[Andy McDandy]

Karl Turner. Not really bitter.

Quite why a small reduction in jury trials to bring some relief to a long overstretched system should have sent Turner mad, I don't know. He must know that lots of the wider opposition to it is Nick Timothy bollocks based on English exceptionalism.

As I put on the other thread, it's not hard to imagine how the PM would see "pressure" as being something people might define differently. We'll have to see, but McSweeney is being hauled in on Monday. Does the PM have to clear the decks as well?

A good amount of Johnsonian "Stout yeomen" bollocks as well.

[Yug]

Did you know that every time those "Starmer must go" cunts in the Labour Party open their gobs it costs the taxpayers loads of money.

UK government borrowing costs fell and the pound rose on Friday as Keir Starmer vowed to remain as prime minister despite the Labour party losing hundreds of council seats across England.

Investors calculated that some of the intense pressure on Starmer’s leadership had eased, as Labour appeared on track for smaller losses than election experts had predicted.

The yield – effectively the interest rate – had jumped earlier this week, amid fears that the prime minister could face a leadership challenge if the results from the local elections and the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales were particularly poor...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ond-yields

The grown-up has vowed to stay on and the cost of government borrowing has gone down.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not if Catherine West has anything to do with it. (She's fairly sensible herself, but is acting stupidly in saying she'll challenge the PM).

[Youngian]

Did you know that every time those "Starmer must go" cunts in the Labour Party open their gobs it costs the taxpayers loads of money.

UK government borrowing costs fell and the pound rose on Friday as Keir Starmer vowed to remain as prime minister despite the Labour party losing hundreds of council seats across England.

Investors calculated that some of the intense pressure on Starmer’s leadership had eased, as Labour appeared on track for smaller losses than election experts had predicted.

The yield – effectively the interest rate – had jumped earlier this week, amid fears that the prime minister could face a leadership challenge if the results from the local elections and the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales were particularly poor...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ond-yields

The grown-up has vowed to stay on and the cost of government borrowing has gone down.

Who'll be the first wally to accuse 'the markets of dictating who the PM is?' I'll have a punt on John McDonnel.

Has Catherine West taken leave of her senses, how many months does she think another Labour PM will enjoy before their reputation is trashed?
And what would Catherine or A.N. Other PM do about it, hold their nerve, tough it out and ignore the distractors by any chance?

[mattomac]

She seems an amateur unless she knows something and I don’t see it

[Tubby Isaacs]

Who'll be the first wally to accuse 'the markets of dictating who the PM is?' I'll have a punt on John McDonnel.

Has Catherine West taken leave of her senses, how many months does she think another Labour PM will enjoy before their reputation is trashed?
And what would Catherine or A.N. Other PM do about it, hold their nerve, tough it out and ignore the distractors by any chance?

I'd go for Clive Lewis to come out with "Who elects the markets?" Or "In whose interests do the markets really operate?" Perhaps Andy Burnham will join in.

As Matt says, it seems such a spectacular misjudgment by West, that one fears she does know something. Best I've seen from someone defending her is "at least she gets the threat of a Reform government".

[mattomac]

Who'll be the first wally to accuse 'the markets of dictating who the PM is?' I'll have a punt on John McDonnel.

Has Catherine West taken leave of her senses, how many months does she think another Labour PM will enjoy before their reputation is trashed?
And what would Catherine or A.N. Other PM do about it, hold their nerve, tough it out and ignore the distractors by any chance?

I'd go for Clive Lewis to come out with "Who elects the markets?" Or "In whose interests do the markets really operate?" Perhaps Andy Burnham will join in.

As Matt says, it seems such a spectacular misjudgment by West, that one fears she does know something. Best I've seen from someone defending her is "at least she gets the threat of a Reform government".

If that’s the best then I’d hate to see the others.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Clive exposes the shocking truth- the government have appointed someone with experience as a large employer to look at an issue that's in a large part about employment. Perhaps Clive could do some of this systems-level thinking if he thinks this "millionaire" isn't up to it. He won't. He's already preparing to oppose whatever's proposed, and that's enough, and anyway he's too busy redesigning capitalism.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I think he is genuinely an utterly thick twat.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He's one for making himself sound clever. I've noticed he thinks he's an expert on water. This was his response to the interim publication of the independent review.

Reckon he even read it properly? More than likely he went straight to the rhetorical bit about false solutions dressed up as radical, which is quite the accusation to make against the government and the report's author. There are, whether you support nationalization or not, very obviously different ways that the industry can be structured in the private sector. Does he have a view on them?

He has more than once cited the cost of Railtrack's renationalisation as £500m. Which it was, provided you ignore the debt liability that Network Rail took on, over £7bn in 2002. He's all over the details, is Clive.

[The Weeping Angel]

Clive exposes the shocking truth- the government have appointed someone with experience as a large employer to look at an issue that's in a large part about employment. Perhaps Clive could do some of this systems-level thinking if he thinks this "millionaire" isn't up to it. He won't. He's already preparing to oppose whatever's proposed, and that's enough, and anyway he's too busy redesigning capitalism.

What would this systems-level thinking actually suggest? Would it be new ideas or Clive's preferences?

[Andy McDandy]

"Not enough". No further details required.

[Youngian]

Didn't take long to discover Bolland's the founder and chairman of this organisation. Does Clive think Keir's become Boris Johnson just handing out jobs to no mark chancers for giving him some money?

Movement to Work operates in a world of opportunity and seeks to break the vicious ‘no experience – no job’ cycle that is preventing young people, not currently in education, employment or training, from stepping onto the career ladder.
https://movementtowork.com/the-movement/

[Abernathy]

So Lewis apparently thinks that Marc Bolland will not "take a structural approach" simply because he is "a multi-millionaire"?

What utter bollocks. What Lewis is really saying, to his partial credit, is that the whole system - everything - is wrong and need s scrapping and re-placing with a Corbynesque utopia. Surely even Lewis can see that that is, to put it mildly, beyond Bolland's brief.

Bolland's level of personal prosperity is completely irrelevant. A cheap playground jibe. His experience, abilities, and track record, however, are very much of direct relevance.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, it's juvenile stuff. Clive chucks out some broad brush stuff about how we "need to change the whole economic model of exploitative capitalism" and argues back from that that Marc Bolland must be bad news.

Kemi sort of landed a rare hit on Labour MPs the other day, for not having enough business experience collectively. We don't have to think business experience is the be and all end all- what does Kemi make of Mrs Thatcher's lack of business experience?- but if you don't have it, you have to make sure you've access to it. Someone like Marc Bolland can bring that in the way that the sort of person Clive would presumably favour (an academic?) can't.

[Youngian]

What does Kemi make of Keir Starmer sucessfully leading a large complex organisation outside of politics?

[Tubby Isaacs]

She thinks he's a lawyer not a leader.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He's trying to get kicked out to join The Greens, isn't he?

Are the government committing genocide, Clive? "Economic policy" is a Keynesian stimulus, which seems to have had some modest good effect. You know what breeds cynicism? Your pals talking about it as if the government's carrying out Osbornian austerity.

[davidjay]

You can add Andy Burnham to the list.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... a-drilling

A few candidates in this article, who don't understand the difference between energy production for a world market that will exist for many more years and domestic energy consumption. This is just a silly comparison.

Scores of Labour MPs have urged the prospective prime minister Andy Burnham to rule out the “tin-eared” and “deluded” development of the Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea, which new research indicates would produce as much carbon dioxide as the UK does in 10 months.

Estimates seen by the Guardian show that Rosebank, which mainly contains oil, would produce about 250m tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime. That is the equivalent of about 70% of the UK’s annual emissions.

There seem to be lots of "delusions" cited by opponents. These delusions tend to be things said by cranks (like Kemi Badenoch) rather than things said by sensible people. Nobody serious believes that this oil means we don't need to carry on with the green transition. The argument is that we might as well sell oil/gas on the world market as such charmers as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and the US. Here's another headline from today.

Cost to rewire Great Britain’s electricity network could reach £90bn in 2030s

I mean, it sounds like we're going to produce a lot of oil (I thought the objection last week was that there wasn't any worth extracting?). Perhaps that could pay for some of this?