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Keiran Pedley
@keiranpedley
Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months

Here is the Sept vs today

Reform 34% ~ 28%
Labour 22% ~ 21%
Conservative 14% ~ 17%
Greens 12% ~ 17%
Lib Dems 12% ~ 9%

So a 6 point fall for Reform in this past 6 months.

https://x.com/keiranpedley/status/2033124890144838058

What I see there is none Labour none of the above vote shifting from Reform to Green..

WellI thought it was an interesting header Rabbit.

Just ask the French nicely to get a piece of their independent nuclear deterrent. It wouldn't be nuclear independence per se, but closer collaboration with a regional power on an approximately equivalent level may be preferable to being the(very) junior lickspittle partner in an unstable coalition with the USA, who appear to have quite a low opinion of us.

This is possibly the most idiotic thing I've read on PB all month.

That being so, you can't have been reading very much on here in the last month.

I get that Labour is very historically low however the gap between them and first place is fairly average historically?

Not sure the past can really inform us much about what is going on now, it’s no longer 2 or 2.5 party politics.

There are more parties fighting for a share in the polls than there were in Whitehall during lockdown.

OT

It’s perfectly possible to build a two/three stage missile that will take a nuclear warhead to Moscow, or pretty much anywhere.

And to do so for reasonable cost.

The South Korean Hyunmoo-5, which is a road mobile ICBM, was developed for about $250 million. Unit cost would be a small fraction of that. That’s a Minuteman III class ICBM.

To build a Trident D5 sized launch vehicle would probably take not much more money. Solid rocket motors are actually fairly simple.

The real cost issue is the use of Big Aerospace, which has an almost religious belief in high costs.

The South Koreans simply ignore this.

Edit: note that Japan also builds three stage “orbital rockets” which bear a remarkable resemblance to the cancelled American MX heavy ICBM.

Thanks, MR, really good header, although I don't agree about us having no choice but to remain a vassal of the US on defence matters. It won't be easy after all these years to take a different path but we will have to unless America pivots back to sanity post Donald Trump. It's impossible to decide what strategy is best until this becomes clearer. If we do opt for detachment from a gone-bad Uncle Sam I think I prefer the policy of scrapping our (not) independent nuclear deterrent to spending ludicrous sums on building a new one. There are better ways to use the defence budget. Ways more aligned to the actual threats we face.

If we start developing our own independent nuclear deterrent, do we risk being bombed by Israel and America? Are our enrichment facilities suitably hidden?

If we start developing our own independent nuclear deterrent, do we risk being bombed by Israel and America? Are our enrichment facilities suitably hidden?

We are already a recognised nuclear missile power and no threat to the US or Israel. France has an independent deterrent, are the US and Israel bombing them? Of course not

Give it time, HYUFD.

I get that Labour is very historically low however the gap between them and first place is fairly average historically?

Not sure the past can really inform us much about what is going on now, it’s no longer 2 or 2.5 party politics.