Best Of

Bad news: can’t see any Russian oil refineries on fire today.

Good news: have a massive gas processing plant on fire instead!
https://x.com/sumlenny/status/1886345671256461500

Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.

I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.

I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.

It sounds like there are serious questions to answer about the Sheffield stabbing. The perpetrator had apparently previously taken a machete into school and threatened to stab another student.

On latest figures, there are 244 knife homicides per year in the UK. That's one of the lowest rates in the whole world (per capita). It's half the rate they have in Germany, and a third of the rate they have in the Netherlands. The rate is five times higher in Puerto Rico and nearly seven times higher in the US. It's about eight times higher in Romania. Maybe it's worth reflecting that, while each such death is a tragedy, we are doing well overall as a nation.

I looked at the numbers a week or so ago. Homicides involving knives are surprisingly consistent at 40% or so of the total year in, year out. To the extent that such crimes rise it is in proportion to homicides overall. I genuinely do not think the knives are the problem, the real problem is why do crimes involving violence occur at all? Of course there are no simple answers to that, and any solution will likely be labourious and expensive. If we really want to drive knife crime down, particularly amongst young people, then it will be things like education, social services, youth services that need funding and programmes, not focusing on particularly types of knives and how they are purchased.

Matt Goodwin's polling might not be so bad after all.

"Reform have topped a Sky News/YouGov poll for the first time as the party continues to shake up British politics. Nigel Farage's Reform UK has edged in front on 25%, with Labour pushed into second on 24% and the Tories on 21%. The YouGov poll, taken on Sunday and Monday, also puts the Lib Dems on 14% and Greens on 9%."

https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uk-tops-landmark-poll-for-first-time-13302531

Reform is probably tied or ahead. However, structurally they are against a tactically well balanced Labour - Lib Dem vote, while their own vote appears not to be well-balanced with the Conservatives, so I would assume Labour would remain ahead on seats. But of course all this is as academic as March 2021 polling.

I have no idea about this, but Goodwin says somewhere that the national polling figure which would open up the sunlit uplands for Reform is 31% unless other things changed and one other party also soared ahead from their present position. I don't think that can be marked down as impossible.

FWIW I suspect Reform (who I don't support and won't vote for) would do well for themselves at the moment by keeping out of overseas politics altogether. It is likely that in 2029 they will do best by having no relationship with Trumpism in the public mind. But it is also possible that in 2029 Trumpism will be the flavour of the month. They should wait and see, and tack to the centre while maintaining a policy of very low migration and uncosted delusional economic unicornery. (Which by then will be a stronger version of what Lab/Con will be offering).

If you put 30.8% RefUK into Electoral Calculus you get a majority if Lab are on 22.5% and Tories 20.5%.

I think we’re already at the point that the existing models break down because we are so far outside of the precedents.