Had a laugh at this earlier. Pity it never went on a bit longer

Chez, do not underestimate the bants.

Big fan of humour both for itself and it's power. I need a good joke about how humour has moved from being a powerful way to achieve political ends to becoming a powerful way to achieve losing it all.

Were amusing ourselves to death but that joke isn't funny anymore. At least we have a soundtrack.

Knock Knock
Who's There?
Jeremy Corbyn
**** off.

Knock Knock
Who's There?
Kier Starmer
Who's There?

Knock knock
Who's there?
A gigantic turd
Go away diebitter

Hard to say how much I loathe the encroachment of football-moron bantz "culture" into serious political debate at PMQ when neo-Nazis are on the rise and so much is at stake.

I'd be more than fine with the humour if it went with some policies

Sturgeon's husband has been rearrested today.

Oh dear. How very unfortunate.

Per Ipsos Mori poll for the Evening Standard, Sunak now has an approval rating of -59, the same as John Major in 1994 and one point above Jeremy Corbyn's -60 nadir in 2019. The Tories are on 19% (one point down since February) and Labour on 44% (three points down), still giving Labour a 25-point lead. In 1997, Labour had a 26-point lead. However, Tony Blair had a +22 approval rating. Sir Keir, by contrast, is at -31, comparable to election-losers William Hague and Ed Miliband, who scored -32 and -34 at a similar pre-election stage in their leaderships. This is his lowest rating since he took the leadership, and downslides like that tend to carry on. Sir Keir still has an advantage of 44% to 22% over Sunak as 'most capable PM', close to the overall party standings, but seemingly that is not saying much, it is merely the choice that is on offer. Obviously a party with shouty property-flipper Angela Rayner as deputy leader is not entirely credible.

The Tories appear to be facing a 1997 wipeout or worse, with scores of Tory MPs not wanting to stand again, even though nobody seems to rate Labour much either, so it's likely to be a landslide by default, which is slightly weird. But this would account for the Labour leadership's determination not to announce anything that might put anyone off (although in my case, with the proposed fringe-dogma hate-crime and conversion-practices bills -- representing a strange ideology that the Cass Review has just destroyed -- they have already done that, and they are perhaps fortunate that the wider electorate haven't noticed yet).

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-b1152297.html

He's been charged now

Yes, and after nine hours' questioning, though he's not being held in custody. They haven't said what the exact charges are and they may have referred several charges to prosecutors who will decide which if any to proceed with. It always did seem a bit previous of SNP fans to crow that Murrell and Sturgeon were 'released without charge' at an earlier stage, as if that were the end of the matter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68850088

It's always been bizarre that it was somehow accepted as being okay having Sturgeon as FM and her husband running the SNP. There's no way that would be acceptable for the UK government and there'd be a definite outcry about it. It's yet another example of how dysfunctional politics have been up here for years.

In other news the SNP have ditched some of their climate targets. I was listening to a climate campaigner a few weeks ago who actually pointed out there is a strange situation where the Conservatives, or Sunak specifically, seem to speak against taking action on climate change while quietly doing things in the background that are actually effective (I can't remember the examples he gave), whereas it's the opposite with the SNP as they speak out about taking action against climate change but their actual actions show that isn't the case. It was very damning and it's therefore not surprising when yesterday's announcement was made.