[Andy McDandy]

According to the website, Badenoch has entered phase 2 of internet cuntery over this university offer thing. University denies there's such an option. Labour say she's bullshitting, Badenoch says ha ha, am I living rent-free in your heads or something, all this fuss over a university place, you sad bastards.

Create issue. Wait for response. Laugh at the responders for doing so.

[Yug]

What she's too stupid to understand is shit like this just helps to confirm the belief that the Tories are a bunch of fucking liars.

Which they are.

[Boiler]

Thing is, I don't see a leader in Badenoch. I just see a gob on a stick.

[Tubby Isaacs]

According to the website, Badenoch has entered phase 2 of internet cuntery over this university offer thing. University denies there's such an option. Labour say she's bullshitting, Badenoch says ha ha, am I living rent-free in your heads or something, all this fuss over a university place, you sad bastards.

Create issue. Wait for response. Laugh at the responders for doing so.

As you've said before, "rent free" is a good marker for not having a proper response.

I don't know anything about Stanford's entry procedures, but it doesn't ring true to me. She got an offer at 16 for a university place? And apparently nothing happens after this?

[kreuzberger]

I avoid "reviews of the papers" at the best of times, and avoid literally everything at 6.10 am. Did you catch it?

I actually went back to sleep. Nonetheless, Nick Robinson failed to earn his 300k by repeatedly reading out the bluest bits from the right wing rags.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This sounds more plausible. "Dear Kemi, It's great you want to come to Stanford. Why don't you apply in 2 years time?" But why is she writing to Stanford at 16 anyway? What would be the point? If she blames the teachers for not making her work hard enough at A Level, she doesn't sound like the sort who'd write on spec to universities all over the world.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What does this remind me of? Oh.

The University of Perugia

Iain Duncan Smith's biography on the Conservative Party website, his entry in Who's Who, and various other places, state that he went to the Universita di Perugia in Italy.

This is not true: his office now admit that he went to the Universita per Stranieri, which is also in Perugia.

The Universita per Stranieri - or University for Foreigners - was founded in 1921 and is a totally separate institution to the medieval Universita di Perugia, founded by the Pope in 1308.

Although the Universita per Stranieri is a respected language school, it did not grant degrees when he studied there in 1973, although some students attained diplomas.

Mr Duncan Smith's office has now admitted to Newsnight that he didn't get any qualifications in Perugia or even finish his exams.

Dunchurch College of Management

The first line of Iain Duncan Smith's biography, on the Conservative Party website, claims he was "educated at Dunchurch College of Management".

In fact, Dunchurch was the former staff college for GEC Marconi, for whom he worked in the 1980s.

Mr Duncan Smith's office has now confirmed to Newsnight that he did not get any qualifications there either, but that he completed six separate courses lasting a few days each, adding up to about a month in total.

The second is a particular cracker. Some staff training. Most people who work at big firms do some of that. I bet lots of it wasn't even management.

[Bones McCoy]

According to the website, Badenoch has entered phase 2 of internet cuntery over this university offer thing. University denies there's such an option. Labour say she's bullshitting, Badenoch says ha ha, am I living rent-free in your heads or something, all this fuss over a university place, you sad bastards.

Create issue. Wait for response. Laugh at the responders for doing so.

As you've said before, "rent free" is a good marker for not having a proper response.

I don't know anything about Stanford's entry procedures, but it doesn't ring true to me. She got an offer at 16 for a university place? And apparently nothing happens after this?

If it happened, which there are good reasons to doubt..

If ... it sounds like one of those woke DEI things, whick Olukemi Mitty claims she wouldn't touch with a bargepole..

[davidjay]

Such a policy falls to bits when it comes in to contact with the most elementary of mathematics - the costs of further extraction are rising, as are those of decommissioning old facilities, while the price of a renewable MWh tumbles to around a third of fossil fuels.

She's an idiot.

Maybe Kemi can explain why; the more oil we drilled the poorer we became.

We sold it off.

[Yug]

So I can claim I was educated at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham and went to Sandhurst.

Sounds great... if I forget to mention that it was a couple of weeks each.

[kreuzberger]

As always, there is a kernel of truth in nothing Kemi says. I am beginning to doubt whether she even did those shifts at Maccie D's.

[Tubby Isaacs]

If ... it sounds like one of those woke DEI things, whick Olukemi Mitty claims she wouldn't touch with a bargepole..

Ha ha. Even "DEI hires" as people like Kemi's colleagues see them, usually have to send in applications. And I'm not clear on these SATs she's supposed to have done very well in.

Munira Wilson of the Lib Dems has stuck it to Kemi very nicely.

“If Kemi Badenoch cares about restoring trust, she should start by explaining her own academic record,” she said. “Failing to come clean over these allegations would send a message to the thousands of pupils who just received their exam results that their hard work does not matter and that you can just bluff your way to the top.”

Friend of mine worked with Munira (Hassam, as she was then). He said she was really nice and a good laugh. Good at politics too, by the look of it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

As always, there is a kernel of truth in nothing Kemi says. I am beginning to doubt whether she even did those shifts at Maccie D's.

Funny you should say that. The whole sentence is either impossible or massively confused, if you're being kind. The minimum wage didn't exist. And how much tax would she have paid? The way it worked with part time jobs then was that you got put on the emergency tax rate, and then got it back when you were on the appropriate tax code for a student who would almost certainly not reach the tax threshold.

Still she's stuck it to the notorious high tax politicians of the mid 90s... John Major and Kenneth Clarke.

[Andy McDandy]

Also, which American universities has the average non-American teenager heard of? Harvard, Yale, MIT perhaps., as with NYU and UCLA, Kent State if you know your 20th century history. But Stanford?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is it possible that Kemi gets less than strong backing from some of her colleagues on this? Not mentioning any names, but the one I'm thinking of has the initials Robert Jenrick.

[kreuzberger]

Her minimum tenure of a year will be up on 1st November 2025. I doubt that anyone would want to adopt the mantle this far out from a GE, but it is not inconceivable that she is being put on notice that the dirt will out.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think there's too much panic over Labour's polling, but the Tories might need to do something. The Opposition isn't supposed to get mid term blues.

If the future is merging with Reform, which I presume is how Jenrick sees it, is it better to get on with that sooner rather than later? No guarantee Farage would play ball anyway, of course.