Best Of

The Democrats are really searching for an answer for Trump at the moment. I'm not quite sure who that is, but what I do know is it's not Kamala Harris.

I quite like Harris, and I think a lot of the criticism of her is rather overblown. She was, unquestionably, dealt a very bad hand and in 2024 she played it... broadly as well as she could have done, I think. But her big issue is her seeming inability to shift this incredibly tortured way of communicating. She looked at the start of the 2024 campaign like she was finally shaking it off, only to revert more and more to type as the election approached. She fired up Democrats, but it wasn't enough in an election where swing voters were feeling helpless and casting around for solutions - she couldn't speak to those people. I see nothing to suggest she's suddenly learned how to do so.

Pathetic turnout but another bad day for Starmer as Labour members back Burnham’s preferred candidate Lucy Powell over his preferred candidate Bridget Philippson

No evidence that Starmer preferred either of them. None of this makes a difference to Starmer's standing. In some ways things are looking up for him. Farage is looking sleazy and flakey and Kemi is beyond doubt a no-hoper.

So a perfect time for a Starmer reset which he needs and of all the leaders he's the one who holds the stage

How many resets does a Prime Minister need in a week?

Just when Starmer demonstrates his facile incompetence, Boris Johnson rocks up to the COVID Inquiry as a reminder that things could be even worse.

I expect the median voter would now bring back Boris as PM tomorrow. Heck, I expect the median voter would even bring back Rishi as PM tomorrow now

Starmer and Sunak are considered two cheeks of the same useless arse, and the median voter does not want a Johnson redux. You are wishcasting.

The median voter is now voting Reform

To an extent you have me there. But I would equally assume given the choice of Johnson or Brave Sir Nigel, Farage takes it by a country mile.

Caerphilly might question your Reform voting logic.

Caerphilly was fascinating. It does completely change the Reform narrative in my mind. Being the most popular party might turn out to be meaningless if you are also the most hated party. And Reform certainly sit in that strange spot in the political Venn Diagram right now.

Being the most loved and most hated worked for Mrs Thatcher.

Against a deeply unpopular Labour government in 1979, a hard left leader of the opposition in 1983 and an opposition divided between Labour and the SDP Alliance in 1983 and 1987.

Kinnock would probably have beaten Thatcher in 1992 though, only the more centrist Major got the Conservatives the win in 1992 having also scrapped Thatcher’s poll tax

Was Major perceived as centrist compared to Mrs Thatcher in 1992?

Checking, the last round of voting when he became leader was between Michael Heseltine, Douglas Hurd, and John Major.

Of those three was John Major not the "not wet" one on the Right, being iirc the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Conservative_Party_leadership_election

Polls in 1990 had both Major and Heseltine beating Kinnock but Thatcher trailing Kinnock.

Major was able to become PM therefore with the votes of Thatcher loyalists and MPs who wanted rid of Thatcher to save their seats but hated Heseltine and his uber Europhile views.

By 1995 though many of the Thatcherites had switched to Redwood when he challenged Major to be Conservative leader and the Lady was known to be sympathetic to the Vulcan (but really wanted Portillo as Thatcher's heir had he activated his phonelines and stood) while Major ironically had gained the backing of Heseltine's and Hurd's former backers to stop Redwood

Amazing to think that the euro-sceptics believed they could get anywhere under Spock. Ultimately, of course, they needed the carpet-bagger and trickster Boris to deliver their dreams (such as they turned out to be).

Indeed but as I said Portillo was really the Thatcherite Messiah until he lost his seat in 1997 and started going wobbly and liberal and then by 2001 many of the Thatcherite right switched to IDS, as indeed did the Lady herself once IDS faced Clarke in the final 2 and Portillo had been knocked out.

Boris of course let us not forget started off a One Nation Clarkeite, backing Ken Clarke for leader in 2001, then a Cameroon in 2005 then once his ambition took hold of him and he had Mayor of London as a platform to challenge to be PM he positioned himself as a 'Brexity Hezza' in his own words and backed Leave in 2016 and the rest is history....

Boris Johnson has always taken whatever position is in the best interest of Boris Johnson.

This applies in journalism, business, money and perhaps in other fields...

Pathetic turnout but another bad day for Starmer as Labour members back Burnham’s preferred candidate Lucy Powell over his preferred candidate Bridget Philippson

No evidence that Starmer preferred either of them. None of this makes a difference to Starmer's standing. In some ways things are looking up for him. Farage is looking sleazy and flakey and Kemi is beyond doubt a no-hoper.

So a perfect time for a Starmer reset which he needs and of all the leaders he's the one who holds the stage

How many resets does a Prime Minister need in a week?

Just when Starmer demonstrates his facile incompetence, Boris Johnson rocks up to the COVID Inquiry as a reminder that things could be even worse.

I expect the median voter would now bring back Boris as PM tomorrow. Heck, I expect the median voter would even bring back Rishi as PM tomorrow now

Not after his appearance at the Covid (Education) Inquiry earlier this week. Scruffy, disorganised and forgetful, and a dreadful blame-shifter.

So exactly as we always remember him.

I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.

I don't think that's true.

Brexit is a very long way from being everything, but it (and our still to be fully worked out relationship with Europe) does, to a greater or lesser extent, impact everything - trade; industry; defence; immigration; finance; medicine - and will continue to do so.

I find it bizarre to pretend otherwise.

Rachel Reeves is preparing to give more than a million low-paid workers a pay rise in the budget, despite warnings from businesses that she risks “pricing jobs out of existence”.

The Times has been told that the chancellor is likely to confirm a rise in the national living wage of about 4 per cent, from £12.21 to at least £12.70, in an effort to deliver on her pledge to improve living standards.

The government will also commit itself to extending the living wage to people between the ages of 18 and 21 as part of a commitment to “raise the floor” on wages.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/pay-rise-autumn-budget-rachel-reeves-wddm8cnrd

Funny how those who drivel on endlessly about copying Denmark never mention that it doesn't have a minimum wage.

The minimum wage should be scrapped, not raised, as it distorts the labour market by forcing business to pay people more than they're worth, raising unemployment, reducing competitiveness and the incentive to increase productivity amongst those who need it most, increasing compliance costs and inflation. In fact it's hard to think of a more damaging policy (though the looking through the current government's actions gives a pretty long list of them).

But understanding the harm done needs politicians and journalists to think things through for thirty seconds, so we're stuck with it unfortunately.

The counter to that is we've had massive immigration and yet we haven't see massive unemployment - indeed, the minimum wage serves as a disincentive for firms to rely on cheap labour. As long as Labour keep cutting migration (and targets dodgy outfits swerving the rule) then I can't see that changing to a large degree.

In terms of the benefits bill, in theory you need wages at the lower end to rise pretty quickly to provide an incentive for people to work (in reality I don't think you can see this effect too much because the marginal utlity of cash for someone on UC means they can tolerate fairly low wages and still want to work - conditions are much more important IMO).

Indeed, if we take @Fishing's argument to its logical conclusion, slavery should never have been abolished.

It seems there is a pool of people unable to find work for whatever reason (and there may be several) who chase jobs, apply and get nowhere. That's not people who are making no effort (a different group) but those who cannot even get their foot in the door of employment whether it's through lack of qualifications, lack of experience or a lack of something else.

That latter group is large and by far the biggest issue. Often, they just aren't the kind of person who is particularly employable unless you have a highly tolerant and benevolent employer.

It's actually quite rare for the financial incentive to be a problem - even if their EMTR is something like 70% people still tend to want to work because 1) they don't run their lives with spreadsheets like PBers 2) the value of additional income is far higher than for the typical PBer, because it's often the difference between food on the table or not 3) people do recognise that living on benefits forever is not a source of happiness, particularly given the sanctions and other tribulations that DWP have in place.

Indeed. I was involved in the recruitment for a lower grade post handling records. The shortlisting process (before AI) weeded out the obvious and we got down to the last six. Of that six, two stood out on paper and both interviewed very well. We had a really tough job splitting them even on evaluation scoring but by the time we'd decided, both had found better paid work elsewhere.

The other four interviewees were much weaker - it wasn't their academic qualifications which were the problem or even the lack of experience but we were left with the thought they were socially inept, barely able to hold a conversation and interact with others.

Some people are like that - not everyone is gregarious, there are those who find basic social situations very difficult especially with people they don't know. In a workplace, you need to be able to communicate with and basically interact with not just your immediate colleagues but others and whether it's down to technological or societal changes, it's much easier to be alone and lonely than it ever was.

There's a lot in this about self-promotion and self-confidence and I wonder if education is part of the problem (and the solution). It's easy to be in the background in a class of 30 or 40 - less easy when it's 15 or 20. A generation or two of children in overcrowded, underfunded schools come out the other side and we wonder why they find "the real world" so difficult.

The problem is that conventional interviews tend to favour confident extaverts (bullshitters in common parlance), while in many jobs introverts are better at the job, being much more likely to prepare properly rather than just wing it.

We adjusted our medical student interviews for this reason, with a mix of stations including comprehension and problem solving.