Best Of

“Tucker Carlson: “If I were Putin, I would offer free first class trips to Moscow so they could see that Moscow was so much nicer than any place in Great Britain. It's like not even close…It's just weird that they're mad at Putin. Why aren't they mad at Keir Starmer? Britain is so degraded”

https://x.com/rpsagainsttrump/status/1936249722483658821?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

Tucker needs to visit the other 99% of Russia.

I recall Tucker was dead impressed by the supermarkets. There were lots of different types of bread, and they had this clever thing where you slot in a coin on the trolley and it releases it.

So we could perhaps take him on a tour of a Sainsbury’s and change his view of Britain.

The most interesting parts of the header actually concern the LibDems.

Most obviously, until the coalition, the LibDems (and Liberals before them) had essentially the same vote share profile across seats as Reform has now. Hence in the elections of 1974 and 1983, despite polling very well, they walked away with just a handful of seats.

This is because, prior to 2010, the LibDems were - directly contrary to what is stated in the lead - seen by many voters as an outsider party; one outside the cycle of two-party power that wanted to change the system. Hence the Liberals and LibDems picked up a significant NOTA vote (remember the old stickers from the '70s: "Don't blame me, I voted Liberal"), and continued to do so after UKIP came along, since the latter focused on the specific issue of the EU. And the NOTA vote is evenly spread.

The LibDems lost its NOTA role upon entering coalition in 2010, and it has never returned - hence the huge number of seats where now only a tiny % of folks vote LibDem. That this endures after more than a decade is notable, and I suggest four possible explanations:

- the LibDems having participated in power and done a deal with a major party lost them their NOTA voters and this perception (that they proved no better than the big two) endures despite a decade back in opposition;
- the realisation that if they do well, the LibDems could team up with one of the big parties makes it easier for their vote to be squeezed between Tory and Labour in seats where they're not in contention;
- Reform has emerged as the new champions of NOTA.
- the core LibDem voter has shifted towards a more educated/middle class/remainery demographic, likely a consequence of Brexit and the Trump/Farage challenge to globalisation etc.

The LibDems have recovered in prominence not by recovering a high nationwide vote share, but by building a solid vote in former Tory seats mostly in the Home Counties, from combining the support of disaffected Tory voters (which was always a significant source of Liberal votes, away from the celtic fringe) and tactical Labour support. That Labour voters are now so willing to back the LibDems suggests that the 'coalition overhang' has faded (the interesting question being why the coalition is apparently forgiven by Labour voters but not by NOTA voters?).

In which case the explanation as to why the seat totals now are so much better for the LDs than back in the 70s and 80s is simply that there are a lot more disaffected Tory voters around nowadays, with the 2024 tally simply being a higher tide mark than Ashdown's achievement around the turn of the century. Which makes the LD seats heavily reliant on the Tories staying down and out for the foreseeable.

London. 2025.

"You can see it on the faces of provincial families you know who come to London for a birthday weekend and they look confused - there's nobody in the tube carriage who speaks english."

Goodhart talking to Goodwin

https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1936156631844196434


I haven't been to London for ten years so I can't really comment. But really?

No one on the tube should be speaking any language. Ok, maybe on the platform...

The furriners even talk to complete strangers!!

Pshaw! {adjusts monocle}

Northerners do that too!

The other thing is frankly, I don't really regard London as part of the UK. It's part of something bigger, perhaps better. A world city. I think most people from the "provincials" feel this way, and aren't necessarily upset by it.

There are more similarities with Leith and Shoreditch than there are with Leith and Keith, for example. National and even regional identities are being overtaken by street-level cultural identities.

Why do people who love the fact London is full of foreigners get upset when other people say no one’s speaking English? It’s like they are happy about something they refuse to admit is happening

I had a v distressing tube journey the other week that was disrupted by dozens of french school children on an exchange trip who were speaking French! to each other. I thought we had voted Brexit to put a stop to such ordeals.

The Welsh are such snowflakes.

Tesco says sorry after running ‘meet the Lionesses’ campaign... in Wales

Supermarket pulls Lucozade’s England promotion for Euro 2025 from Cardiff outlets after shoppers describe it as ‘deeply offensive’

Tesco has apologised for displaying a “meet the Lionesses” advertising stand in a Cardiff store, which customers described as “deeply offensive”.

Wales’s women’s team will take part in their first major tournament at this summer’s Euro 2025 and have been drawn in the same group as England.

Shoppers in Cardiff were outraged by a Lucozade display that offered the chance for fans to meet the Lionesses, whom Wales play on July 13.

Noel Mooney, the chief executive of the Football Association of Wales (FAW) was one of several people to share their anger on social media, posting on X: “We are Cymru.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/06/20/tesco-lionesses-campaign-wales-england-women-euro-2025/

So no English people live in Cardiff then? No one in Wales could possibly want to meet the Lionesses? Pathetic grievance culture from the arch nation of grievance.

OT

Sadness in the Tyndall household today as two of my son's classmates were killed in a car crash a few miles from here last night. They had finished sitting their A levels yesterday and I assume were out celebrating. The two lads who died were passengers in a car and the driver has been arrested on a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

Really sad and all too common. I do wonder whether there is something more that should be done to either educate young drivers or prevent them from carrying passengers for a while.

I'm really sorry to hear that - I saw that in the local news: 1:46am by the report, two hatchbacks IIRC.

There are various things bubbling under in the Road Safety Strategy, which should be out around now. We've discussed a few, and young driver safety is on the list, but they are being fairly "steady as she goes".

In terms of support, there are a couple of established charities that specialise in support of families & friends of people killed or seriously injured in collisions. Both have daytime helplines, and people who were bereaved by road collisions at their core, and do advocacy work, and have a lot of practical material. I tend to refer to Brake, but that is because they have more research stuff relevant to my particular issues.

Brake, https://www.brake.org.uk/ , 0808 800 0401, help@brake.org.uk

Road Peace, https://www.roadpeace.org/, 0800 160 1069, helpline@roadpeace.org

Both could provide speakers to do a lesson or an assembly, I think. But of course out there you are also fairly close to the Notts Constabulary HQ.

It is a shame also for the school because they have been going out of their way to provide lessons, speakers and practical sessions all around safety for young drivers. They have really pushed the boat out over the last few years (actually since the Girl's school KGGS lost a couple of Year 13s in an accident on the A1) and I don't think they could have done more.

On the other side of that, that means that their students may be far better placed to deal with the emotional consequences than they would have been otherwise. Good on the school for addressing it.

I have to say that the pastoral care at the school over the last 7 years my son has been there has been outstanding. It is an all boys school (Kings) and they really, really know how to handle lads, what the specific problems with them are and how to get the best out of them as well as how to support them. They certainly seem to pride themselves on turning out young men rather than just funneling them through the exam system.

I am quite reassured by the support you have received on here today.

Around a decade ago a girl my youngest son was at school with was killed at Storey Arms along with two young lads and an old lady in a second car. The driver was three days on from passing his driving test. In another similarly tragic incident a friend of the same son had been knocking on doors and running away on Barry Road in Barry. A householder caught him unawares and the lad ran away into the path of a taxi and was killed. Both incidents made the national news and the consensus on here was Darwin awards had been justifiably presented.

Be nice to think we have matured as a community and won't always go for the easy shock comment these days.

And yes agree entirely about the support.