Best Of

Afternoon all.

The Germans are a miserable lot.

That's PR for you. No one is getting what they want. At least here, around a third of the voters are getting what they wanted.

Not evidenced in the header.
They're are about to kick out the guy who delivered it.

Afternoon all.

The Germans are a miserable lot.

That's PR for you. No one is getting what they want. At least here, around a third of the voters are getting what they wanted.

Not evidenced in the header.
They're are about to kick out the guy who delivered it.

Germany is having a nasty crisis - from the export superpower of Europe to years of economic crisis.

The industrial national champions have been especially hard hit.

If only Germany hadn't Brexited....

Oh.

To be fair Germany are starting from an industrial base in the 90%s whilst Starmer Britain are starting at -90%

I have some friends in Munich, which is a remarkably clean and well run city to my eye. To their eye Germany is "lost" and they have a house over here they spend a lot of time in. They are particularly riled by the decision to stop nuclear given Germany now just buys nuclear from France.

On the flip side I've loads of British friends who think Britain is a dystopia and would like to move to Germany. Even I am eying a retirement in New England despite my (possibly visa denying) comments about Trump.

You can't please people nowadays. The grass is always greener etc etc.

The longer I live in Ireland the more dysfunctional the politics and governance appears to be. I didn't have any particular illusions about it being well run when I moved here, but over time ones knowledge of particular scandals and failures builds up, and it has a cumulative effect on your sense of a place.

I'd say there are lots of good reasons to move country, but unless you are moving from a dictatorship to a democracy*, moving country due to perceptions of how well run it is will only end in disappointment.

* And the main advantage of a democracy is that you can complain about how badly run the place is without the risk of being sent to jail.

I don’t think squeezing Restore is going to work. There were always a bunch of Reform supporters who thought Farage was a wet. Now they have a home.

If the Reform candidate was a firebrand, maybe. But he’s a damp squib.

When Reform lose, the autopsy will be down to a shite candidate.

He inspires GOTV - for his opponents.

Reform seem to have a lot of problem with shite candidates.

As does the Greens. Both their candidates for Makerfield were inept as was their local election candidates (again, same for Reform)

The insurgent parties need to professionalise its candidate selection and vetting ASAP

That's the problem though with being "insurgent" - you attract people who, apart from believing (supposedly) in your core values, have no political experience at all.

I was politically active when the SDP came into being - two thirds of the new SDP members had never been in any political party at all. Inevitably, it was left to the ex-Labour and ex-Conservative members to show them what to do and how it worked. The came the Alliance and the Liberals worked with the SDP.

This was all before the days of social media of course.

Even after that. In 2014 I heard several Labour activists observe that Better Together was a means by which Labour taught the Tories how to fight elections. A refresher might be helpful but I'm not sure who would be giving it these days.

Bit presumptuous of Labour to claim to have schooled the most successful election winning machine in the UK's history...

In fairness that successful election winning machine had made very little dent in Scotland for about 60 years. So, before the collapse of Scottish Labour, they had a point.

So I'm avoiding marking exams and did some research... Here is the Conservative vote share in Scotland in General Elections back to 1950...



You can see an uptick after 2014 for sure, but that would be against a backdrop of a bit national return too?

Afternoon all.

The Germans are a miserable lot.

That's PR for you. No one is getting what they want. At least here, around a third of the voters are getting what they wanted.

Not evidenced in the header.
They're are about to kick out the guy who delivered it.

Afternoon all.

The Germans are a miserable lot.

That's PR for you. No one is getting what they want. At least here, around a third of the voters are getting what they wanted.

Not evidenced in the header.
They're are about to kick out the guy who delivered it.

Germany is having a nasty crisis - from the export superpower of Europe to years of economic crisis.

The industrial national champions have been especially hard hit.

If only Germany hadn't Brexited....

Oh.

Brexit damages the EU too. Thats what trade barriers do.

But mainly it is the technological lead over China that is lost. China is dominating the new industries of EV's etc.

That and (for example) the loss of cheap gas from Russia.
Germany still has a large chemical industry, whose margins have been absolutely laid waste by the massive increase in both feedstock and energy prices.

Zack Polanski complains that food is too cheap

https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2064014185776705584

Zack Polanski has criticised supermarkets for selling vegetables for as little as 7p

“This isn’t a sign of a healthy system… someone is being exploited somewhere”

He's so out of touch with the average British voter it's almost funny.

When you tell the average British voter how little money goes to the farmer, mercilessly squeezed by the supermarkets as they are, the average British voter is generally very sympathetic to the farmer. I’m not so certain the average British voter doesn’t rather agree with Zack here.

That said, the average British voter does go straight back to being the average British consumer and keeps buying cheap stuff in supermarkets.