Hotblack

@hotblack.bsky.social

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Spending the year dead for tax reasons….
(mainly people pretending they can cut them without cutting services)

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On the history of Thiel and Vance and what it could mean for US tech policy and fundraising for the GoP

The tech billionaire fueling J.D. Vance’s political rise — POLITICO Techovercast.fm In just over a decade, Republican J.D. Vance has risen from law school graduate to best-selling author to U.S. senator to vice presidential nominee. And fueling the ascent has been tech billionaire Pe...

Is downfall the natural successor to exceptionalism? Anything we build, including democracy, has unstable foundations. It isn’t a right and doesn’t exist because we are special, but because we got lucky and continually work to prop it up. If we forget that and become complacent it may collapse.

Thought for the day: you won’t make the world a better place by being unpleasant to people

Well worth a listen for anyone interested in or commenting on what happens if Biden drops out

How to win an open convention — if Joe Biden drops out — Playbook Deep Diveovercast.fm Elaine Kamarck is a longtime member of the DNC’s rules committee, a scholar at Brookings, a former advisor to top Democrats such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Walter Mondale; and author of “Primary Po...

Good discussion on Britain’s place in the world, the damage done to it by Tory policy and opportunities for Labour

Isabel Hilton: Will Britain rejoin the world? — The Prospect Podcastovercast.fm In the post-Brexit years, Britian has become increasingly irrelevant on the global stage. After Thursday’s historic election, what can Keir Starmer and David Lammy do to put it back on the map? Senior...

Someone in charge who people seem to dislike, think is boring and love to criticise while they are quietly and effectively getting on with the job and bringing long sought after results. Southgate/Starmer

Starmer really was playing the long game wasn’t he? Becoming PM just to get tickets to an England Euros final is commitment.

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The ICO has issued an Enforcement Notice to the MetPolice due to its persistent failure to meet legal FOI deadlines. The ICO has now taken action against 10 of the 44 police forces in E&W&NI, 23% of them, due to non-compliance with FOI. For a sector meant to uphold the law, this record is appalling.

The gall of Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge to say that Starmer not setting a date for defence spending reaching 2.5% of GDP will be "damaging for the armed forces". It was the Tories that damaged our armed forces when they slashed defence spending during austerity.

Also note that it was the Tories that cut defence spending by 20% in the first place: “Real terms defence spending fell between 2009/10 and 2016/17 from £57.0 billion to £44.5 billion in today’s prices, before starting to increase again to nearer its 2010 levels.”

UK defence spendingcommonslibrary.parliament.uk This paper summarises UK defence expenditure (current, historic and planned), international comparisons of defence expenditure of NATO allies, and the financial cost of UK military operations.

“Jeremy said the advice from Treasury officials was that he would not have been able to deliver tax cuts in the autumn” Here’s the admission Labour needed. Next back it up with the Treasury review Reeves has started. Then attack, attack, attack.

Badenoch attacks Sunak over Tory election defeatwww.ft.com Stormy shadow cabinet meeting comes as MPs gather at Westminster for the first time since the snap election

“Larry the Cat remains and has now set a record as the first chief mouser to have had six prime ministers serving under him. Larry beats Peter III, who was appointed in 1947 after Peter II was hit by a car in Whitehall, and lived until 1964.”

Larry the Cat is staying purr in Downing Stwww.thetimes.com While there has been a clear-out in Downing Street, Larry the Cat remains and has now set a record as the first chief mouser to have had six prime ministers serving under him. Larry beats Peter III

They may have both lost but they sure look like winners to me

“Tory MP Mark Francois is furious..” That’s not news is it? "The 1922 competency levels have reached a new low, which is not saying something. This was bent!” The BBC is reporting that the whips sent out incorrect timings so he turned up late and couldn’t vote.

More positive, they’re looking for the phrase “Briton’s more positive about Starmer’s majority than they were about Johnson’s”

They both look happier in their new roles than I’ve seen for many months…

A good piece on the significance of the Lib Dems return

itcouldbesaid.substack.com/p/it-could-b... One of the big stories of the general elections is the Liberal Democrats storming across Tory England to secure 72 seats. They are suddenly a larger, more coherent party than they ever were during the noughties. The possible prizes this unlocks are large!

It Could Be Said #55 Good Enemies, Better Friendsitcouldbesaid.substack.com British Liberalism and Labourism are prone to bickering, but together, they make for a powerful tag team

Labour talks about spending 28 billion a year on green infrastructure and the right press wing go nuts. Now they’re going nuts that Labour isn’t immediately spending an extra 15-17 billion on defence.

“It is understood Lord Cameron felt it was important that given David Lammy as foreign secretary in the Commons, the shadow should also be a Member of Parliament.” I call BS. He’s whistling while strolling off and leaving behind a mess just as he has before

Missing the UK General Election already? Here’s a brilliant album of photos from Stefan Rousseau

General Election 2024stefanrousseau.com by Stefan Rousseau

Would it be fair to say polls (in the UK and in France) have been good at saying who people would vote for theoretically. But less good at predicting what they will do practically and tactically to keep out/kick out the right?

Thoughtful and insightful context on the election and its historical context from David Runciman and Robert Saunders. You won’t know what will come next but you will understand what’s happened better. Can’t recommend this enough.

UK General Elections: 2024 — Past Present Futureovercast.fm To wrap up our series David and Robert attempt some instant history on the election result that’s just happened: in some ways predictable, in others utterly remarkable. What does such a big win for La...

Interesting thread!

After going through @samfr.bsky.social 's seat profiles I checked this morning which think tankers managed to get elected last night. The 10 I've found so far are: 1. Anna Dixon LAB Center for Aging better - Shipley 2. Kanishka Narayan LAB Centre for Cities -Vale of Glamorgan

Farage, Tice, Anderson and the other two will now have to vote on bills and have those votes recorded and visible to their electorate. Will they all vote the same way? What will people think of their decisions? This along with constituency work will be new to Farage.

Many here will have already seen initial post election analysis from @samfr.bsky.social but this is a really good listen from him and Ayesha Hazarika

Anatomy of an Election: are Labour prepared for the challenges of power? — The Power Testovercast.fm July 4th, 2024: the date that Labour returned to power. After 14 years in the political wilderness, Keir Starmer has led the party to a landslide victory. With the keys to No.10 Downing Street in his ...

But remember, it’s the Labour support that is shallow apparently…

Just a little number crunching via Sunder Katwala: The LibDems (on 12%) have 18 seats where they won 50% or more of the vote. The Conservatives (on 24%) have just 1 seat where they won 50% Labour have 70+ such seats.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but thank you for the great Audio Descriptions on the Doctor Who episodes on iPlayer

Representation is close: 13.7% of MPs come from an ethnic minority background compared to an estimate of 14% for the UK electorate

89 ethnic minority MPs after the biggest ever increase at one election www.britishfuture.org/milestone-fo...

Landmark for representation as diversity of parliament nears that of electorate - British Futurewww.britishfuture.org A record number of 89 ethnic minority MPs have been elected in the 2024 general election, to sit in the UK’s most diverse parliament ever.

Is turnout low? Yes, at 60% it is. But it is similar to 2001 and 2005. And 2010 was only 65% and that didn’t stop the Tories from claiming a mandate for dramatic change. No election since 1997 has reached 70%.

Summary of Starmer’s press conference: “Hello, I’m a grown up, I’m used to managing teams to get things done, here’s what’s we’ve been doing.” He sounded much more natural and at home doing this than campaigning. This is more what his career and experience has been and it shows.

Braverman talking about the huge waste of time, money and legislation on the Rwanda scheme… being because Starmer has canned the non-project. Get ready for many many more Tory failures being piled onto Labour.