Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[SteveM70]

Andrea Jenkyns and even Liz Truss to defect to Reform anybody? Both attended Farage's 60th spawnday yesterday!

They'll go where the money is

 

[ainsworth74]

The poll published in Easter Sunday's Sunday Times conducted by Survation was done on a more detailed seat-by-seat analysis, which not only had just 98 Tory seats retained but only 22 for the LibDems.

To be fair so was YouGov's, they were both MRP polls (the sort that get into nitty gritty analysis), but obviously they have different methodologies hence the different results. But they are both done using the "gold standard" style of analysis.

 

[edwin_m]

Voter ID is a form of gerrymandering

Strictly speaking it isn't, though it was described as such by none other than Jacob Rees-Mogg. Gerrymandering is the practice of adjusting boundaries to give an advantage to one party by giving them a small majority in many areas rather than a big majority in a few. At times of major swing like today, it could backfire on the people who engineered it, as those slight majorities might disappear.

Senior Conservative party officials worked on plans to hand over its entire membership database for a commercial venture that promised to make tens of millions of pounds, the Guardian can reveal.

Leaked documents show Tory executives discussed exploiting members’ personal data to build a mobile phone app that could track users’ locations and allow big brands to advertise to Conservative supporters. The party would take a cut of sales.

The project was considered over several months last year, with the aim of launching the “True Blue” app in time for the party’s conference in October.

The idea was developed by the boss of a cryptocurrency firm with a string of failed businesses behind him. Yet senior Conservative officials appeared so captivated by the plan that they prepared to provide the party’s database of members in order to move the proposal forward.

What types of business would choose to advertise to Conservatives? Answers on a postcard, which won't get delivered.

 

[nw1]

I don't think it's an either/or tbh

Indeed. Prioritising allowing people to vote seems pretty urgent if you ask me.

Strictly speaking it isn't, though it was described as such by none other than Jacob Rees-Mogg. Gerrymandering is the practice of adjusting boundaries to give an advantage to one party by giving them a small majority in many areas rather than a big majority in a few. At times of major swing like today, it could backfire on the people who engineered it, as those slight majorities might disappear.

Reading West is a good example. Boundaries adjusted to include a large swathe of Tory-voting rural areas and (I think) to drop the western part of central Reading, which will now be part of the Reading Central seat.

Result: a likely Tory hold of the constituency (now probably renamed Reading Far West and Gerimander-on-Thames) when it would have been an almost certain Labour gain had it not been interfered with.

 

[nr758123]

What types of business would choose to advertise to Conservatives?

Businesses whose products are aimed at, shall we say, the older demographic?

 

[Typhoon]

Businesses whose products are aimed at, shall we say, the older demographic?

I can guess - because of the area where I live, the sort of junk mail we get through the door - care homes (two already this week), lifts ('a real lift, not a stair lift' - they are all bungalows in the road), some celebrity doctor advertising walk in showers, getting 'the send-off you really want' (I won't have much of an interest), doubtless over 50's life insurance. If so they might find that it backfires, no-one I know is interested. If I'm in the front garden, I pointedly put the junk mail straight into the recycling!

They might just find that quite a few of the members simply delete the app.

 

[birchesgreen]

I did think this was a parody but then i actually saw it on the Tory twitter account, wow.

 

[najaB]

I did think this was a parody but then i actually saw it on the Tory twitter account, wow.

Shh... nobody tell them about China!

 

[birchesgreen]

Shh... nobody tell them about China!

Well it gave the Princess of Wales a chance to practice her Photoshop skills.

 

[ainsworth74]

I did think this was a parody but then i actually saw it on the Tory twitter account, wow.

View attachment 155773

Wish they'd make their mind up! The other week they were telling us that Britain (London in particular but they targeted other cities) was as crime ridden hell hole! So which is it?!

 

[SteveM70]

What types of business would choose to advertise to Conservatives? Answers on a postcard, which won't get delivered.

Flag manufacturers

(Traditional styles only and the bigger the better)

 

[brad465]

How long before this leads to a by-election:

William Wragg: MP tells paper he is sorry for sharing private phone numbers

MP William Wragg tells The Times he was "scared" a man he met on Grindr had "compromising things on me".

www.bbc.co.uk

A senior Tory has told the Times he gave the personal numbers of fellow MPs to someone he met on a dating app.
William Wragg told the paper he shared the contacts, adding he was "scared" the individual had "compromising things on me".
He apologised and said he had "hurt people by being weak".
It comes amid reports that at least 12 men in Westminster have received unsolicited texts and naked pictures.
One ex-MP has told the BBC he was targeted as part of the suspected honeytrap attempt.
A Leicestershire Police spokesperson said they were investigating one of the cases, which was reported last month.
The BBC has attempted to contact Mr Wragg for comment.

'Manipulated'​

Speaking to the Times, the vice chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs said he had sent intimate pictures of himself to a man he met on gay dating app Grindr.
"They had compromising things on me. They wouldn't leave me alone.
"They would ask for people. I gave them some numbers, not all of them. I told him to stop. He's manipulated me and now I've hurt other people.
"I got chatting to a guy on an app and we exchanged pictures. We were meant to meet up for drinks, but then didn't. Then he started asking for numbers of people. I was worried because he had stuff on me. He gave me a WhatsApp number, which doesn't work now.
"I've hurt people by being weak. I was scared. I'm mortified. I'm so sorry that my weakness has caused other people hurt."
Mr Wragg became an MP for the Greater Manchester constituency of Hazel Grove in 2015
In 2022, he announced he would not be running in the next election.

'Familiarity'​

On Thursday one former MP told the BBC of his shock at being targeted with flirtatious messages and an explicit image in an apparently coordinated scam.
The ex-politician blocked the WhatsApp number from someone calling themselves "Charlie".
But it was only after he read a story on the news website Politico that he realised he had been the subject of an attempted honeytrap.
"My heart did start racing because I thought everything you're saying from the start, from the name of the individual, the familiarity, this is too close to be just a coincidence," the former MP told the BBC.
Twelve men have contacted Politico to say they had received near-identical messages to the one received by the ex-MP or similar messages from another number. Several of the 12 were sent naked pictures in an attempt to entrap them.
The former MP, who is gay, told the BBC he was first contacted via WhatsApp on the evening of 11 March.
The message was from a number he did not recognise from someone calling themselves Charlie who claimed to remember them from their time working in Parliament.
"The last part of that message was 'Westminster misses you…' and that was basically something that friends usually do say anyway to make me feel better," he told BBC News.
"I was starting to feel bad actually. I was embarrassed thinking I'm speaking to someone who knows who I am and I'm trying desperately not to come across as rude."
The next message said: "I've just become single so I'm hanging out with the Westminster gays."
The former MP explained he was in a relationship but further flirtatious messages followed.
After "Charlie" sent an explicit image, the former MP blocked him.

 

[Thirteen]

Wragg is an idiot for using Grindr in the first place given his profile as a MP but I'm not sure if there is any point of a by election since he's not standing again and it'd be easier to just wait.

 

[Strathclyder]

Wish they'd make their mind up! The other week they were telling us that Britain (London in particular but they targeted other cities) was as crime ridden hell hole! So which is it?!

Expecting them to be consistent with their messaging is like expecting the sun to rise in the west in the morning: never gonna happen.

How long before this leads to a by-election:

William Wragg: MP tells paper he is sorry for sharing private phone numbers

MP William Wragg tells The Times he was "scared" a man he met on Grindr had "compromising things on me".

www.bbc.co.uk

No point in holding one if he's not running again, best to just sit back and wait until the general. Either way, given his profile as a MP, what did he expect would happen if he used Grindr? Idiot.

 

[nw1]

I did think this was a parody but then i actually saw it on the Tory twitter account, wow.

View attachment 155773

Second most powerful country in the world?

So not behind the USA, China, Russia (rightly or wrongly), Germany, and Japan, at the very least?

Also, did the England football team ask to be included in Tory propaganda? If any of them don't support the Tories, I'd hope they are consulting their lawyers now.

How long before this leads to a by-election:

William Wragg: MP tells paper he is sorry for sharing private phone numbers

MP William Wragg tells The Times he was "scared" a man he met on Grindr had "compromising things on me".

www.bbc.co.uk

Hopefully no by-election, because the general election will come first...

 

[gg1]

I did think this was a parody but then i actually saw it on the Tory twitter account, wow.

View attachment 155773

Interesting choice of images to show 'The UK is as strong as ever':

A football team who haven't won anything for 58 years
A man who lost an election to Liz Truss
A (presumably UK made) car, Britain currently ranks 18th in global car production, behind Iran, Slovakia and Thailand.
An aerial display team who's days as world leaders are long since past

 

[nw1]

Andrea Jenkyns and even Liz Truss to defect to Reform anybody? Both attended Farage's 60th spawnday yesterday!

The rightwards movement of Truss, which has been going on most of her life, continues, it appears...

 

[Gloster]

Interesting choice of images to show 'The UK is as strong as ever':

A football team who haven't won anything for 58 years
A man who lost an election to Liz Truss
A (presumably UK made) car, Britain currently ranks 18th in global car production, behind Iran, Slovakia and Thailand.
An aerial display team who's days as world leaders are long since past

Did we build the aircraft?
Are the ships exporting British-made goods to the world or bringing stuff in?
The cranes are probably German.

And Liz Truss was beaten by a lettuce.

 

[birchesgreen]

Interesting choice of images to show 'The UK is as strong as ever':

A football team who haven't won anything for 58 years
A man who lost an election to Liz Truss
A (presumably UK made) car, Britain currently ranks 18th in global car production, behind Iran, Slovakia and Thailand.
An aerial display team who's days as world leaders are long since past

An American jet fighter and a Swiss-Italian shipping company.

 

[ainsworth74]

An American jet fighter and a Swiss-Italian shipping company.

In fairness the F-35 has a reasonable amount of UK content due to the distributed nature of the manufacturing process (as does the Typhoon which also features).

Ad is still garbage though overall to be clear!

 

[gg1]

An American jet fighter and a Swiss-Italian shipping company.

To be fair the Typhoon is partially built in Britain as part of a multinational consortium. The project is a fine example of the benefits of close co-operation between European nations, something else the UK used to do well in the past.

 

[birchesgreen]

To be fair the Typhoon is partially built in Britain as part of a multinational consortium. The project is a fine example of the benefits of close co-operation between European nations, something else the UK used to do well in the past.

I was referring to the JSF not the Typhoon, which is why i said jet fighter not jet fighters.

But anyway nothing is 100% from a single country these days.

 

[ainsworth74]

To be fair the Typhoon is partially built in Britain as part of a multinational consortium.

So is the F-35!

 

[YorkRailFan]

How long before this leads to a by-election:

No need, he's standing down at the next general election and the Whip is being kept.

 

[gg1]

I was referring to the JSF not the Typhoon, which is why i said jet fighter not jet fighters.

Yes I gathered that, I just wanted to get in a sideways blow directed at Brexit

 

[birchesgreen]

Yes I gathered that, I just wanted to get in a sideways blow directed at Brexit

Well thats always fine

 

[nw1]

Well thats always fine

Indeed. When it comes to value of our passport, we are of course only 28th (at best) in Europe, with FoM to just one other country.

Not sure if the Serbian or Albanian passports, for example, are better in that respect - if so, then we're below them!

 

[Busaholic]

To be fair so was YouGov's, they were both MRP polls (the sort that get into nitty gritty analysis), but obviously they have different methodologies hence the different results. But they are both done using the "gold standard" style of analysis.

Sorry, I realised about half an hour after posting that was the case. Interestingly, the YouGov one wasn't commissioned by anyone, whereas I think the Survation one was produced on behalf of a Tory splinter group - I've thrown the paper away now and can't find anything online.

 

[Richard Scott]

Indeed. When it comes to value of our passport, we are of course only 28th (at best) in Europe, with FoM to just one other country.

Not sure if the Serbian or Albanian passports, for example, are better in that respect - if so, then we're below them!

No, both have border controls as do a number of countries around there.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Indeed. When it comes to value of our passport, we are of course only 28th (at best) in Europe, with FoM to just one other country.

If you're choosing to value the passport by how many countries it gives you FOM to live in without applying for a visa first, then you're talking about its value to only a tiny minority of people. The vast majority of people use their passports simply to go on short holiday or business trips abroad, and for those people, the British passport remains of very similar value in Europe to a passport from most EU countries, since it still gives comparable freedom to make those trips.

And in international terms, the UK passport remains much more 'valuable' than passports from the majority of countries, in terms of giving easy access to visiting a large number of countries across the World.