jpkatlarge.bsky.social
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And another approval. Just finished it, and it's set me off on follow-up reading. He has a very airy style even when the base material is heavy.
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I'm equally concerned about what it says about Starmer's immediate advisors: are they really so incompetent that they didn't recognise the problem? He does seem dreadfully in thrall to the wee McSweeney, and the CoS's deputies don't seem any better. A proper clear-out might benefit us all.
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Why would they not want this to happen? Surely it'd be great communications for the Trump Administration to let buyers know that the extra costs are going directly to enabling their taxes to come down? Surely?
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The problem we have, and not just this government, is that you could scour 10 Downing Street from top to bottom and not find anyone with the faintest inkling about this stuff. Possibly in the Cabinet Office, but I suspect anyone competent is quite deliberately kept away from these decisions.
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Stephen Miller hasn't told him yet, and when (if) he does he won't understand it anyway.
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They are all probably concerned, and with reason, that Trump will take away their Secret Service protections, if they speak out.
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That's easy: McSweeney knows nothing about foreign policy, and can't interfere with Jonathan Powell. On domestic stuff he just likes warring with cabinet ministers.
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There's no doubt the Times is more right-wing than a few years ago. Sometimes they try to be subtle about it, but it's insidious. Hardly surprising for a Tony Gallagher-led rag, though
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I suppose we have to wait and see, but it's possible that Europe provides itself with a NATO alternative, and Rutte's effectively out of a job. So he's fighting to save his job, but it looks as though it's already gone. The Americans will just ignore him anyway. Will NATO last until June?
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I assume that a reconfiguring of FiveEyes is already under serious consideration. Integrating the French and German might take some doing, though. Add the Danes, too.
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Chris Mason has always seemed a lightweight political editor, now exacerbated by constantly looking over his shoulder to ensure compliance with his right-wing senior management.
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I really don't think you can rely on the mid-terms to act as any kind of corrective. Stephen Miller has a very fat operations book, beyond Project 2025, and somewhere in there will be the playbook for eliminating them as a threat.
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But this would require Keir Starmer to actively sell the move to the British public: I have seen no evidence so far that he has either the presentational skills or personality to attempt this. And anyway, wee McSweeney wouldn't let him!
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Labour ministers have had many years (more than five in most cases) to understand their briefs, but like their Prime Minister, seem utterly bewildered by the world, and their own country.
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I know it's easy, way too easy, to accompany any piece about Starmer with photographs like this, but this look of bewilderment really does seem to sum him up. He's not really up for it, is he?
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Down 0.1% from last month. More than likely a statistical artifact. The other CPI series CPIH, including measures of housing costs, shows no change. The ONS says "As of 21 March 2017, the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) became our lead measure of inflation".
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"with his government a little stronger than it had been at the start"…but still leaking political capital, and this is yet another 'process' headliner, rather than anything substantive. He needs a proper issue to grow with, and oh dear, it really, really, isn't AI!
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We already know that Keir Starmer is economically illiterate, now we find he is technologically illiterate as well. What is he literate in: is it really just lawyer stuff?
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What's 'elicit cargo'?
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waiting, not patiently now (sorry, 4 words…)
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What's really pathetic about all of this is that one cause is the Prime Minister's own salary, which has been depressed ever since even before Gordon Brown. Should really be £300,000+. All this, knock-on effects from political cowardice.
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You do have to assume that neither Starmer nor Reeves have equipped themselves with a high quality communications team.
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Though these days you have to assume that a significant part of the Conservative Party membership are deeply weird people.
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Well, it does happen to be my closest supermarket!
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Actually better than Heinz, because the sauce is richer and thicker! There are also more beans in the tin.
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Fabulous! As I said over there, but here's better…