24hoursfromtulsehill

Finally someone's talking about the real issue in this election. Corbyn on the Marr programme yesterday was absolutely hilarious. "I'll just sit here and wait for everyone to catch up." 10/11 on another election this year. 9/2 for an election in 2018. Easy money.

I've booked a three-week holiday at the end of September / beginning of October. That's when all the fixtures in and around London will happen.

Yes I am speaking for everyone. You won. You might not agree but you did. May's got six months in which everything she does makes things worse for her and the Tories. That's a win. There are literally millions of ways to enjoy May's pain. One of the ones that will last is the most damaging. The illusion of Tory competence might never recover from this election and Brexit. They've given the nation the kind and scale of problem that you normally face after a really big military defeat like Dunkirk or Suez.

You know we did right?

I'm absolutely loving every single minute of this. This has to be one of the biggest fuck-ups of all time. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

I hope everyone's seen my many declarations that I don't know anything about politics and never get anything right.

Just had one. I trust Leeslover's source.

I know what you mean and I'm pretty much the same. I'm sure the security services could come up with a perfectly good strategy and execute it reasonably well without undermining civil liberties. The problem for them and everyone else is that the politicians want to be seen to be tough, which sometimes means they want to be seen to disown civil liberties, human rights and other essentials. What hasn't worked is May's idea of uncovering the network by "watching" people on the cheap, which means sticking their Facebook and WhatsApp and so on data through the GCHQ algorithm. That might have worked (if we'd had the capability) with al-Qaeda, but it won't work with the randomers, or it won't work quickly enough. We've re-fought the last war brilliantly...but things have changed, and in my view May is too conservative and dead-headed, and fundamentally undynamic, to see it. I like the leader in The Times today: "Mrs May has been pitched to voters as her party's strongest asset, but she has proved wooden when she needed to show charisma. She has been inflexible when she needed to think on her feet and evasive when she needed to be honest." Every word of that is true and it's just not good enough. I reckon about 75% of voters will vote without any enthusiasm whatsoever, whichever way they vote.

No one wants to create heroes or martyrs or whatever. But if you can get some results and the only price is hurt feelings and isolated senses of victimisation (this depends on keeping your activities quiet), I still favour a round-up. I agree about online material. I'm not the first to praise the police for their brainpower, especially having had dealings with PC Knobhead at away games. But even they're are intelligent enough to calibrate a shakedown based on whether someone is a journalist, an interested citizen or a potential or actual maniac. It sort of doesn't matter as long as you get the message across (quietly, meaning no political noise) that loose talk, including sarcasm, generates anything from inconvenience to criminal convictions. Different situation and times, but the French dealt with the Algerian anti-colonialists in that way. The Algerians were massively organised, on a pyramid basis, in that every member of the group knew only three others (the one who recruited them and the two they recruited). There are obvious differences. For a start, the French used one or two interview techniques that are out of fashion nowadays. Another thing is it was an actual network with an actual hierarchy, rather than a scattered-in-the-wind internet community. Most of the information these days is on people's computers, so you don't really have to hang from the ceiling or tickle the soles of their feet with rubber truncheons to get information out of them. There weren't many joiners after the clampdown.

If you want a round-up while avoiding radicalisation...you have to do it quietly, as in don't announce it and don't shout too much about the wrong 'uns when you throw away the key. I'm out of my depth as usual. I just reckon a certain amount of controversial policy is a price worth paying now that un-networked randomers are going on the rampage. It's not Guantanamo until someone goes outside a judicial process, which I definitely don't advocate. My idea with the missus - the one she really didn't appreciate - was to use association, however loose, as a pretext for arrest. Person A has met person B, who has met person C, who was a terrorist. Person A gets nicked. All the way through from A to Z.

Sorry for not following this thread today. I had an argument with Mrs 24 last night, which will cost me. Basically I'm in favour of some sort of round-up-and-shakedown of the watchlist people. She's against and says the police and security service are understaffed anyway. I just reckon the strategy of watching and waiting for he chain to appear hasn't worked or isn't working.

Hallelujah.

Do these options include obeying the fucking law of the fucking land and fucking paying those fucking taxes?

Okay. Are you saying that the corporations will leave if there's a hike in corporation tax? Are you saying that their pre-tax revenue will deteriorate if there's a hike, just like that?

Yes. Other things being equal...such as the diligent collection of those taxes, which is generally frowned upon by Tories (and HMRC itself) as being unsporting or un-British.

Okay. *takes out matches and petrol* Corporation tax receipts tend to be lower during recessions. (How am I doing?) They tend to be higher during periods of economic growth. (Still with me?) There's your correlation. (How was that?) Why would HMRC publish data side by side like that when the two variables have no causal relationship? I have no idea. Pressure from Laffer curve idiots is my first guess, but it might also be to do with HMRC's own reputation of not collecting as much in tax from corporations as they should.

What are corporation tax receipts as a proportion of all receipts? Or a proportion of GDP? Just a thought. I wouldn't want to set fire to your straw man but...

The rumour is one of those you want to be true but probably isn't. I know. I've just seen that IPSOS/Mori are recording a narrow Tory lead...so it's not just yougov. I expect a certain amount of clustering around the wrong result (given the volatility of your modern voter), but it's perfectly possible people are drifting away from the Tories quite badly.

I sort of can. I like McDonnell's views on Irish republicanism. Not to everyone's taste, but I see his point. (I've heard an absolutely belting rumour about him and the IRA back in the 1990s.) I like John McDonnell...but he's probably being played in the wrong position just now. I'd rather have him on the picket line or at the rally, megaphone in hand, telling the striking workers they're alright by him. I like Diane Abbott too, up to a point. She's obviously a bit of a dick, but so is Amber Rudd, and so is Theresa May. She's not to everyone's taste - obviously - but black women who, for instance, call the Met police out for this or that indiscretion don't always win popularity contests. I like Emily Thornberry too. I understand how she can get up some people's noses, but clever, rich and combative women don't always win popularity contests. The choice is would you rather have Rudd, Boris fucking Johnson and Hammond, or Abbott, Thornberry and McDonnell. I go for the last three every time.

Norden. Pull the ladder up innit.

That's Brentford and Isleworth, of which Chiswick is a part. In the two Chiswick wards - Chiswick Homefields and Chiswick Riverside - there are two Tory voters to every one non-Tory voter.

I tell you what. I'll stop voting with the tribe as soon as the chinless wonders down in Chiswick do the same.

Yougov again. Interesting. They'll still be in business even if they're guilty of massive inaccuracy...even nefarious inaccuracy. I genuinely don't know. In the past few years, the polls have been inaccurate, sometimes wildly inaccurate, in democracies all over the world. This might not be because the pollsters' methodologies are failing to keep up with modern technology and data science or any of that crap. It might just be that the polls are inaccurate because of...the volatility of voter behaviour. Bastard voters...getting in the way of accurate and reliable forecasts. I kind of wish I knew more about it...or at least enough to strike up a lucrative relationship with Ladbrokes. My money would be on a Tory majority of <~50, which just isn't enough for May to achieve the central aim of nullifying the Brexit maniacs within and without parliament. Majority of <50 and she's gone before the year's out.

Okay. Let's call it the Chiswick lag, which is a bit like the fiscal lag. Anything bad happening dates back to when Labour were in. Anything good happening dates to whenever the Tories were in.

What? This is a psychological trick isn't it? Where you blame someone else for the failings of the Tories. Deep Chiswick this.