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      No immediate plans to send British military instructors to Ukraine, says Rishi Sunak

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 23:29

    Comments from the UK prime minister come after his defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said soldiers could be deployed to Ukraine to carry out training

    There are no immediate plans to deploy military instructors to Ukraine, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday, rowing back from comments by his defence minister who had suggested troops could carry out training in the country.

    To date, Britain and its allies have avoided a formal military presence in Ukraine to reduce the risk of a direct conflict with Russia.

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      Vultures circle around Sunak as dead-eyed delegates look on | John Crace

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 18:56 · 1 minute

    The Tory party conference in Manchester is all about survival – no one except those close to the PM have much faith in a reset

    Not so much a party conference. Not even an end of the pier show. More of a funeral wake. At which most of the participants appear to have already died. Four years ago the Tories won an 80-seat majority and looked set to remain in power for another decade. Now they act like the walking dead. Shell-shocked, out of ideas. Desperate to find someone other than themselves to blame for the mess they’ve caused. Desperate to reinvent the unreinventable. To persuade themselves that previous Conservatives weren’t really Conservatives. The story of the one true Tory.

    Its reputation precedes it. There are only a brave few – we unhappy few – who have made it to Manchester for the Tory conference. Dead-eyed delegates anxious to be sucked into a collective delusion. If only for a few hours. Anything to shake off the reality. The whole conference hall has had to be reconfigured this year. Normally the main hall is situated at the far end. Now it has been transferred to a much smaller venue, in the annexe where the media used to be camped. There just aren’t the numbers. Anything bigger would merely show up the void.

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      The Guardian view on the Conservative conference: an exercise in diverting blame for failure | Editorial

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 17:30 · 1 minute

    Without a candid audit of what has gone wrong, Rishi Sunak will struggle to develop a meaningful programme for the future

    The Conservative party that gathers in Manchester for its annual conference this week is exhausted, divided and intellectually bankrupt. The constitutional basis on which Rishi Sunak governs is solid, but his electoral mandate is the flimsiest of any prime minister in modern times. The parliamentary majority that keeps Mr Sunak in Downing Street was won by Boris Johnson nearly four years ago on a platform that has subsequently fallen apart. Mr Johnson’s mendacious character rendered his promises worthless. His successor, Liz Truss, was chosen by a ballot of Tory members representing a tiny fraction of the electorate. She then imposed policies derived more from her own ideological fantasies than any published manifesto.

    That operation had to be swiftly reversed by the current prime minister, who was elected by no one. He was installed by his parliamentary colleagues to restore financial stability and professional credibility to a country that looked absurd. That duty has been discharged, leaving Mr Sunak without a more coherent governing purpose. Opinion polls indicate a substantial appetite for regime change. A shift in that position is technically possible before an election next year, but few Tories believe it is likely. Some don’t even think it is desirable. After 13 years in power, the party needs to admit its failures and resolve profound questions about its identity.

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      Nicola Jennings on the Conservative party conference – cartoon

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 15:50

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      Rishi Sunak at first Conservative party conference as leader as electoral outlook looks grim – UK politics live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 08:02


    Opinion polls suggest Tory party recovery is near impossible as ministers prepare for next leadership contest

    The BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is starting. As well as Rishi Sunak, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is also being interviewed.

    Q: Do you still think we’ve had enough of experts?

    Economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable.

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      The Tories meet in Manchester plagued by their delusions, desperation and divisions | Andrew Rawnsley

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 07:02

    Number 10’s desire to stage a display of unity and confidence is threatened with sabotage from the fringe

    To Manchester for a tale of two Conservative conferences. The official one is taking place in the cavernous central convention complex under the snigger-inviting slogan: “Taking long-term decisions for a brighter future.” Rishi Sunak has just one extremely short-term goal this week: to persuade his party, the media and any voters bothering to pay attention to reconsider the assumption that a Tory defeat at the general election is a certainty. “It’s an unusually important conference for the leader,” remarks one former cabinet minister. “Rishi has got to put on a show.”

    Many Tory MPs do not see brightness in their future. That’s not just because of serial byelection losses and the hefty deficit in the opinion polls to Labour. Tory fatalism about their prospects is also sourced in despair that their leader has neither the appeal nor the acumen to turn things around. His personal approval ratings, which were not bad in the circumstances when he took over after the madness of Liz Truss, have plummeted to dire levels .

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      £9bn Thames tunnel faces axe amid fears over Tory infrastructure plans

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 06:00

    Rishi Sunak failure to commit to HS2’s northern leg has raised concerns about the future of several large-scale transport projects

    The future of several prestige transport projects, including a planned £9bn road tunnel under the Thames , are in increasing doubt this weekend after prime minister Rishi Sunak failed to commit to building the northern section of the HS2 high-speed rail line to Manchester.

    MPs and transport industry experts now believe that a number of other schemes, including the Lower Thames Crossing, intended to link Kent and Essex, as well as a new tunnel under the Stonehenge world heritage site, face more delays and may never be built as costs soar and political commitment wanes.

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      We really could still rejoin the EU. But Tory Britain isn’t up to it

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 06:00

    The Conservatives could be out of office for two terms. Labour has the chance to govern with seriousness and restore trust

    In his classic work The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1951), the New York Herald Tribune humorist Will Cuppy’s verdict on Attila the Hun was: “Attila’s career teaches that you may get by for a while, but it can’t last.”

    Without wishing to push the comparison too far, I think Cuppy’s observation epitomises the situation our present prime minister – they come and go, these Conservative prime ministers – now finds himself in.

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      Passing on great wealth to our children spells the end of society. Just ask Aristotle | Will Hutton

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 05:32

    If, as speculated, the PM scraps inheritance tax, the stench of money will just grow stronger

    ‘Money is like muck,” wrote Francis Bacon in 1625. “Not good except it be spread.” No one accuses the father of the scientific method and British empiricism of being a socialist, although doubtless the many Tory critics of inheritance tax will now want to group him with Karl Marx and the liberal elite as dark enemies of aspiration.

    They should also add the Greek philosopher Aristotle to their list of leftwing enemies. “Man is by nature a social animal,” he wrote. “Society precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.”

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