What's up with the sudden usage of "p" for percent instead of, you know, the internationally recognised symbol (%)? I don't think I've ever seen it done before this story. It it some sort of attempt to downplay the impact? Or just part of a general dumbing-down of media? Even the Guardian are using it. Thankfully RTE, the Irish Times, and the Irish Examiner are sticking to the standard usage, although the Irish Independent appear to have fallen
They're referring to it as 45 pence, as in 45p tax to the £1 earned, as opposed to 45%.
I think it's supposed to mean "45p to the pound". I've heard it before but only in the UK.
Is that an attempt at a "hey, look over there"?
Well is Labour saying about this sort of stuff?
Why should Labour wade into the water where the Tories are drowning themselves?
The abuse of the peerage system is the topic.
The government in waiting might have a view on it and might change try to reform to stop future abuses.
Labour had 13 years and they did nothing about it and did lots of peerages themselves.
It's not the most pressing issue facing the country, that's why. It's the same reason the monarchy will linger on and the Metropolitan police will remain patently unfit for purpose.
Getting a qualified outsider in to help isn't of itself a bad move (and the same method can be used for the Irish cabinet via a Taoiseach senate selection).
Tony Blair made Alan Sugar a lord and appointed him Business 'Czar'.Seems similar in theory. Though the Somerset Maughan link makes this look a lot more dodgy.
Blair's record on peerage always looked pretty ropey. He wasn't mocked as Tory light for nothing.
At least with the Seanad their are term limits and a set membership number.
In my case, I used 45p as a joke contrasting it with p45 - the UK sacking document.
Otherwise, p is easier to find on a mobile phone the % sign, which requires many presses and much foostering..
Appears that the Tory party conference isn't going well. Great thread from Byline's Adam Bienkov below:
A complete echo chamber by all accounts with lots of affirmations of faith and no dissent allowed.
And they're growing their hair long! And eating avocados!
Though I do have this mental image of a burly builder type bopping around on a broomstick playing Quidditch, so that's me amused for the day.
Is Critical Race Theory even a thing there? I had only seen it complained about by American right wingers.
Not so far as I can tell. Of course, since 2020 there has been an ongoing discussion about it but stuff like Defund the Police and BLM hasn't really caught on in the same way that it has in the USA. The Tories know they're en route to oblivion so they've adopted the MAGA playbook wholesale.
Christ look at the Thatcher picture. These really are children we are dealing with.
I love the bit
Sir John Redwood says there "are many Brexit benefits still to come."
They'll be here already, if only those pesky obligations to international agreements didn't keep getting in the way.
They even deployed the old "talking Britain down" canard. Six years after the vote.
Attendance doesn't seem to be great:
Very easy fake that though.
One is in a big auditorium and the other in a hallway. No way of knowing what is happening on stage at the time either.
He would have been better off just commenting on the impressive crowd at the pro Europe bit and left the rest out.
That's what I thought initially but when you see that people like Rishi Sunak are boycotting the conference, it makes sense.
The Tories will regroup in a few years time as an anti Brexit/Pro EU party whilst Labour dig in behind it & Boris will return as a remain hero!
Aren't they? The status quo is just a custom and practice of the Queen's long reign. The fact is that the Monarch is bound above all to uphold the Constitution.
“Our constitution basically depends on very British sentiments of decency and fair play, and it assumes people who reach high office will respect conventions, precedents and unwritten rules,”
- Professor Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit, University College London
Charles can quite legitimately take a view that any Government has no mandate, or is not working in the interests of the people at large and dismiss them. Admittedly, it would be a breathtaking thing to do in the first months of the first new reign in 8 decades, but we don't live in normal times. And Britain is on the way to being ****ed. Proper ****ed.
Never going to happen. They were lucky to get Elizabeth so young so they could groom her for the role. Her neutrality and select appearances are the only reason the institution endures now. There's no surer way to kill it than political intervention. Charles knows this. He's not been waiting 73 years for the job to destroy it.
He is already an old man. I daresay he feels the greatest gift he could give his eldest Son, is to destroy it.
But such an intervention wouldn't destroy the Monarchy, it would strengthen it, at a time the People see they have been taken for fools by the body politic.
As a Brit, I disagree. This is getting off topic, but just want to bring some balance to your comments. I think many, perhaps most, young people in the UK are looking for him to continue to take a vocal position on selected issues, climate and biodiversity chief among them. Even if that means challenging the government. I personally am expecting him to be relevant and not just cut ribbons. A lack of relevance is now the greatest danger to the monarchy. And his mum spoke at COP on more than one occasion, BTW
Il leave it there as belongs in another thread
No, it wouldn't. Neutrality preserves the monarchy by depriving its enemies of ammunition. If he takes a stance on any issue, especially one like climate change after he becomes the sovereign, he alienates a large chunk of the population. That's how it ends. His mother cut the ribbons, smiled, waved and read whatever they put under her nose and kept herself to herself. She didn't do that for 70 years without one heck of a good reason.
It's the general UK politics thread. This is a UK politics topic.
Young people in the UK don't need an unelected sovereign to be their voice. They've already found theirs. We see that with the Insulate Britain, anti-Brexit and Enough is Enough protests. We also saw that in Bristol in 2020.
I know he has addressed COP before but that was in the absence of opposition from the PM. A sovereign who overrules the elected government kills the monarchy on the spot.
I have the polar opposite opinion, but will leave it there
Looks like this "policy" still hasn't gone away. Might Braverman be a more dangerous choice than her predecessor (Patel)?...
No, the party is simply adopting the Stephen Yaxley-Lennon approach to identity politics while making sure that the face is a non-white person. It's what passes for intellectualism in today's conservative party.
This sounds like something a racist would say.
Oh I missed that; Personality Cult in full swing then. Wonder that Thatcher would even make of this lot; hard to say but can't imagine she would be impressed by their dogged determination to undermine the UK's own presence in the economic and geopolitical world.
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