Best Of

I think we’re starting to see polling numbers that will utterly break seat modelling. I’m going to be very nervous of any bets on seat numbers if they stick until polling day, especially noting the non-voters in the Reform samples.

I also think the right Tory leader change and the inevitable Reform scandal, could change a lot.

I think that’s right.

I do think, despite the fact they’re languishing in a terrible position in the polls, there are factors at play that could start to spur a modest Tory recovery. I don’t know if it’s quite enough to win an election (probably, at this stage, not) but potentially enough to avoid being relegated to minor party status.

There are I think enough voters who understand that there are tough decisions to be made who also realise that the Labour Party are increasingly unlikely to make them, and Reform’s promises are cakeist. The Tories are, despite their cataclysmic last spell in government, a party that can probably try and sell that angle. As I say, do I think it’s a GE-winning message? Probably not. But it might be enough to entice back some of the middle England vote.

A nice mathematically pleasing result could still happen

Ref 24
Con 24
Lab 24
LD 12
Green 6
Dried Fruit 6
SNP 3

ISTR a lovely opinion poll during Lab's nadir a few years back of Con 48, Lab 24, LD 12, UKIP or current equivalent 6, Green 3. I may be wrong.

Doctors have voted for strike action lol

What's their grievance now?

It looks like the same grievance as they had last time.

Doctors pay was undoubtedly substantially eroded over the last 15-20 years, as was university academics. You can try to go back to the situation in 2007, say, or you can say that the world has changed, suck it up. However if you do the latter an awful lot of skilled medics discover that Aus and NZ are very welcoming...

The issue is that if you put medics back to where they would have been with real terms pay increases, the rest of us might want a piece of the action as well. And a plurality of the public won’t understand why we shouldn’t.

Well quite, thats why I included the comparison with Uni academics.

Lib Dem’s

Going bankrupt here !!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgeqxgpdp7do

Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.

SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.

The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.

And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.

Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.

The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.

The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.

Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.

My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?

That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.

What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.

It is a load of old bollocks. Wishy washy bad parenting and letting children do as they like , how come nobody used to have it. Good clip round the ear and discipline is what is needed, no wonder we are skint , every tom dick & harry has to have something wrong that needs mooney for them or spent on them.

Lib Dem’s

Going bankrupt here !!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgeqxgpdp7do

Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.

Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.

A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.

Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?

Don’t assume. He proposed no such thing.

He’s looking at reforming it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6gx56je91o

‘ Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.

"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."

He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.’

That is crazy.
And if it is happening it's utter incompetence.
My kids both had rural school transport.
They got on a bus with a couple of dozen others from farms and hamlets.

Well I know from what my local councillor tells me this sort of thing does go on.

He was on the cabinet during the coalition in Durham.

One example being two children in the same home having to separate taxis to the same school. Can’t remember the reason.

Fighting between the children wouldn’t surprise me if SEN

Then they ought not to be living together.
Sometimes the taxi drivers can see an easy mark.

I think we’re starting to see polling numbers that will utterly break seat modelling. I’m going to be very nervous of any bets on seat numbers if they stick until polling day, especially noting the non-voters in the Reform samples.

I also think the right Tory leader change and the inevitable Reform scandal, could change a lot.

Whilst sub samples are obviously not weighted, its worth keeping your eye on them to assist with rough seat ideas.
For example, if Reform are surging in NE, NW, Midlands, Yorkshire etc and Tories are holding up in South, East, London but tanking up north it makes a massive difference to both seats and Labour's prospects

Polling suggests that support for Reform has surged most strongly among social renters, and working class voters, whereas Labour's support has held up most strongly, further up the social scale. That would suggest that Labour would lose a string of historic constituencies, in the North, urban Midlands, and South Wales, as well as seats like Dartford or Thurrock which they gained off the Tories, whilst Labour would hold Greater London, university seats, and city centres.

I think we’re starting to see polling numbers that will utterly break seat modelling. I’m going to be very nervous of any bets on seat numbers if they stick until polling day, especially noting the non-voters in the Reform samples.

I also think the right Tory leader change and the inevitable Reform scandal, could change a lot.

I think that’s right.

I do think, despite the fact they’re languishing in a terrible position in the polls, there are factors at play that could start to spur a modest Tory recovery. I don’t know if it’s quite enough to win an election (probably, at this stage, not) but potentially enough to avoid being relegated to minor party status.

There are I think enough voters who understand that there are tough decisions to be made who also realise that the Labour Party are increasingly unlikely to make them, and Reform’s promises are cakeist. The Tories are, despite their cataclysmic last spell in government, a party that can probably try and sell that angle. As I say, do I think it’s a GE-winning message? Probably not. But it might be enough to entice back some of the middle England vote.

A nice mathematically pleasing result could still happen

Ref 24
Con 24
Lab 24
LD 12
Green 6
Dried Fruit 6
SNP 3

I was just reading Tebbitt's wiki page, and came across the case of the "Ferrybridge Six": six electricians who were sacked from their jobs for not joining a closed shop in 1975. They were in a union; just the 'wrong' union, and the 'right' union refused to allow them to join. They lost unemployment benefits.

We've come a long way.

Thankfully.

(Michael Foot showed his nasty side in that case.)

A couple of weeks ago I tried to explain the Closed Shop concept, and its practical consequences, to my daughter and son-in-law. I don't think they believed me.

Genuine question - I can't think of any good things from a Closed Shop, but please explain why it is so bad?

It's "so bad" (in my opinion) because it compels membership of an organisation to which an individual might not want to join. It might be different now, but in the 1960s and 1970s membership of most industrial unions meant that some of your subs were going to the Labour Party, even if you were a member of another political party. (The "political levy" was a smokescreen - the unions funded the Labour Party, lent it staff and premises during elections, and had a significant influence on its internal elections.) The Ferrybridge Six example was a classic of the genre - six electricians were members of a union, but their employer negotiated an agreement with another union that only the latter would be recognised. As a closed shop was in operation, the six men had to either resign from their union and join the new one, or become unemployed. They chose the latter course of action, and were deemed to have made themselves voluntarily unemployed.

I cannot be forcd to belong to a church or a club or a residents association - why should I be compelled to join something that gets in the way (for good or ill) between me and my employer?

It's a huge restrictive practice. You can't work for a particular employer, if the union doesn't want you. And, you can lose your job if the union expels you (for example, for refusing to strike).

It's one of those things that seems so weird, you wonder how it could ever have been legal.