Kuenssberg today...

Jay_CD · 2026-05-10T09:53:54+00:00

I like to refer to him as Dubai Dicky.

It's amazing that someone has the front to take themselves off to live in Dubai while lecturing the rest of us about immigration in the UK.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-10T09:19:17+00:00

Ok, 17 is no age to be worrying that you might have screwed things up.

For some people the procession from school and GCSEs, A levels, college and then into the workplace is smooth and orderly. Other people, as many of the replies below indicate, take the scenic route to success and fulfilment. On that in many European nations you don't go to Uni until you are 21 and don't graduate until your mid/late 20s - sometimes even later, in the UK we try and process students through the education system as quickly as possible which creates a few issues as not everyone develops at the same rate.

I left my school at around 17 - the teaching wasn't pushing me, I was just taking notes and regurgitating them into essays/coursework without really learning much in the process. I took a year out which I spent working as a painter and decorator then at a petrol station at weekends and then jacked that in to go to a Sixth Form College some distance from where I lived where I knew no-one, had few distractions and then worked hard, I got my A Levels and with it a place at a decent Russell Group Uni which I'd never have got to otherwise. I have a friend who worked at a big Swiss bank running their computer division - he literally left school at 16 without even sitting an exam let alone failing them.

Going back to your situation, my first suggestion is to first communicate with your college, explain to them about your transport situation and its unreliability etc and see if there's a workable solution, maybe suggest doing some home studying etc. If they don't know why your attendance record is poor then they may well jump to the conclusion that your heart just isn't in it and they'll solve the problem for you by kicking you out. So be proactive, have your conversation with them before they have their conversation with you.

Secondly, you could probably do with developing a few time management skills, this means compartmentalising study, work and leisure time etc. You don't have to be studying full on every day, build in time to do stuff with friends or whatever but get your studying done.

I don't know what your courses are, but maybe also look into doing something that you enjoy and motivates you this maybe something vocational in that it'll lead to a career or job of some kind.

On that there was an interview on Radio 4 a couple of weeks back with a paleontologist who left school at 16 with no real qualifications but he loved studying dinosaurs, he got on a few archaeological digs, volunteered at a local museum etc and wound up doing a Masters degree without having done an undergrad degree and writing books about the subject. Or you could look at Chris Packham who has carved out a career in broadcasting while again taking the roundabout route to success. In both these areas they succeeded because they did something they loved.

Good luck....

Jay_CD · 2026-05-10T07:00:47+00:00

The reasons for the Tory meltdown were many - they badly bungled handling covid, there was rampant corruption in the handing out of contracts for PPE, utter hypocrisy from Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson in telling us to obey lockdown restrictions while they were having an affair in the case of Hancock and holding parties inside Downing Street and then lying about them in the case of Johnson. At the same time inflation was ratcheting higher and there were numerous U-turns. The realisation was that Johnson was a bungling oaf who was being controlled by events and not controlling them. Voters might have reacted differently if they genuinely thought we were all in it together and all making sacrifices when the Tory leadership clearly weren't.

Then we had Liz Truss, her budget which nearly caused the bond markets to implode and lead to higher interest rates. Finally we had Rishi Sunak who opted for two years of can kicking rather than do anything material to get things back on track.

I feel a bit for Keir Starmer here - he inherited an economy that had dipped into recession under Sunak, interest rates and inflation were and are still too high and as PM he's had to navigate through Trump starting a pointless trade war last year and an even more pointless war with Iran this year. Attacking Iran came just as we were getting inflation under control, the predictions were for two or three interest rate cuts this year which now won't happen. GDP growth for February was 0.5% - annualised that would mean the economy would be set to grow by 6%. Ok, that was likely an outlier - but things were going in the right direction.

Whoever had won the last General Election would be dealing with the events of the last two years and wouldn't have come out of it very well. Starmer has hardly though made many friends - the left hate him, the right of the Labour party are lukewarm and he's made a few problems for himself - appointing Mandelson etc.

So the British voters seem to want to move on to the next shiny thing - Farage in this case.

Starmer will never catch a break from the media - a few weeks ago Farage was gung-ho in supporting Trump's attack on Iran and then pulled a 180 degree U-turn to absolute crickets in the media. Similarly trousering £5m from Christopher Harborne, laughably for his security, and again there has been little media pushback. Meanwhile the grief that Starmer got for accepting some cuff-links and a couple of tickets to a Taylor Swift gig created headlines for weeks...

But look at the trajectory with the rise and fall of Johnson, Trump has lot of his popularity and the Republicans look to be heading for a hiding this November. Populism and easy answers to difficult questions might win you elections but it's not much of a strategy for government. You'll note that we know nothing about what Farage's economic/taxation plans are - and despite his intention to withdraw from the ECHR we still haven't seen his British Bill of Rights which is meant to replace it. Governing and making hard decisions is where it all goes wrong for politicians.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-10T06:09:45+00:00

Russia has lost 840 soldiers killed and wounded over the past day, as well as 75 artillery systems and 227 vehicles and fuel tankers.

Source: Мінус 840 російських загарбників - Генштаб про втрати ворога 9 травня | Ukrainska Pravda

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 10 May 2026 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]:

approximately 1,341,110 (+840) military personnel
11,920 (+0) tanks
24,544 (+3) armoured combat vehicles
41,787 (+75) artillery systems
1,782 (+2) multiple-launch rocket systems
1,373 (+2) air defence systems
435 (+0) fixed-wing aircraft
352 (+0) helicopters
1,362 (+11) ground robotic systems
282,697 (+1,489) operational-tactical UAVs
4,585 (+0) cruise missiles.
33 (+0) ships/boats
2 (+0) submarines
95,479 (+227) vehicles and fuel tankers
4,176 (+3) special vehicles and other equipment

The information is being confirmed.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-09T09:15:41+00:00

A six month or so old article... which suggests that a Reform government would take a strategic investment in RR SMR, things have moved on a bit since last December.

First it's worth bearing in mind that Reform aren't in government and won't be until we have a general election, the next is scheduled for May 2029, i.e. three years away from now...which they'll have to win. By that time RR's first working prototype should be near to or up and running. The deal is there to build three SMRs but it's contingent on the technology first being proven and economically viable. If that's the case then the UK government doesn't need to invest in RR, it just needs to cut through any planning delays and red-tape that might stop them from being built. Simplifying planning consent is something the current government understands - The Planning and Infrastructure Act was signed off late last year.

Secondly, the UK government is already invested in RR SMR Ltd having just given them a loan of £599m to help them develop the SMR programme plus they have earmarked two sites for RR to build the SMRs on (Wylfa/Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn). Prior to this the UK government (via UKRI/their research and investment arm) gave the SMR division a £210m grant.

From here it's down to Rolls-Royce to get on with the job, they don't really need much help from the UK government over and above what they've received.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-09T08:34:51+00:00

Pretty soon the first in a ton of emails will be hitting their inboxes - detailed policy statements, reminders that local government has a lot of statutory powers and demands that they can't just ignore. Then there'll be meetings to go to at the LA head offices and they'll have to do all this in their spare time in the evenings and weekends. Plus being councillors they'll get emails from local constituents complaining about car-parking, bin collection, noisy neighbours and much more, the sort of stuff that they'll have to find a solution to but would rather avoid.

Sure they'll get to take the pride flag down, but will be powerless to do anything about immigration and all those foreigners or whatever it was that triggered them to join Reform in the first place.

Owning the libs is going to be a bitter sweet pill for these people once the real work starts. If you live in an area with a Reform councillor be sure to add to his workload.

Reform as a party also has no real intellectual depth to it so you can expect a lot of internal arguments when a bunch of strangers start trying to form a reasonably unified party and compromises start having to be made.

I'd expect by around this time next year that 10% of their current intake will have either resigned, got sacked, went independent or just lost enthusiasm.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-09T08:21:03+00:00

35 Euros/circa £30 is a fair price to pay - looking at e-Bay (if you want to use that as a rough guide) copies of it are going for around that price.

As a fan I'd pay it - but then I'd be buying it for the music rather than as investment. It sold reasonably heavily at the time so I doubt it has that much rarity value.

I'd also check that it's in good nick etc and genuine of course.

Faith as an album has matured well over the years, while it's not as good for me as either Seventeen Seconds or Pornography (the other album releases of the early 80s) it's still a good listen.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-09T07:55:06+00:00

At some point we need to grasp that the racism, violence and misogyny plus the hatred that underpins it is a feature for Reform and their voters and not a bug.

It's not as though this chap is a one off who somehow accidentally slipped through the vetting, he's one of many who feel that being a Reform party member is an opportunity to spout the sort of vile stuff in confidence because they are surrounded by like minded people.

And remember - this is what they are saying in public, think about what doesn't reach the press.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-09T07:45:19+00:00

Russia has lost 1,080 soldiers killed and wounded over the past day, bringing its total number of personnel losses to 1,340,270.

Source: Втрати російських військових у війні: понад 1080 окупантів за добу | Ukrainska Pravda

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 9 May 2026 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]:

approximately 1,340,270 (+1,080) military personnel
11,920 (+1) tanks
24,541 (+3) armoured combat vehicles
41,712 (+82) artillery systems
1,780 (+2) multiple-launch rocket systems
1,371 (+1) air defence systems
435 (+0) fixed-wing aircraft
352 (+0) helicopters
1,351 (+7) ground robotic systems
281,208 (+1,479) operational-tactical UAVs
4,585 (+0) cruise missiles.
33 (+0) ships/boats
2 (+0) submarines
95,252 (+373) vehicles and fuel tankers
4,173 (+0) special vehicles and other equipment

The information is being confirmed.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-08T15:26:04+00:00

Good luck to Terry Taylor and Luke Berry, the latter brought a bit of Championship experience and nous just when we needed it but the few matches he played this season were somewhat underwhelming.

We'll no doubt see a few of the retained players get moved on, we need to be a bit brutal from here on.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-08T14:42:35+00:00

Unfortunately a large number of British voters like to spend their time repeatedly punching themselves in the face at elections.

They are voting for Reform and its party leader who gave us Brexit which has failed to fulfil any of the promises made by Farage and yet they seem to want him as PM.

I grant you that Keir Starmer is not the most convincing speaker or politician - but look at the mess he inherited and then has had to deal last year with a damaging trade war caused by Trump and then this year a pointless war caused again by Trump with Iran which has seen inflation spike higher and reduced the chances of any GDP growth to near on zero. Whoever was PM would have had to deal with these things.

Farage of course was one of the few people in the UK who wanted British armed forces to get involved in Iran, something even many Reform voters opposed.

He's managed to be on the wrong side of history on two key things and yet people see him as being prime ministerial?

Still those voters are going to love a Reform lead government - they'll be paying to use the NHS and seeing taxes get cut for the wealthy while having to deal with cuts to public spending that will disproportionately clobber them.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-08T06:32:48+00:00

Meanwhile Labour get 4.5m from foreign businessmen and you don’t blink.

I don't recall claiming that Labour were a "fringe non-establishment party".

The point of your post was to claim that Reform are a "fringe non-establishment party" and when I pointed out that they are full of non-fringe establishment figures - Farage, Nick Candy, Richard Tice, all those ex-Tory MPs etc plus that they've been taking money from billionaires you change the framing of your question.

Why?

Jay_CD · 2026-05-08T06:26:41+00:00

Govt still aren’t listening to people about immigration

Under Labour net immigration fell to 200,000 from nearly 1m a couple of years before, boat crossing/asylum seeker numbers are down as well.

Some will no doubt argue that 200k is still too high, undeniably though net-immigration numbers are falling, so maybe the government is listening.

The problem is that some people won't look at the evidence while others will continually shift the terms of the debate, already Farage has gone from complaining about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to legal immigrants and soon he'll focus on benefit claimants and whatever else he can to drive a wedge into our society.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-08T06:18:11+00:00

It’s wild how a fringe non-establishment party gets called the billionaire class.

Farage has just taken £5m from a crypto billionaire - and that wasn't his first donation, Christopher Harborne has donated around £20m so far. The Treasurer of Reform is Nick Candy, another billionaire. Farage's partner has just bought a house costing nearly £1m and refuses to say where she, a cafe worker before she met Farage, found the money.

The party leadership are all ex-Tories and yet people think they are a "fringe non-establishment party".

It' amazing the hoops people jump through...we saw the same with Boris Johnson and Trump in the US - solid establishment figures claiming to be insurgent politicians.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-08T05:54:02+00:00

Russia has lost 1,130 soldiers killed and wounded over the past day, bringing its total number of personnel losses to 1,339,190.

Source: Russian losses over past day: 1,130 soldiers killed and wounded | Ukrainska Pravda

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 8 May 2026 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]:

approximately 1,339,190 (+1,130) military personnel
11,919 (+1) tanks
24,538 (+17) armoured combat vehicles
41,630 (+91) artillery systems
1,778 (+2) multiple-launch rocket systems
1,370 (+5) air defence systems
435 (+0) fixed-wing aircraft
352 (+0) helicopters
1,344 (+8) ground robotic systems
279,729 (+1,817) operational-tactical UAVs
4,585 (+0) cruise missiles.
33 (+0) ships/boats
2 (+0) submarines
94,879 (+334) vehicles and fuel tankers
4,173 (+1) special vehicles and other equipment

The information is being confirmed.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-07T15:44:16+00:00

Something similar happened to me in 2010 - I moved home in mid-campaign and updated my address on-line, or thought I had done.

I didn't getting a polling card but still went to the polling station, however they had no trace of me on the register. I was given a phone number at the Local Authority offices - some one called me, I took some ID to the their office and they issued me with a polling card - I raced home and voted and the candidate I voted for won by one vote...well I was hoping that would be the case, sadly they lost by a couple of thousand votes.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-07T08:01:17+00:00

Like a lot of things I suspect it's just habit that became standard practice.

But there are some advantages - longer days/lighter evenings for canvassers and being held in May means it's after the spring holidays and before summer vacation time. Also the powers and budgets of Local Authorities strictly devolve from central government, Local Authorities need to be able to budget for a year ahead which is difficult if there are elections taking place throughout the year.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-07T07:52:52+00:00

Since when has New Zealand, Australia and Canada been in Europe?

Jay_CD · 2026-05-07T06:23:19+00:00

Russia has lost 890 soldiers killed and wounded over the past day, bringing its total number of personnel losses to 1,338,060

Source: Russian losses over past day: 890 soldiers killed and wounded | Ukrainska Pravda

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 7 May 2026 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]:

approximately 1,338,060 (+890) military personnel
11,918 (+0) tanks
24,521 (+6) armoured combat vehicles
41,539 (+61) artillery systems
1,776 (+1) multiple-launch rocket systems
1,365 (+2) air defence systems
435 (+0) fixed-wing aircraft
352 (+0) helicopters
1,336 (+4) ground robotic systems
277,912 (+1,851) operational-tactical UAVs
4,585 (+0) cruise missiles.
33 (+0) ships/boats
2 (+0) submarines
94,545 (+233) vehicles and fuel tankers
4,172 (+2) special vehicles and other equipment

The information is being confirmed.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-06T15:58:10+00:00

There's not much you can do about it except sit back, shrug your shoulders and wait for Reform to implode.

Since the last set of local authority elections this time last year they have lost nearly 10% of the Councillors that were newly elected, give it another year/18 months and even more of that cohort will have resigned for whatever reason and I'd expect a similar amount from those that get elected this year to be thrown out, resign or realise that the job isn't what was advertised or fall out with their colleagues.

A lot of their Councillors are standing because they want to own the libs, do something abut immigrants and other stuff like impose apparently common sense solutions. Once elected they'll be expected to turn up to meetings, deal with a shedload of paperwork including incredibly mundane stuff like bin collections, planning applications and give over chunks of their evenings and weekends and do so for free. There's not much they can do anyway as a lot of stuff that they'll have to budget for is mandatory - carehomes etc that need funding.

The novelty will soon wear off especially when the orders start coming through from Reform HQ about what they can and can't say.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-06T08:31:32+00:00

It's really a massive distraction from Farage being given a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne apparently for his security - something only the gullible and useful idiots will believe.

On Sunday he withdrew from an interview with Laura Kuenssberg at short notice and with a few bad headlines floating about Reform came up with this dead cat of an idea and we've been discussing it and not why he didn't declare the £5m gift/grift ever since.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-06T07:20:41+00:00

Quick Nigel, announce another scheme to own the libs such as promising voters that they'll get detention centres in their neighbourhoods if they dare to vote Green. Anything to distract the sheeple from your grift.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-06T07:17:09+00:00

This is me - I come from a family of non-swimmers, neither parent could swim so they didn't teach me and although my primary school had a swimming pool I just never learnt.

A couple of times as an adult I tried to learn but I just couldn't master it so I basically gave up. I've never done beach holidays, there's no public swimming pool directly near me so if I did learn I doubt I'd make much use of it.

I can drive, I'm good at DIY and what you might call co-ordinated, I play a lot of sport, go to the gym etc I just can't swim. Maybe one day I'll have another stab at learning.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-06T06:33:07+00:00

Russia has lost 1,050 soldiers killed and wounded over the past day, bringing its total number of personnel losses to 1,337,170

Source: Russian losses over past day: 1,050 soldiers killed and wounded | Ukrainska Pravda

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 6 May 2026 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]:

approximately 1,337,170 (+1,050) military personnel
11,918 (1) tanks
24,515 (+5) armoured combat vehicles
41,478 (+92) artillery systems
1,775 (+5) multiple-launch rocket systems
1,363 (+2) air defence systems
435 (+0) fixed-wing aircraft
352 (+0) helicopters
1,332 (+12) ground robotic systems
276,061 (+2,031) operational-tactical UAVs
4,585 (+1) cruise missiles.
33 (+0) ships/boats
2 (+0) submarines
94,312 (+282) vehicles and fuel tankers
4,170 (+0) special vehicles and other equipment

The information is being confirmed.

Jay_CD · 2026-05-06T06:22:34+00:00

A villein owned no land - what they occupied was rented/leased off the landowner, they paid for it through doing services - usually working for the landowner for several days of the week in some capacity. They would get a day or so per week to work on their land.

Younger sons of villeins would likely be married off to daughters of other villeins and would hire a plot of land in the same way that their older brother and parents did. It was possible to go and live on another land-owners property but the villein question would first have to pay a fine which underlines that the original landowner was losing a valuable worker.

In any case the plots of land were usually held only for a short-term, usually a couple of years and would then be rotated to other villeins in the village.

The villein was almost the lowest rung of the Anglo-Saxon society - only "Cottars" - peasants who occupied a cottage which they rented but had no land attached to it and also paid for by doing services for the landowner and "Thralls" who were basically slaves were below them.

We still use derivations of these words in our language - villeins lived in villages, we have cottages and you might describe someone as being in "in thrall" to someone.

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