[Tubby Isaacs]

Ah, sorry. It was in the tweet below the one I quoted. No wonder you were confused.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I believed the necessary swing to be about 12%.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That would be an 13 point vote share lead. Would be very surprised if they needed that much for a majority. Swing would likely be much smaller in safer seats. In Bootle, for instance, a 12 percent swing would mean Labour getting 92 if the Tories got zero.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[mattomac]

Because Braverman is an excellent minister completely on top of her brief and not some lunatic who bangs on about Tofu eating when probed by the shadow minister,

[Yug]

Oh dear

Rishi Sunak faces a fresh crisis as two Tory bosses are dragged into a tax dodging row.

The Mirror can reveal Graham Edwards, who has been brought in by the PM to run the party’s finances, was found to have used a tax avoidance scheme.

And Tory chief executive Stephen Massey is still working on the side for a firm that encouraged the rich to slash their tax bills by ploughing cash into a controversial movie investment project.

Labour’s Anneliese Dodds last night said: “From the party chair sacked over his tax affairs to the party treasurer who took part in a tax avoidance scheme, Rishi Sunak is drowning in a swamp of sleaze.

“Rishi Sunak promised professionalism, integrity and accountability at every level, but instead we’ve got a torrent of questions over those he put at the top of the Conservative Party."

Property tycoon Mr Edwards, who has donated £940,000 to the Conservatives since 2018, was named as the party’s treasurer last month.

Following a dispute with HMRC, he was found to have wrongly tried to reduce the tax due on £5million he received in bonuses.

According to court documents, a trust set up as part of a complex tax scheme was used to buy a £1.5million country mansion for him...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... ore-target

Is there anyone in that Party who isn't a corrupt tax-dodging shyster? No wonder Zahawi thought he'd get away with it.

[Watchman]

It would appear not

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ax-dispute

[Youngian]

Oh dear

Rishi Sunak faces a fresh crisis as two Tory bosses are dragged into a tax dodging row.

The Mirror can reveal Graham Edwards, who has been brought in by the PM to run the party’s finances, was found to have used a tax avoidance scheme.

And Tory chief executive Stephen Massey is still working on the side for a firm that encouraged the rich to slash their tax bills by ploughing cash into a controversial movie investment project.

Labour’s Anneliese Dodds last night said: “From the party chair sacked over his tax affairs to the party treasurer who took part in a tax avoidance scheme, Rishi Sunak is drowning in a swamp of sleaze.

“Rishi Sunak promised professionalism, integrity and accountability at every level, but instead we’ve got a torrent of questions over those he put at the top of the Conservative Party."

Property tycoon Mr Edwards, who has donated £940,000 to the Conservatives since 2018, was named as the party’s treasurer last month.

Following a dispute with HMRC, he was found to have wrongly tried to reduce the tax due on £5million he received in bonuses.

According to court documents, a trust set up as part of a complex tax scheme was used to buy a £1.5million country mansion for him...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... ore-target

Is there anyone in that Party who isn't a corrupt tax-dodging shyster? No wonder Zahawi thought he'd get away with it.

Have they deputise some new gunslingers at the HMRC? Is distinguishing between the many legitimate tax avoidance opportunities and tacky scams a complex grey area? Not for whoever inspected Mr Edwards’s book.

[Abernathy]

Sunak has been like a cornered rat at PMQs today, lashing out at Starmer for his "Trades Union and Just Stop Oil(???) paymasters" and playing the Corbyn card almost immediately (to very little effect, in my view). Totally desperate stuff.

[Youngian]

Roland the cornered rat. Seem to recall the Mail running articles on Red Tony Blair’s CND years with an accompanying picture of the young candidate with Michael Foot.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Was surprised Starmer went with Raab today. However much of an arsehole a minister is, I'd say there were limited resonance to it.

Or does Starmer think this is going to break very soon?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Have they deputise some new gunslingers at the HMRC? Is distinguishing between the many legitimate tax avoidance opportunities and tacky scams a complex grey area? Not for whoever inspected Mr Edwards’s book.

The government record on tax avoidance is actually better than you'd think. There's now a list of all the avoidance schemes that HMRC won't allow, plus a list of people who promoted them.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -suppliers

Maybe Mr Edwards got duff advice, and will therefore be in a position to get some of the costs back from his tax accountant, who should have liability insurance for this sort of thing. Or maybe, like I think happened with Zahawi, he was told that if he was going to try this nonsense off the internet, he could submit his own return.

[Youngian]

Was surprised Starmer went with Raab today. However much of an arsehole a minister is, I'd say there were limited resonance to it.

Or does Starmer think this is going to break very soon?

Sunak too weak to sack him. They’ll be plenty more candidates to repeat this jibe.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Sunak too weak to slap down Bozo too.

[Bones McCoy]

Was surprised Starmer went with Raab today. However much of an arsehole a minister is, I'd say there were limited resonance to it.

Or does Starmer think this is going to break very soon?

It is a bit Westminster bubbly, unless he has good info that more news will escalate around the story.
Let's give it till the weekend and see what develops.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep.

[Crabcakes]

In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar, “it’s a trap!”. If Sunak doesn’t defend Raab, he’s hanging him out to dry and ministers know he won’t go to bat for them so have no incentive to remain loyal and keep various skeletons in various closets. If Sunak does defend him and - like Zahawi - it inevitably turns out ‘a few isolated incidents’ were actually the tip of a shitty iceberg comprised entirely of similar incidents, and further that he knew all about these things well in advance, he’s screwed for covering for a complete arsehole and giving him a plum job.

It’s a lose-lose scenario for Sunak, and became so the moment he didn’t act immediately. And in the meantime Starmer is taking out the cabinet one at a time - it shows they’re *all* awful, corrupt bullies, and by focusing on a complete demolition every one he takes out has to be replaced by a complete no-mark, as there’s no one else left.

[Andy McDandy]

Also, by staggering it out, it creates the drip feed message that the governing party is institutionally corrupt. If there were several cases that came to light all at once, Sunak could do an Augean Stables and carry out a wide ranging reshuffle, possibly cowing the party and imposing a bit of discipline. Alternatively he could do what he has done, seemingly petrified of losing any support, and still in fear of a repeat of Macmillan's night of the long knives.

[Tubby Isaacs]

- How's it looking, are we winning yet?

- Clean sweep in Rutland, Prime Minister. And very competitive in the Fens,

https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2022/11/b ... held-today

[Tubby Isaacs]

- Well, would I win Richmondshire?

- Yes, well, you will, providing Labour don't send out any tactical voting leaflets.

- I'll take that. Who's going to be there to start the fightback? Gove and Hunt are in fucking Surrey, they'll survive.

- Um, yeah, but you know what I was saying just now about tactical voting?

- Well, let's keep optimistic, assume that tactical voting doesn't happen anywhere. Who else survives? Give me some names.

- Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, Sir John Hayes, Desmond Swayne, Chris Chope, Suella Braverman, Gavin Williamson

- Oh fuck.

- And Bozo if he gets nominated in his old seat.