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What are you talking about, "a second Labour term"? Leon has already said on the previous thread that the Labour Party are done. Bet accordingly!

He just doesn't see any way back for them, does he. It's a worry.

As far as I know - I am happy to be corrected - no governing party with polling as poor as Starmer’s Labour has ever gone on to win a subsequent election

That could be wrong, I’m still traumatised by my near death experience with the birds of Frankfurt, but if it is true then it suggests history is on my side here

For recent Labour reference, Mr Gordon Brown of the Manse's Labour hit absolute rock bottom in May 2009 leading in to the local and Euro elections (including one 18% poll with MORI equalling the July 2019 and current FoN lows).
The average May poll rating was above the current Labour average and had recovered to mid 20s within a month. We know how well his recovery went.......
So, with SKS Labour in worse shape and huge economic headwinds (Brown's nadir was in a major recession) I think they struggle to recover.
If Labour are in similar shape in May they'll be utterly mullered everywhere - Brown in 2009 Euros saw Labour come sixth in Cornwall behind Mebyon Kernow. Losses in London could be apocalyptic as could the Welsh and Scottish results

Isn’t this all a bit of an Apples and Oranges comparison though?

Reform’s rise means it is the first time in a generation that we’ve had a possible 4 way split. 5 if you count the Greens. 6 if you count the Corbyn/Sultana party. Possibly more if you count the Home Nations’ parties.

Labour are certainly in trouble on current form. However they could also - quite viably - get a majority under FPTP, if A) there’s even a small ‘Vote Labour to keep Farage out’ effect and B ) the Tories/Reform stay divided.

Expect tactical voting in abundance, also.

We’re in uncharted territory and that’s not taken into account enough on here. It really isn’t impossible that Labour squeak through on something like 28/29% and it’s very difficult to predict what that means in terms of seats/ the makeup of the next government.

The very fact that Reform themselves are streets ahead on around 30-35% should say it all

TECHNICAL ECONOMICS POST

I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).

Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2025/june/catherine-l-mann-fireside-chat-at-the-federal-reserve-board-of-governors

For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.

A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.

Oh, for fuck's sake. I thought this was a satire of Lab Operation Patriot, but no.

Saul Staniforth
@SaulStaniforth
Asked if she's got a flag on display in her home, the Home Secretary says she has Union Jack bunting, St Georges flags, St Georges bunting, and Union Jack flags and tablecloths.

https://x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1962774325435494899

What's the problem with this?

Nothing wrong with it in itself but it doesn't sound authentic. It's as if Jacob Rees-Mogg expressed admiration for Pink Floyd or a fondness for standing on the terraces at Accrington Stanley.

'Popular' broadcaster Ed Balls is now fully and authentically on board with Project Patriot.

https://x.com/stuzi_pants/status/1962808377370636318

It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case with immigration - the permitted view being it’s too high and very concerning. If you don’t share this concern you’d better keep quiet about it or risk being labelled a limp anti-patriot who doesn’t believe in Britain and can’t see a Union or a St George without pointing and laughing. Of course there are people like that, but it’s a tiny minority. Most of those being bullied out of the national conversation simply have legitimate lack of concerns about the numbers of people coming to the country.

It is not (yet) illegal to express this view – thank god – but the sociocultural pressure to go along with the ‘correct’ sentiment is strong. Too strong for many, so they bottle it up, their lack of concern, only let it out in safe spaces where they know they won’t be shouted down and called names. If you push valid opinion underground in this way we know what happens. It festers there and becomes exactly the thing it was being smeared as in the first place. So in time we’ll get millions of ordinary decent Britons who started out just not that bothered about immigration ending up angry and radicalised and demanding the complete dismantling of our borders. That’s where all the presumptuous policing of the debate leads and why it must be resisted. I’d hope even the most ardent holders of the ‘right-think’ position realise this.

Unheard article on Trump and architecture

https://unherd.com/newsroom/trump-will-make-penn-station-beautiful-again/

Those who reflexively dislike Trump will all now be writing opinion pieces on how traditional-looking buildings are horrible, and how modernist glass-and-concrete building is a sign of a wonderful future.

I don't think most people reflexively dislike Trump. No, they dislike Trump based on his actions and words, on his selling out of Ukraine, on his deranged economic theories, on his multiple reliably attested cases of sexual assault, on his habitual law-breaking, on how he used his charity to enrich himself, and many, many other examples. It's a considered dislike of Trump. An evidence-based disdain.

Like IDS' statement he was educated at the University of Perugia, Badenoch's statement she was educated at Stanford if not entirely true won't inspire confidence in her with Tory MPs.

However it is her party's poll rating that will be the biggest factor and her performance at PMQs, which like IDS is not magnificent.

She is shifting to the right, promising Milei style spending cuts, scrapping net zero by 2050 and withdrawal from the ECHR. If that still does not win back voters from Reform then expect her to be removed after likely poor local elections next Spring. Cleverly would likely be her replacement to try and hold to Sunak 2024 vote

She’s finished. She’s not going to get any better. She’ll probably get worse as she sinks below the waves and panics

Cleverly is a suicide note. It’s saying “yes we’re crap and irrelevant but please give us 13% of the vote so we can be like the Lib Dem’s”. Who votes for this centrist rubbish? No one. Or, about 13% of voters. Which will reduce you to about 30 MPs and that’s the end of you

Your only hope is Jenrick or Lam. Someone stridently right wing but with the heft of “a sensible Tory when it comes to economics”. That’s what may swing it your way from reform. People want populist hard right policies on migration and the rest but they don’t trust Reform on economics

There is still time for you to save yourselves. Undeservedly

I did read today that Jenrick's constituency of Newark is actually an anagram.