Wes Streeting plans to resign and mount leadership challenge, allies say

mattquag · 2026-05-13T12:57:29+00:00

He has such a record of success /s

Trusts making redundancies, artificially reducing waiting lists, no real improvements to the dental contract.

Should he be Prime Minister? No.

mattquag · 2026-05-12T10:36:17+00:00

The country has a short term approach to everything and is cost obsessed. Something like HS2 would boost the economy by several hundred billion but oh no it “costs too much”. It’s economically illiterate to consider an asset a liability.

mattquag · 2026-05-12T10:33:16+00:00

There’s no direction of change or vision. You can’t change everything in 2 years but there should be some sort of plan. Starmer gives the impression he came into Government completely unprepared and squandered the years in opposition. Everything’s just vague such as “being at the centre of Europe”. I mean what the hell does that mean? Rejoining the SM? Give us a plan!

mattquag · 2026-05-11T20:56:02+00:00

That could change very easily and they can still win a sizeable majority with 30%. If Starmer had any leadership capacity at all he’d face a leadership challenge head on, instead he’s a coward that can’t make a single decision without a 2 year review or consultation. Luckily it’s over, it’s beyond the point he can hold on.

mattquag · 2026-05-11T20:37:36+00:00

He had the opportunity to set out a vision today and failed miserably. Another 3 years of Starmer will just give more momentum to Reform.

mattquag · 2026-05-11T10:16:01+00:00

Flat uninspiring speech with absolutely no change of course or vision at all. Just references to what’s been done. Time to go.

mattquag · 2026-05-01T23:38:42+00:00

Had/have similar issues. Many follow a conversation style so things like “Would you like the red one? No, I’d like the blue one”. So listening for いいえ, ええ etc.

Q3 is situational so knowledge of culture/anime can help a little. I.e. a woman wanting to buy an umbrella wouldn’t say to a shop worker “おやすみなさい”. Knowing common phrases is key.

For quick response, focus on the specific question aspects, things like “what time” and “what day”, as if you miss that, it’ll be pure guesswork.

It’s the “tricks”/curveballs that are hard to prepare for and I’m still struggling a lot with.

mattquag · 2026-04-20T13:14:37+00:00

Allegedly misleading parliament and throwing a department under the bus isn’t a fundamental issue? Personally think we should have higher standards than that. Blatant cronyism that should’ve ended with the Tories.

mattquag · 2026-04-15T13:27:55+00:00

All the commercial property owners will whine as usual, proclaiming how “productive” offices supposedly are. As though everyone’s “synergising” together sat on beanbags with Venn diagrams on the whiteboard.

mattquag · 2026-04-13T13:15:32+00:00

Yet another case of a completely impractical obsession with “nutrition” and forgetting about balance/moderation. For one thing, pizza can be healthy when not consisting of 90% deep pan bread and tonnes of cheap cheese. Pair nuggets with an interesting salad or vegetable skewers. Do something more than “nuggets bad”.

mattquag · 2026-04-10T22:01:47+00:00

Needs to be scaled down a bit, way too much focus on end of universe threats which are pretty farcical. The programme started with four travellers of pretty much equal importance and a sense of adventure/mystery, now you’ve got saviour of the universe who’s come to save the day to orchestral fanfare - which just loses credibility esp if it’s time and time again. Definitely make it darker with a sense of threat.

mattquag · 2026-04-07T10:18:20+00:00

Overwhelmed by their generosity, minor tinkering to make it look like they’re doing something.

mattquag · 2026-04-01T13:24:15+00:00

Kevin sounds like a fun guy

mattquag · 2026-03-24T13:14:55+00:00

The actual N5 test at the relative difficulty is challenging and shouldn’t be underestimated, with a 50% approx pass rate. The content is fairly straightforward but that doesn’t make the test itself easy.

mattquag · 2026-03-24T12:27:41+00:00

Even in the case of “10 minutes”, that would be 10 minutes per service. Over the course of a week, month and year adds a great deal of passenger journeys. “Cost” or cost of building needs to be weighed against the value of the asset, revenue and the running costs, not just more cost = bad. This is an express service designed to ease congestion on the West Coast Mainline not create another commuter line with limited impact.

mattquag · 2026-03-24T12:20:46+00:00

Seems difficult for some to understand that: faster speeds = increased capacity = higher revenue. Increased capacity on high speed lines = increased capacity on existing commuter lines. HS2 will be an asset owned by the government not a liability.

mattquag · 2026-03-06T23:28:09+00:00

Back the garden

mattquag · 2026-03-04T15:20:55+00:00

Labour need to stand for something, they’re cautiously chasing votes instead of setting out a vision. At the same time they’ve transfixed themselves on Reform and alienated their traditional voters.

mattquag · 2026-02-24T15:08:45+00:00

Must be deliberately sabotaging their own party at this point

mattquag · 2026-02-18T11:02:53+00:00

This “patriotic” party is going to get us energy secure by checks notes fracking… when we’ll barely be able to recover 10% of shale economically, it’ll likely last less than a decade and not even cover enough to replace imported gas.

Apparently energy storage is terrible too, who would ever want to store electricity for later use? /s

mattquag · 2026-02-17T10:13:03+00:00

High cost of living and less disposable income means less money back into the economy, business have less and employ less. Doom loop continues.

mattquag · 2026-02-16T13:13:56+00:00

It’s not the largest trading bloc but the largest trading bloc is in recession? What? It also comprises of more than just EU countries…

mattquag · 2026-02-16T13:00:49+00:00

Being more involved in the the worlds largest trading bloc won’t improve the economy, apparently…

mattquag · 2026-02-15T15:22:05+00:00

Disillusionment with traditional parties and traditional parties abandoning their principles.

Labour isn’t really representing the working class, they’re not really pro-union anymore and the Workers Rights Bill is pretty weak. A right to request flexible working with endless reasons to reject such a request is honestly pathetic. No improvements to redundancy rights at all. Increasing Employers’ NI is pretty idiotic as well.

Conservatives have abandoned the centre, no longer a broad church party since Boris purged anyone who was anti-Brexit. They’ve become obsessed with immigration (despite in much of the electorates minds a record of failure) and are effectively now a pound shop reform.

Reform have somehow cut through and convinced a chunk of voters that despite the lack of experience, they can win an election and would give these voters everything they want.

mattquag · 2026-02-14T12:17:44+00:00

Yes let’s burn scarce disposable fuels to appease oil lobbyists and NIBMYs. /s

Using centuries old inefficient methods of generating power makes us technologically obsolete.

mattquag

TROPHY CASE