In even more "You couldn't make it up" news: https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1556559850221539328
Liz Truss in the Standard today, wittering on about how, if she is made PM Our greatest times are ahead. And you think, putting aside even the industrial sized silliness of the bragging how about just run the Country without drama? Stop making people hate each other with your disgusting culture war and make it so people can get a dentist. Do the boring stuff even halfway competently FFS.
This is what I mean. It’s the yawning gap between the bs and the absolute mess 12 years of their rule has made which infuriates. When people can’t heat and eat or get a dentist etc etc etc.
Tory peer Michelle Mone settles libel claim ‘for more than £50k’ Lawyers confirm both parties have settled differences on a no fault or damages basis in relation to alleged racist claim... Absolutely nothing to see here Rishi:
Set to ‘Ode to joy’. Either ignorance or what passes for great heaving irony within his ‘creative’ team. What year are we now in of the bonfire of red tape? Seems endless to me.
John Lewis saying what everyone is thinking. Huge labour market issues as a significant number of 50+ year olds retired during the pandemic, and there aren’t enough working age people to recruit from, fuelling inflation. The NHS similarly has 110k vacancies, which will be impossible to fill domestically. If only we had a red tape-less way of bringing working age people into the country quickly, and a strong pound to incentivise them to come. Any ideas what went wrong?
Don’t worry. According to the Tories there is an almost endless supply of the workshy and feckless who, hitherto, have simply not been arsed to work.
Here's today's, er, 'Today' https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019z3z Martin Lewis is being interviewed about the rises and is EXTREMELY passionate and apocalyptic. Listen from 2:09:47 to 2:20:46 https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1556987838947893248
This farcical and never ending leadership campaign illustrates perfectly why full time career politicians should be banned from becoming MPs. Let's introduce a new system where the most capable people are hand picked to run the key offices of state from industry, commerce, the financial sector, the armed forces, the arts, health and social services etc etc etc. Once selected declining should not be an option - like jury service (although I did manage to get out of that last year) it should be considered one's civic duty. Salary that matches the role they are leaving should be paid. If either Sunak and Truss had anything about them they'd draw a line under this absurd pi55ing contest now and let the one with the least votes at, say, midnight tonight, stand aside and make way for the other to start running the country. But, of course, they won't because they're a couple of self-serving 5hit bags who are both in it for themselves. I think this heat is getting to me.... I'm going for a lie down
Martin Lewis really is one of the most incisive experts in the country. He is across all the detail and retains a sense of the bigger picture at the same time. And, crucially, when he doesn’t know the answer to something, he either says: “I’m sorry that’s not my area of expertise” or “I don’t know but I’ll find out and put the answer on my website.” It is everything that journalists have forgotten about the essence of journalism, which is to impart information without fear or favour. It is precisely what Gove was worried about when he said people were fed up with experts. Politicians fear people being armed with information and knowledge. He is armed with facts over anecdote. He rarely falls into the trap of using one case study to illustrate a wider point. Even in that Radio 4 piece you can hear the presenter towards the end saying “okay, okay”. She barely asked a single incisive question, she just produced what she thought was the “counter” view. And then, when Lewis got on a roll and told her how it was she didn’t have anything else to offer other than to wrap it up and move to the next item. The breakdown in government, media and debate all summed up in a few minutes simply by one person who knows his subject inside out and spells out the facts in a clear, stark way that is inconvenient for the current Government.
There is a very good reason why you can’t do this. Ok, there are lots of good reasons and one of them is that MPs are not supposed to represent interests. However talented a scientist or an artist is, they will mostly be there to decide on issues outside of their expertise, which they may be as ignorant of as anyone else. How good they are at doing science or art won’t tell you how good they are at fairly determining the necessity for political change. And in their own fields, they are likely to have biases towards the needs of professions and industries involved, which may not coincide with the interests of the public. So **** em I say. A reformed second chamber is the place for successful folk.
It’s not, but Lloyd is proposing that is the basis on which they are selected. The current system allows constituents to consider wider factors and does not (in theory) narrow the field in the way this would. If you selected the top folk from business, arts, sciences etc those sectors would have an in-built and enduring advantage over others with less glamour. Why a quantum physicist over the Country’s most eloquent plumber, just because we are impressed with physics? Sure, in practice the field remains a limited choice. At the moment, we have a Parliament dominated by the loyalty of candidates to a single failed political project.
You can't tell me that, for instance, the First Sea Lord wouldn't make a better minister of defence than a career politician, or a former head teacher with a track record of turning around under-performing state schools wouldn't make a better education minister, or a bus driver or road sweeper wouldn't be more effective as Transport Minister than Shapps
And in two years time or sooner we'll have a parliament dominated by MPs loyal to another failed political project. Parliamentary democracy has run its course. It's time for a massive shake up.
The First Sea Lord would make a great Minister of Defence if you want to increase the defence budget by 100% and invade France because of a disappointing croissant you had that morning. Similarly, there is every reason for teachers to have considerable say in how teaching is carried out, but not to have the final say because they teach our children on our behalf, not theirs. And I’m someone who is very supportive of teaching unions. We can lose sight of these things when Government is so catastrophically bad. But there has to be separation.
Who wouldn't want Neil Warnock as Minister for Culture and Sport? I'd love it, me. I think he'd be better than Dorries, me.
Extraordinary triumph of hope over evidence. Only 28% for ‘reduce climate change’ though, presumably because of the vast amounts of hot air she exudes.
In more "Not the Sharpest Knife in the Drawer" news: https://twitter.com/DCBMEP/status/1557406044179103744 Bannerman tweets his support for load-bearing structures everywhere: Building Back Better!
The Irony Lady shows, once again, her core principles for today: https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1557387474711748608
Boris Johnson is planning to fill the Lords with his cronies and legitimise bribery The honours system is rife with abuse and a paper by Lynton Crosby’s firm suggesting ‘rewards’ for compliant peers proves it Not the most 'neutral of sources' but: https://twitter.com/WriterJackWhite/status/1553783772138672129
I know she's campaigning to a very select electorate but: https://twitter.com/openDemocracy/status/1557368201029292032
