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Tory MP allegedly demanded campaign cash to pay ‘bad people’ I mean, it's just solid 10/10 Tory sleaze stuff. Great work from the lad.

I imagine that if it were a former Labour leader instead of a former Tory leader who had been using made-up quotes from massive anti-semites all about how the Rothschilds control what Governments are able to do, it might have got a bit more of an excitable reaction from the media.

While they're clearly all a load of bell-ends, I'm not sure the police shutting down their conference is the best way to win the argument.

The problem is that this isn't ideological, caused by rapacious capitalists at the top trying to bleed the system dry. I've mentioned this before, but I think it's a good example of the sort of challenge the NHS faces in its current form. An employed registrar (for example) will earn around £50,000. However, a locum brought in temporarily will earn more than twice that on a daily rate. So over the last few years there seems to be a steady production line of newly qualified doctors not going into permanent roles, creating thousands of positions that need to be temporarily filled. And coincidentally enough, there are thousands of newly qualified doctors who will happily be paid £500 per day, to do the same job as the guy (not) doing it for £50k per year. Whack the whole lot through your "Dr. Smith Medical Services" limited company and pay 20% tax on the whole lot as well instead of higher rate of income tax. No blame on the doctors - it's their labour and expertise, and if you don't need the stability why wouldn't you do it the way that pays you twice as much and gives you complete flexibility about how much you work? It's not like they are taking much of a risk on whether the demand for their service is there. No blame on the trusts for paying it either - their choice is pay through the nose for staff or have (more) people dying. That's the reality of "paying private agencies for medical staff". But I don't really see what the fix is - just insisting that they "employ actual NHS staff" doesn't really deal with the root of the issue.

I'm not saying Wilders definitely didn't say that, and he has recently dropped a commitment to a referendum from his policy platform, but RS Archer is a spoof account that people shouldn't really quote in good faith.

An openly gay, unmarried 36 year old using an app like Grindr makes him a pervert? Alright Mary Whitehouse.

Broadly agree, but Wragg also has a fair bit of recent history about kicking off about propriety and ethics. It's only a few weeks since he was the one proposing a motion to kick Hoyle out because he felt Hoyle's standards weren't up to scratch. He was also extremely vocal on the Johnson stuff about the parties. So in much the same way that Rayner's council house stuff is more politically difficult because she's spent the last three years writing letters calling for everyone under the sun to resign due to some breach of conduct or protocol, she's now going to be judged by the standards that she is expecting of others. So I would judge him differently, but only as a result of the standards that he has shown he supposedly expects from others.

Happy four year Starmerversary, to all who celebrate.

It's definitely a possibility. However I think I'd be wary of making too many predictions based on historical precedent. As an example, previous times where there is evidence of polls narrowing in the run up to an election, I think I'm right in saying that it was already clearly happening by this stage in the election cycle. So maybe it'll happen this time, just quicker and later. Or maybe it won't.

Reassuring to know that Labour 41 Tory 24 gives a result that strong. As that's towards to low end for Labour and the high end for Tories compared to a lot of polls.

Let them fight

This guy.

Four years (to the day) is a long time in politics

That's not what it says. Of the people who were dissatisfied, 70% said that the difficulty in getting an appointment was in their top three reasons for being dissatisfied. Someone might think that all five are true.