General Election 2024

Tom Hanks gave a brilliant interview by the way, sorry for ot:

https://x.com/amanpour/status/1798773004610215957

"If you were 25 they called you "Pops"".

https://x.com/Channel4News/status/1800133421747847673?t=BXxt_06Oi94B1Vk5tTNZCQ&s=19

40 new hospitals vibe.

Nice to see that our saviour Musk turned Twitter into a huge success.

https://x.com/christhebarker/status/1799209551280873501?t=0hVTImkQW8GzNHlhaWSa1w&s=19
This is excellent.

Sir Max Hastings is voting Labour, game over man, game over.

How does 100k nursery places free up 750k women to work?

It wasn't "750k women to work" it was "It would lead to 750k women being able to take on more hours."

I guess they've included the knock on effects (e.g. staffing the extra nursery provision, support staff for those new staff, etc) but I still can't see how the numbers add up unless they're assuming that there's a huge number of part time staff or job sharing going on. Someone in the media will pick up on it I'm sure.

Also it's "3,000" new nurseries as the headline but the actual number is 3,334 supposedly so there's wiggle room if 10% of them are expansions on existing sites.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4489zllkvo

It would be better if politicians didn't try to game the numbers though. Just say "We're planning on adding 100,000 new nursery places across over 3,000 sites approximately X of them are new nurseries and Y of them are making more space at existing locations."

Hard disagree.
An election campaign and hustings are supposed to reveal not just the policies but also the character of the politicians competing for your vote.
Deep down, can you trust this politician?

Sunak does not have either the depth of character to understand the significance of what is likely to be the last serious D-Day event with any survivors,
nor has he assembled a team that understands this significance.

I'm all for punching the bruise of a failing politician, especially a Tory, who seek to proclaim themselves as 'the' supporters of the Armed Forces, veterans and patriots.

I'm all for punching the bruise of a failing politician, especially a Tory, who seek to proclaim themselves as 'the' supporters of the Armed Forces, veterans and patriots.

I absolutely agree, especially as he is calling into question Starmer's patriotism by calling out the latter's lack of support on his completely meaningless pledge to increase defence spending.

The point, for me, that no one is questioning is why he is claiming that he was never planning to attend the ‘international leaders’ event in the evening. Surely the clue would be in the name that he should attend.

If he wasn’t planning to attend then why not. If he was planning to attend but changed his plan to attend the ITV interview then it’s another lie that the agenda was set weeks ago.

Seems the original plan was that the international leaders part was going to be much smaller so it was never planned that he would attend.

Maybe the clue is in the name - is he a "leader" really?

Edit - not really @ aggi so much as the post above / generally

Still seems strange not to have intended to attend until the end and for no one to have spotted this.

True

Hope this is accurate.

1 Attachment

Using; it was planned many weeks before the election as an excuse, I just don't get.

Say I want to rob a bank, how many weeks do I have to wait before it becomes ok to rob said bank? What if I wait until a seperate event has started, dose that make it ok to rob the bank. What if somebody else plans the raid and tells me it's going be ok to rob a bank?

Dose that absolve me of any responsibility for robbing the bank?

I hope this story is a Grand Tour not a Kilo.

It's not worth interrogating too closely, because it's a lie (although it is quite fun) - that he came back to do a TV interview is probably the most plausible excuse.

If he did plan previously plan to come back early, I'm not sure what he would have been doing instead that was so important, as he obviously also hasn't actually done that thing.

There's a story on it from the times here
https://archive.ph/v0wiq

“The official advice was that the second bit was optional,” a senior political source said. “We were told Starmer wouldn’t be there.” At that point, it seemed like the second half would be little more than a social gathering for world leaders. “It was billed as a lunch and that even Biden wouldn’t be there,”

Let's be honest, if Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton hadn't hopped on a photo opportunity with the other leaders, people wouldn't of noticed Rishi wasn't there or been bothered

In other news, lib dem pledges look interesting, shame are system condemns them to irrelevance

No. They say they would seek closer alignment when the political outlook favours it (ie the Tories would have to become sensible)

I'm other news, Labour continue to try to lose the election: https://x.com/UKLabour/status/1800249657018458443

Sorry for the Twitter link. That's how Labour communicate.

That's not going to lose them the election.

This should preclude her from standing as a candidate.

You're right. Nothing will it seems. But in terms of eating a sandwich funny or that, I know which I cringe at much more.

And they decided to do that to themselves.