funny story today about warrington council refusing to give their auditors the financial information needed to complete their audit*

this is another of those councils who racked up billions of debt secured against future council tax receipts and handed it to people who look like this:



in the latest fiasco, a member of warrington council described a monaco-based hedge fund manager, who recieved tens of millions of pounds of warrington council money (and who blew through it with dodgy SPACs and 2 + 20 fee arrangements), as 'the lionel messi of investing'

now i can quite understand why a bunch of retired policemen and teachers fancy spending their dotage playing investment tycoon with billions of pounds of local council borrowings, i mean it sounds like great fun, but can someone please kindly request that they stop doing it

*of the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2019. they are five years behind schedule.

No surprise that the disreputable authoritarian Goodwin who claimed to be an independent pollster should do this.

Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt called him a radish (red only the outside) and said, 'I am not about to defect to the opposition benches. They wouldn't be interested in me, I'm too left wing,' which was quite smart.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-b1156672.html

I did think, on account of earlier reports, that Mordaunt, despite her Sword Lady cachet, was irrelevant because she'd lose her seat at the GE, but it now appears from local polling that she may be one of the few select Tory survivors of the upcoming apocalypse.

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/po...ection-4611588

Kemi Badenoch might hold on in Saffron Walden as well. Could be quite an interesting Tory leadership contest, though it'll remain pretty academic until the presumed Labour government's wheels come off, and we don't know how soon that might be. Reform UK replacing the Tories looks a stretch at the moment.

The GE could make the SNP's position at Holyrood look a bit anomalous until the ScotParl elections in a year's time.

I don't think that republicanism is on a downer. Nationalist parties are still in power in all 3 devolved nations. When people see what Starmer's vision really is, it will become clear that Westminster is irreparably broken. Independence will be the only way to escape the insanity.

It’s clearly on a downer in Scotland at the very least. I can definitely see it roaring right back if the Starmer government proves unpopular.

The SNP are definitely on a downer in Scotland. They're also onto their 3rd leader in the past year and a half.

No, Wales has a minority Labour government (which is not nationalist). NI is joint Sinn Fein-DUP. (The DUP is not nationalist.) The minority SNP nationalist government in Scotland may be coming to the end of its lease for the time being.

Another corrupt, fascist **** about to join Labour.

They torched a fortune on an energy company too, the people of Warrington must have been so thrilled.

Creep pseudo-pollster cited by a deplorable here talking about "National citizens"