TACO Bellend always bottles it

Bradford 42722. The first phone number I dialled about 60 years ago.

My current partner's phone number. Well I'm sure it has a 7 in it.

I see Taco Bellend has backed down again with the Iran deadline.

It's odd how many people of colour are being appointed as HS. Almost as if the govt hope that performative cruelty will be more acceptable coming from someone who looks a bit like the people they are ejecting from the country.

All helped by the BBC's timely 3 part documentary on immigration scams and a free party political broadcast on the Beeb yesterday morning.

Got to think that the whole vetting process is a mess for not giving greater clarity.

Iran violated the ceasefire by attacking an American bomb with one of their merchant ships.

What a shame that he didn't get a chance to play a part in Vietnam................. Oh wait.........

The problem is that you only get on the good side of Trump when you give him something. Just because you gave him something yesterday, doesn't mean you are on his good side today.

Appointing a toxic slimeball with a history of repeatedly shooting himself in the foot is the solution to nothing.

He didn't need vetting to tell him that Mandelson was a toxic little creep who should not have been anywhere near public office based on his well publicised past failings.

Maybe he should join the Greens?

Unless one of your courses is jugged hair.

It really shouldn't have been a surprise to Starmer that Mandelson was unfit for public office. Even without the Epstein links, Mandy has spent his entire career showing us all exactly who he was.

Not a resignation issue for me though.

I didn't need to know about Mandelson's Epstein links to know that he was fundamentally unfit for high office. It may not be a resignation matter but Starmer showed a profound lack of judgement in considering him for the post in the first place

His character failings and past conduct should have excluded him from consideration for government office. Even if you take the Epstein conduct out of the equation, he was not a fit person for the role.

The optics are awful but I can't convince myself that it's a resignation matter.
This is well down the list of things he's done to piss me off.

It is ridiculous that he's put himself in this position. Whether or not he knew of Mandelson's failed vetting, he should not have put him forward. Mandelson's serious character flaws have been a matter of record for years.

That said, I don't believe it to be a resignation matter

Agreed, but I do believe that if serious measures are put in place to address inequality, improving growth won't be enough.
Because of growing inequality any GDP increase will be swallowed up by the rich while the rest of us get poorer.

Attempts by governing parties to appease Farage supporters has delivered Brexit and Labour being hamstring by stupid red lines.

This is simply not true. Labour didn’t have to go right. They *chose* to go right. The big majority was a chance to reset everything back to sanity. Starmer chose the mad, bigoted, ignorant and dishonest route instead.

It required somebody to give McSweeney the level of influence that he had. That somebody was Starmer. Sacking McSw doesn't get him off the hook imo.

I agree. I think they have peaked and are on will struggle to maintain their current standing.

Have you made the traditional visit to Waterstones to berate them for not having your book on display, when you are actually looking in the wrong place?

There's a huge amount of money put into media projecting immigration bad, welfare state bad, trickle down economics good etc. understandable that a lot of people are taken in.

Trump is out there spouting crazy 24/7. He has reneged on every policy that got him elected, but still his base loves him.

She no doubt has a plan that involves boosting the economy by handing billions of pounds to the banks that they will then keep

I don't get downhearted at Trump's stupidity. I get downhearted that he still has an approval rating of nearly 40%.

If it was 4% I would be asking "Who the hell are these people?" but 40% is mind blowing.

A constitution is only as good as the people who uphold it.

Their support band was Tofu Eating Wokerati.

A top night.

Me neither. Usually during these days.

Normally when a party does well in council elections it leads on to greater success in a GE.

With Reform however, it shines a light on what an incompetent, corrupt and hideously awful bunch it's members are