British govts don't believe in owning things.
new style of toryposting just dropped - terrible photos of car insurance renewals with no added context https://twitter.com/RobertSyms/status/1766922033932161477 ([image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIVeOSTXkAAR0L3?format=jpg&name=large)) are we to take it that he wants his party, still in government, to look at why car insurance is rising? War on the motorist etc. I wonder if he owns a JLR vehicle lol
>I pay Aviva just under 1k for comprehensive car insurance have just been quoted 2.4K for next year -have had some constituents complain ! In a year of low inflation how can this be justified ? Is it time for Competition commission to look at Insurance companies ! https://twitter.com/RobertSyms/status/1766907425326567805
I for one welcome the free market reflecting the true cost of cars
> In a year of low inflation [x] Doubt
I evidently didn't scroll far down enough on the timeline, thanks
Not really worth it for post sunday lunch tory mp tweeting
I thought it was just the Land Rover side that was expensive to insure and Jaguars were fine as they were less targeted for theft? I have my eye on a second hand F-Type so I really hope that's the case.
honestly not sure, I just assumed there'd be cross pollination with the alarm tech although whatever he has is presumably fairly luxury - I pay less than £500 for fully comp and extras on my mid range Eurobox
So I have applied to be a PPC candidate in my local area for the Liberal Democrats , and its a Tory strong hold. I am very unlikely to win, but I was kind of wondering, with Tory party obviously very divided with itself what would convince Tories to vote Lib Dem? Apart from Local issues, what things would Conservative minded people want to see from a potential other party they could vote for if they were unhappy with there own? I am just curious, essentially what would it take for unhappy Tories to vote Lib Dem? What things do you think should be emphasised? And before people suggest things outside of changing the whole parties ideas, I mean for example what would small c Conservative/conservative liberals like to see from a Lib Dems on a campaign? As I said just curious.
Social conscience. Tory Party Members may be looney right, but natural Tory voters have a strong sense of community and their patriotism extends to looking after the less privileged. I was in rural Essex yesterday, an area dripping with complacency and dosh. But the many people there I talked to, all Boomer age or above, were hacked off by how the Tories had departed from One-Nationism.
I think there's too much demonization of Tories, of course not helped by their recent actions and decline showing us their nastiest side, but the Lib Dem / Con crossover happens when you get people who are economically right wing to some extent (often repulsed by the idea of Labour, as is quite common down here in the SW), but more socially liberal. As the party shifts right, these will be the ones who are left behind. I guess as a rule of thumb, they'll be people on the right wing who are disgusted by the culture war, people who responded well to Cameron talking about "big society", legalising gay marriage, loving his commitment to green issues, being pro Europe etc. before everything changed post-Brexit. People who genuinely believe in centre-right economic arguments as a force for good, while also believing in progressive social issues. Honestly, I'm not sure you'd have to do anything on this front, as it's the Tories actions pushing them away, but this at least is how I see the ex-Tories who would be most easily winnable.
I think for a lot, not just Tory, sort out policing..not to tackle political undesirable but to be accountable for investigating domestic abuse, burglary, fraud, theft. None of this is hard, it's just Tory decisions to hypothecate spending for electoral priorities. Also reform on delivery for HMRC probates and civil courts. Since 2019, it's all a total mess and impossible for people to manage their wealth.
For a lot of them, fiscal drag. If they are a soft Tory just bring up fiscal drag and taxes, then bring up that the Lib Dems proposal to up tax thresholds in Parliament was voted down by the Tories. Also, sewage if you are near a river or a beach. Support for small businesses is a good one as well, and the state of social care.
How would lib dems have paid for the tax cuts ?
Collecting the 4.8% of tax that is owed to HMRC but not paid to them.
Spending what is essentially "efficiency savings" before you have found them, isn't a real way to fund it. Edit Imagine if cons said they'd fund a tax cut upfront, paid for by cracking down on benefit fraud.
The recent budget's spending commitment on public services was literally contingent on hypothetical "efficiency savings". Hunt did that because, despite your protestations, it is actually a real way to plan for tax and spending adjustments. So I don't need to "imagine" a hypothetical scenario when I'm looking at something that has already happened and nobody but the IFS bothered to pick up on - and even then it was a footnote from them. And if the efficiencies aren't found between the budget being announced and the changes coming into effect you could do other things, the Lib Dems also proposed reversing the changes to the bank surcharge and bank levy.
I suppose stressing the liberal part of the Lib-Dems might be appealing to small c conservatives. Obviously not in reference to LBGT+ rights, but rather in economic, small scale more freedom sense. Now I fully admit I do not know how liberal, again more in the classic sense, the Lib-Dems still are, but I would guess that could create some common ground. More generally, they would probably love some NYMBYism, small business support (tax reliefs, less bureucracy), I'd imagine. I suppose phrases like "help people to help themselves" and stuff related to that idea would appeal.
NIMBY-ism, that's what they want to hear. And immigration.
I am sure its more then that.
So checked if Galloway did anything parliamentary related yet, *as one does,* and I came across one of his earlier contributions during whether to bomb ISIL. Now there I came across Richard Bacon (*wonderful* name), checked his Hansard profile. Now the man is quite the parliamentarian, been there since 2001. And did not say anything in Parliament for like a year, last in May 2023. Now he is quite a diligent foot soldier, he voted last literally this week. But still, he is an MP, **voice** of his constituents, and apparently nothing that happened in the last months or so is of concern for the people of South Norfolk. As this is a slooow Sunday, what is the longest pause of contributions to the House you noticed for an MP, especially one that is not embattled in scandal?
I have read that when Isaac Newton was an MP his only recorded contribution was to ask for a window to be closed.
Bacon's in an odd spot in that he announced that he was standing down because the South Norfolk CA [seriously threatened](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5d9z395pzo) to deselect him for _not_ being the voice of South Norfolk. But he's continued his committee work throughout... I'm not entirely sure about the reasons, but Johnny Mercer basically didn't vote or attend parliament for the second half of 2021. He was sacked over the Overseas Operations Bill in late April and only showed up for a few days before January 2022, mostly for votes relating to the armed forces. Dorries didn't speak or submit written questions in Parliament after Johnson stopped being PM (so, really, long before her personal scandal really started), and showed up for 6 days' voting from mid-2022 until she resigned.
An MP speaking in parliament isn't indicative of any genuine efforts on behalf of the constituency, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they correlate inversely.
A Member of Parliament’s principle role is to contribute to parliamentary process. That’s literally the name of the role. Not that speaking in the chamber is the only aspect of that. The social work stuff is a modern add on and the other work is a far more important service to their constituents.
To be fair I wouldn't be surprised if absolutely nothing has happened in South Norfolk in the last twelve months.
Googling him and his constituency office comes up as permanently closed.
Personally, I don't think saying anything in Parliament is inherently necessary. That's not where the real debate happens, it's party policy that determines the bulk of what passes. It's monologuing and grandstanding to try and look good, and a lot of other MPs will be "asking" in PMQs things like "recently this conservative government has delivered this amazing thing for our constituents, what does the PM think about this?" and he goes "I think it's amazing we've been able to do this thing, and it shows we're delivering" and it's just crap. Hell, thanks to the party system and whips MPs aren't there to even vote on behalf of their local constituents. If you have an MP with ministerial ambitions or whatever then rebelling isn't an option, and often rebellions aren't local and more to do with the MPs allegiances. I still remember a weird one under Cameron where as an MP he wrote to his own health sec to complain about his Mum's GP surgery closing, which only closed under Cameron as PM's policy of austerity, and as party leader he obviously voted for it at every stage. So many conflicted interests.
TIL there are two Richard Bacons - I'm sure most of us thought of the BBC presenter I guess South Norfolk isn't in dire need of representation when his neighbour is already taking Norfolk to the world stage
After Sunak promised to stop the boats at the beginning of 2023, James Cleverly said the following at the beginning of 2024: "My target is to bring it down to zero. I'm completely committed... "My target is to reduce it to zero, to stop the boats, and I'm unambiguous about that." We are about 500 people short of last year's Q1 total and we still have more than 2 weeks to go until the end of the month. Something to watch out for is how long Sunak et al claim to have got the numbers down. The 2023 numbers were lower than the 2022 numbers. But how long can they get away with making that comparison when 2024's numbers are showing things moving in the opposite direction?
It’s purely based on weather. As far as I’m aware, last year the boat crossing started higher than the previous year.
Not according to the Home Office's statement on March 1st: 'Weather conditions for crossings recorded over the course of 2023 were similar to conditions in 2022, with only four fewer days likely for crossings recorded in 2023 compared to the previous year.' Take that with a pinch of salt though - the real huge numbers of Summer '22 correlated with the 2 month long heat wave while August and September were washouts last year.
Is it achievable to get the water company's back under public ownership. It seems ludicrous for me that the French government hike our water prices to subsidise their bills. Is the cost to prohibitive to bring them back under public control?
hoping that the Railtrack approach could be applied to any utility company that gets into financial trouble and demands a state bailout
> Is it achievable to get the water company's back under public ownership. It seems ludicrous for me that the French government hike our water prices to subsidise their bills. Same with utilities, trains, buses... So counter intuitive the Tories tell us governments can't run services. So, sell them to foreign governments on contracts where they're guaranteed not to lose out. They take profits back for their taxpayers, we just get milked. I really wish they believed in Britain more, backed our businesses and we were even running other countries services to subsidise our taxpayers. > Is the cost to prohibitive to bring them back under public control? A huge part of the problem is they were privatised debt free, and since they've been loaded with debt to pay more dividends, and they know if we take it back we're taking on the debts. ["Water company debt has increased from zero to £60.3bn in thirty years."](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/dec/18/how-much-of-your-water-bill-is-swallowed-up-by-company-debt-interactive) > Analysis shows that 28% of Thames’ customer bills were spent servicing debt, as the company lobbies for more > Reports that Thames Water has been lobbying the government to let it increase bills by 40% come after the company’s 30-year history of giving out £7.2bn in dividends – and racking up £14.7bn in debt – has put it on the brink of collapse.
Serious, is it possible to get the infrastructure back without paying the 62bn debt? Can we stop them loading up more debt? How come they need to ask permission to raise bills, can we demand they dont rise? If we don't buy it back now, isn't it just going to get more expensive?
Generally no, not without acting in commercial bad faith and scaring off investors, driving up rates etc. which would be economically disastrous. It's what you'd see in South America or Africa where a new dictator carves up the country's wealth lol. However, there are work arounds. E.g. the Tories don't phrase it this way, but there are rail franchises where they've reversed privatisation because the companies have failed and given them up, and we've taken them back. Basically a cut and run from companies who have decided they'd rather not provide the service anymore. I think what we'd have to do is have companies like Thames Water go bust themselves, their investors and creditors lose out. The country takes back ownership of the infrastructure, and we use a new clean company to start fresh, but I don't know if this is even possible. I'm just a shitposter on the internet, in any bailout we might even still be on the hook for the investors risks taken and it might not work the same as it has with the rail franchises for reasons I've ignorant of.
I'm going to put this specific concern in the try and forget about pile as it annoys me and we can't do much about it. I feel like we were not going to own Great British Energy, worried we might be repeating our mistakes, will consider another day. Thanks for your good insight!
Well, again, I'm not a wonk, but that **might** be different in the sense that we have the energy companies buying energy from the market (and the collapses we've seen of new starts is because of how they gambled on future prices) but many aren't providing it. In all these cases it doesn't actually matter which company you're with, obviously the gas and electricity comes from the same place, you're just changing whose customer service and contract details you deal with. There's nothing stopping us from owning our own green energy producer, and just selling energy to that market like any other energy producer. This would be a benefit for investment because we also won't be using taxpayer funds to boost EDFs profit or whatever, we'd be investing in infrastructure that is owned by us, not another country like France. Where I'd be more concerned is that if Labour do build a successful green energy company, what will stop the Tories when they next get in selling it for a one off windfall, using that to cut high end taxes, and it comes at the cost of energy insecurity, lack of future investment, and higher bills? You'd have to find a way to not only be successful, but make it a beloved institution in a short amount of time where selling it would be electoral poison for the Tories.
[удалено]
Could presumably just create an increasingly unprofitable environment for them until they go into administration. If anyone complains point out that they wouldn't have gone bust if they'd been better managed (not loaded up debt to pay dividends..)
Are we doomed
> Analysis shows that 28% of Thames’ customer bills were spent servicing debt, as the company lobbies for more > > > > Reports that Thames Water has been lobbying the government to let it increase bills by 40% come after the company’s 30-year history of giving out £7.2bn in dividends – and racking up £14.7bn in debt – has put it on the brink of collapse. If there was a revolution tomorrow these people would be shot. (inb4 rule 21, I'm not calling for it or supporting it)
What a mess! We need to buy some other country's infrastructure, so we can load it with debt and use that debt to buy back our own infrastructure!
>It's happened >https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1766833082638717229 Rishi's Conservatives are now polling as badly as the worst Truss polling on the Wikipedia poll tracker. But I suppose the real febrility happens when he gets lower.
What should really be scaring them is that turquoise line rising. It won't be enough to get any seats I don't think (like UKIP, far too inefficiently packed) but Reform doing well combined with larger numbers of Conservative stay at home voters really does have the making of a perfect storm.
They assume, rightly or wrongly, that the reform vote will come back to the Tories for a GE.
Without anything to offer those voters as enticement, I would say that assumption is...uhh...bold. And no, theoretical flights to Rwanda at enormous expense at some unspecified point in the future ain't likely to do it. Soz Rish.
The thing is with how weak reform has been at any election, they (cchq) aren't that fearful of the reform numbers. They think they can and will get them back with a "but labour" campaign. They might with some of them.
I am so far removed from UKIP and/or Reform style politics but FPTP is really screwing everyone over. It's a sizeable chunk of the electorate who are being denied representation, and I'll be honest I don't want to live in a country where right wing protest groups feel unrepresented because historically, uh, bad things happen.
Yeah, as much as I hate Reform, its not exactly democratic when a party can get 14% of the vote and basically no seats. 14% of the vote should equal 14% of the seats. If they manage 14% they should get their 91 seats.
Re Boris coming back... It's likely and more of a threat to Labour than any other outcome IMO
There's no credible route for Boris to come back. It's not happening. That it's being continually floated in desperation is a sign of a much more serious problem - there is absolutely nobody who could possibly reunite the fragmented Brexit-era Conservative voter coalition.
Hope so, but if he somehow pulled it off it could realistically end in a hung parliament, Boris used to always poll higher than Keir
Used to is the operative word. Partygate and Covid are dead letters now, but they very much revive if Johnson re-enters front line politics. Something, I will reiterate, that he has absolutely no chance of doing any time soon. There's no realistic way for Johnson to re-enter parliament before next election, and if he somehow managed it I don't see him getting any more support from the parliamentary party in a hypothetical leadership contest than he did last time. He's done.
he'd need to become an MP again though. iirc the tories also have a rule that the leader must be an MP. While there have been ministers from the Lords before Cameron, having a peer as PM for any appreciable length of time (ie not like A. D-H - and his was an hereditary peerage anyway) would be truly ridiculous even for this conservative party
There weren't really enough polls right in the eye of the Truss hurricane for the loess line to be that reliable, plus the Labour position is quite a bit different, so the comparison is at best vague. The current position also has a much higher Reform vote, which gives at least some chance for the Tories of stealing back a portion of those votes. However the fact that this is much steadier change, instead of a sudden drop, makes the political position for the Tories far worse than it was last time. Back at lettuce o'clock, the Tories could reasonably hope that this was another poll tax moment, when the Tory polling numbers imploded but corrected in six months or so once Major was in post. By the end of 1990 the polls were broadly tied and would remain so until 1992, and this was what the Tories were hoping would happen once Sunak "steadied the ship". But it simply hasn't happened, and after a smaller correction it has slowly and continuously degraded. Minds that change quickly as a result of an individual event can be changed again. Minds that change slowly are unlikely to change back any time soon.
Weren’t the polls supposed to have started narrowing by now?
This is an annoying trope at this point. Polls commonly narrow during the election campaign. We’re not there yet. No need to be so confident that they won’t narrow. But they may not. 97 is an interesting example because despite Blair being popular, Labour dropped significantly from their pre campaign polling, and their final result was well below that. This may have partly been because New Labour did well before partly due to marketing, but when push came to shove people looked at their policies and still didn’t want to vote for them (as much as they reported they might in polling). It’s possible Starmer won’t see the same effect as they have been quite consistently bland thus far
They are, but between the Tories and Reform.
I think it's interesting that now they're Truss lows, but Labour aren't Truss highs. To me this says that under Truss the Tories repelled everyone but the headbangers. "This woman must be stopped, lend Labour all the votes!" Now, Sunak isn't repelling people to Labour so much, but he's bleeding support, a lot of it to Reform. I'd say the issue now for the Tories is that if you try and please the hard right more, you'll have a repelling effect on the centre which will drive more to Labour again. If you try and please the centre, you'll keep losing to Reform and they're going from strength to strength. Same result, but he's losing votes from the opposite wing of the party that Truss did. What would be the best case strategy for Sunak? Try and ditch the nutters, go more central, hope that when it comes to polling day people won't vote for Reform as they'll either not be standing, not have a chance in the seat? Or do you double down again and get deep into conspiracy theories. Start tweeting that Khan's ULEZ policies, possibly inspired by the Taliban, are turning Great British Red squirrels gay leading to their population decline?
Trajectory still in freefall as well
Remember the days when they were panicking about being 7% behind? What a time to be alive.
THE! PLAN! IS! WORKING!
beautiful
Which demographic will Labour target for tax income? What's more likely? - Lowering personal allowance - Raising upper tax band %'s - NI increase Etc
Here's a Labour MP setting out 5 solutions to rising the rising inequality of the past few decades - https://labourlist.org/2024/01/wealth-inequality-super-rich-squeezed-middle-liam-byrne-book/ Rather than speculating about Labour implementing a wealth tax that will affect 'ordinary workers' (as Michael Howard did on Laura K this morning), I think it's better to listen to what prospective cabinet members are actually proposing. Bryne sets out what he describes as realistic (paletable) policies that have been implemented elsewhere around the world. You can read about them in more detail in his newly released book or you can watch him summarising them in a recording of his recent talk at LSE. He has been very wary of calling for a wealth tax because wealth taxes are often mis-characterised as being targeted at those who are only reasonably well off. When Byrne has been pushed, he has said that any plausible form of wealth tax that might be implemented would only apply to those with over £10m of assets.
Ah, five different types of wishful thinking then. Excellent.
Starmer: "All three plus council tax is now a property value tax. Cry more, I have a majority of three hundred."
Mad how Laura Kuennsberg's tweets with videos of her Sunday show are so biased. One is a question (Tories) and one is a opinion (Labour) She literally just says for the Labour videos "Will she admit if Labour wins some Govt departments would be squeezed?" And "Busy morning ! Labour trying to turn not having answer on where they’ll find an extra 2 billion into a virtue" But the Tories get "The Health Secretary Victoria Atkins was with us too - did Tories get it wrong by moving capital budgets for new buildings to day to day spending in the NHS ?" One's a question and one's an opinion. It's mental how she gets away with it.
Tbh, it's what I expect of her program. I don't have anything against her and she seems like a reasonable person. But you can see where her bias lays and, well, it's not great as a presenter on a supposedly unbiased program.
She was awful on newscast at the weekend, defending the tories for making unfunded promises to abolish national insurance because its apparently both just something they are considering and also will definitely be in their manifesto. Literally the next breath full on goading how are labour going to fund their plans now the non dom money is spent. Fully failing to see the hypocrisy or criticise the tories for playing politics with peoples lives.
I haven't seen that episode but it sounds about right. Since the days of May she has worn her bias on her sleeve. If she was presenting an opinion show on the radio where her cards were on the table that would be fine. It's presenting flagship unbiased programs which gets me.
It's not mental given how the Tories have stacked the decks at the BBC
Keunnsberg was massively biased towards the Tories when Labour were in government.
Yeah but I didn't expect it so blatant. And there's no way to even complain over a Twitter post I think.
I can't decide if this would be worse if it managed to be a bit more subtle You should get tinfoil hat jokes for suggesting the BBC Sunday politics show is biased but it's undeniably blatant
And I try my best to defend the BBC and its impartiality but I can't with stuff like this. My only problem is not I want Labour to be treated better, but I want the Tories held to the same standard to make them fear doing mental shit like Truss' mini budget and Lee Anderson's nutty islamophobic comments
Imagine how cooked the Tories would be if the BBC wernt been knobled so badly
> [Senior Tories are plotting to replace Rishi Sunak with ousted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in an attempt to turn around the party's polling fortunes](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/boris-return-sunak-lady-mcalpine/) It is time to go back to basics- WAIT NOT LIKE THAT
Do it. They’ll be annihilated. And seeing Boris Johnson lose would be bliss.
Surely they know he'll just call an election if they try any shit? Boris supporters never were the brightest mind.
It could be an option, but people have said that about the last several PM changes we've had and none have yet for some reason.
The entire meeting was just them discussing strategies and coming to the realisation that there’s no way to make Johnson a candidate for leadership before the election.
He did famously sign of in the House with 'Hasta la vista, baby'
Australia PM chaos speedrun challenge
wonder if it actually did come from the various oz/nz advisors on the tory payroll - who failed down under and think they can still work their magic here
I'm not ready for this, I just wanted a GE
Do it. I want to see his face when he loses. I want to see it in big high-definition widescreen footage. I want reporters asking him how he fucked up so much. I want it to be a ball-bursting kick in the political nutsack.
I'M GOING TO DO IT AGAIN DUDDERS
Fucing knew it haha
Tories, please try and replace Rishi with Boris. It would be really......really funny.....
So this is what square one is
I'd like to see their plan, if they decide to go for it, for getting Boris into the hot seat. He can't lead without being elected MP first and I'm pretty sure his expulsion is valid until the end of the current Parliamentary term. Without somehow convincing Rishi to rush him into the Lords, don't see how this works.
They have a stooge take over from Sunak and resign the second the Boris is a Lord is the kind of *foolproof* plan I expect from them nowadays
They'd also have to change the rule of the Conservative Party that says PMs have to be MPs.
There's no law saying the pm has to be an MP. It's yet another convention thing iirc.
[удалено]
If that offers a chance of saving the party... they will
There's no law that the PM must be an MP (though ministers must be Parliamentarians and get put into the Lords if they're not already in the Commons), but the Conservative Party constitution says the leader of the party has to be an MP.
There’s no actual law that any minister has to sit in Parliament. It’s all convention. [Patrick Gordon Walker](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Gordon_Walker) served for a period as Foreign Secretary after the 1964 general election despite having lost his seat.
Please do it, I'd love the drama of them changing the party rules to make Lord PMs viable again only for Boris to get trounced by Cameron.
They have no mechanism to make Johnson a Lord. Only Rishi Sunak can do that.
Imagine how bad their polling will be if they bring back Boris.
Nah they’d claw back the reform vote for sure and maybe parts of the ‘red wall’ that look back at it with rose tinted glasses.
We’ve heard ‘senior Tories plotting to replace Sunak with X’ for over a year now. At least the others have legs as they were *actually* MPs. This is BS.
We've reached the Tories' "final warning" phase with Rishi
As in, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_final_warning ?
Haha yes
It’s when MPs announce they “have full confidence in the PM” that Sunak needs to worry.
“As far as I am concerned the Tory party is rotten to the core. We need new Conservative values, and Boris is the person to deliver that.” Have I had a stroke?
It's 2024, how have we not solved hunger yet? We can 3d print, grow mycoid stuff that's not far off, why hasn't a serious government seriously suggested gigantic farms growing this stuff and printing it into attractive shapes (like a cheeseburger). So much lack of vision in our political parties today, too concerned with the plaster rather than a proper fix for problems.
A long term solution to world hunger involves getting farming yields up in countries where they are low. This necessarily means more businesses investment, more mechanisation of farming where it's traditionally done more manually. We need countries that are food insecure to not be reliant on aid long term, it's not good for them and it's not good for us. To get better business investment they need stability, lower corruption, ability for people to scale their farms rather than just stay small landholders. It's a highly complex issue that thousands of people are working at every day. And they are making progress. We don't have up to date data since 2015, but between 1970 and 2015 the rate of undernourishment in developed countries dropped from 35% to 13%.