bickster

From what I'm reading its nothing that clever. See the translation from a DPR Blogger, most of them were listed in the Minsk Agreement in 2015

So I suppose the big question is, will Johnson endorse anyone? I think Truss appears, on first impressions of the article above, to be positioning herself as a potential continuity candidate and not even at the bitter end did she criticise Johnson. So is she Big Dog's Bitch and will that do her any good in terms of the election? I do hope so

Which is exactly what I did

So Truss.... from tomorrows Mail on Sunday Plenty more where that came from. MoS

My other purchase of the day Various – Silberland Vol 1: The Psychedelic Side of Kosmische Musik

Bought this today, no lyric sheet in mine though but as Cornish isn't one of my languages I'll live. Got the poster just no lyrics FIrst listen and it's very nice and right up one of my streets

Can't even storm out of an interview properly. He's positively useless at public speaking All those red wall Tories that want tax cuts, aren't getting them from Sunak As pointed out above he's also the easiest to attack The money (out of touch with the common man), the green card, the fine, he's also easily linked with partygate and Boris.

Kemi Badenoch has joined the leadership race Yep, thats 99.9% of the population with a puzzled look She wants a limited government and to tell the truth I somehow don't think she's on board with the programme here

Andrea Jenkins giving the opposition a photo opportunity for any future election

Lots of videos of Ammo dumps blowing up overnight (inc everyones favourite Chornobayivka - 25th time now is the median guess) Apparently thats 20 ammo dumps destroyed in the last 3 weeks Here's one of the videos, a couple more in the thread below it https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1545308441299779584?s=20&t=ck-wT5TUqEQ2hCGfqjjZuA

I doubt they have that much sway over Tory MPs (They will over the membership). There's a lot to play for and lots of twists and turns yet. We don't even know the full list of candidates even. Sunak not even guaranteed to get to the final 2 It looks like Braverman will be the ERG candidate, Baker announcing he's not standing because she is

I'm not sure he has many skeletons tbh

This is the Labour Party you're talking about, there's no way they'd give the Leader that much power to choose the order of the list.

He's not even sure if he wants the job as he values his family life

This may happen much further into the future but absolutely wouldn't happen straight away. I'm not sure it ever would. The Labour brand is so strong the fight to own it would go on forever (much like now) You're also ignoring the sense of ownership of the party from the Unions and it’s members

The price lowering is creeping downward and becoming more widespread though

This bit I agree with. But imagine we had a PR List electoral system You still wouldn't be voting for a Prime Minister, you'd be voting for a Party unlike now where you vote for a specific MP of that party in your area The exact same thing could and would happen (though it would be less likely I think) Then look at the Presidential system (it doesn't have to be the American one), if you vote in a President for 4 or 5 years, you are stuck with him or her, regardless of how they are doing. Under our system, the party can act (as we've seen) to remove the PM. Even under the Presidential System, there is also usually a Prime Minister and the big question is how much power do you give to each. (that varies a lot)

He really isn't. In terms of what he'd do for the average voter Sunak is much much worse than Johnson

193.9 I got some diesel at yesterday, saw ASDA was 195.8 tonight. Definitely the signs of a downturn in pump prices

What you’re actually witnessing there is a classic left v left battle. The RMT isn’t a Labour Party Union. It has its own party TUSC which it formed with The Socialist Party and a few other small hard left parties. It’s essentially a Trotskyite Party. A coalition of Unions (NUT, RMT, FBU etc) and The Socialist Party. It’s a classic Trotskyite campaigning tool where they appear to be a large number of leftist organisations working together but in reality it’s The Socialist Party. The Socialist Party is one half of the split in the Militant Tendency, the half that didn’t want to be entryist. Because of who the RMT is run by, it would be absolutely mana from heaven for the right wing media if Labour supported that strike. It would undo all the decorbynisation that the party has done in an attempt to make it electable. I suspect that the Labour Party has a great deal of sympathy for the rail workers but it would be electoral suicide if they backed the strike. They seem to have taken the option to distance themselves from it for the greater good. Pragmatism over principals if you like. A sacrifice for the greater good. It’s just another Life of Brian moment in UK left politics (or to be honest left politics the world over)

I have loads of Independent label ones. I’m a big fan of the label sampler

Obviously PR would be better than this for democracy but you’d still have the same Prime Ministerial situation. It took the Tories far far too long but eventually they did force Johnson out. That is this type of democracy in action. The alternative is the Presidential model and I just think that is much much worse. There’s an awful lot wrong with our democracy but personally I don’t think the Presidential model is a move I’d be in favour of. As a republican, I also realise we need a head of state and that’s where I become conflicted because ultimately that does lean to a presidential model

No, they elect the leader of their paty and as much as that is de facto the same thing, it is an important distinction This is why Johnson is still PM and not party leader. The Queen invited him to be her Prime Minister and as much as you and I don't like that, it currently is what it is.

Also, if you remember he was apparently "persuaded" not to resign around that time

We don't elect Prime Ministers, we live in a Parliamentary Democracy. A Political Party changing it's leader mid-term is a perfectly normal thing in such a system It is something the electorate need to take into account when they vote for their local candidate It wouldn't change under PR either. You'd need to change to a Presidential model to do that. Just think about that. Johnson would have had an electoral mandate to stay on. His party couldn't have removed him