Best Of

YouGov / Sky / Times voting intention

RefUK 27%(+1),
CON 17%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
GRN 16%(+1)
LDEM 15%(nc),

According to YouGov, the 17% for Labour is, they believe believe, the lowest we have shown them on and the Green score is their highest.

Needless to say, it's an unusual result with four parties within 2 points of each other.

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1983053821849817502

Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.

Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting

It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.

You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?

I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.

Radical Left would be apocalyptic.

No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.

Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?

I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty

I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.

So would most of the country.

I’d vote for the hard left on the basis they are less likely to deport me.

They might put you up against the wall as a capitalist running dog, though.

YouGov / Sky / Times voting intention

RefUK 27%(+1),
CON 17%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
GRN 16%(+1)
LDEM 15%(nc),

According to YouGov, the 17% for Labour is, they believe believe, the lowest we have shown them on and the Green score is their highest.

Needless to say, it's an unusual result with four parties within 2 points of each other.

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1983053821849817502

Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.

Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting

It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.

You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?

I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.

Radical Left would be apocalyptic.

No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.

Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?

I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty

Foot was a democrat, yes.

I would not be confident that a government led by Your Party would uphold democracy.

WRT Farage/Trump, I think that the latter is obviously willing to threaten violence against opponents, and to overturn constitutional norms. Farage is more of a Captain Mainwaring/Colonel Blimp-type character.

It seems to me that Captain Mainwaring, bumptious but fundamentally kind-hearted, and (Powell and Pressburger’s) Colonel Blimp, old-fashioned but honourable, are much better figures than the fear-mongering, economically illiterate charlatan Nigel Farage.

Farage is actually a spiv. And not an endearing one.

To extend the Dad's Army theme, I wonder of how much of Farage's appeal is channeling Joe Walker. A spiv, sure, but a useful one who was mostly on the side of the angels (as long as he could take his cut). Question is whether Nigel does the same.

YouGov / Sky / Times voting intention

RefUK 27%(+1),
CON 17%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
GRN 16%(+1)
LDEM 15%(nc),

According to YouGov, the 17% for Labour is, they believe believe, the lowest we have shown them on and the Green score is their highest.

Needless to say, it's an unusual result with four parties within 2 points of each other.

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1983053821849817502

Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.

Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting

It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.

You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?

I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.

Radical Left would be apocalyptic.

No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.

Interesting question? Would we prefer a Corbyn/Foot type government or Farage/Trump type of Government?

I appreciate it sounds like a choice of which foot would you like to shoot, but if I had to choose I would go for Corbyn/Foot because although they might be worse at running the economy (maybe?) they aren't obviously destroying the democracy. Further left and of course that is also a possibilty

I'd go for Farage/Trump every time, and it's not even close.

So would most of the country.

I’d vote for the hard left on the basis they are less likely to deport me.

They might put you up against the wall as a capitalist running dog, though.

Nah, they’d be riven by factionalism and never get anything done.

Danny Kruger currently doing a HUGE amount of mansplaining on R4 about what Ms Pochin actually meant.

Care to precis?

Pochin's words were bad, deeply offensive, wrong, but not racist. Tbf Nick Robinson tried to pin 'preparing for government' Dan down to what was so bad about the words if they were not racist, but got a lot of argle, bargle, fargle in return.

I thought Nick Robinson was particularly good today. Not that it was too challenging. Why he didn't just hold up his hands and say 'Ok we've got an iredeemable racist in the Party. What can I do. I'm not the leader'

Whike she could have made her point more tactfully, it is not racist to state the facts, which is what Sarah Pochin did, however you feel about it.

True. Focus on facts. She stated the fact that it "drives me mad" to see so many black and Asian people in adverts.

Honestly I suspect why anyone should CARE about the number of black people in ads. If black people want to make as much tits of themselves as white people singing about Tesco Clubcard in a random street, why shouldn't they?

Not sure that many do.

What many DO care about is this that those who commission and make the adverts deciding who should be in them based on the colour of their skin.

It is cynical and sickening.

Not really. It’s just advertisers wanting to make sure that all their potential customers are represented. The same people who care about this are the same people who think that peak oppression is that golliwogs are no longer ok.

I've kept out oof this because its a topic in which all opinions are wilfully misinterpreted. The crime she has committed is noticing. Dont be under any illusions that activist groups havent been counting. It's what they do, they count and they count. They enter organisations through DEI, through external consulting and the shake down begins "it's a nice company you have here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it".

The only thing the Reform MP did was notice the cultural revolution that has been happening.

A bit more than just noticing a cultural revolution:

After the caller claimed the demographics of adverts represented a “demonisation of white people”, the Runcorn and Helsby MP agreed.

Sarah Pochin claimed it 'drove her mad' seeing adverts 'full of black and Asian people'

Responding, the Reform UK MP said: “I think Stuart is absolutely right, it drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people, full of people that are basically anything other than white.”

YouGov / Sky / Times voting intention

RefUK 27%(+1),
CON 17%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
GRN 16%(+1)
LDEM 15%(nc),

According to YouGov, the 17% for Labour is, they believe believe, the lowest we have shown them on and the Green score is their highest.

Needless to say, it's an unusual result with four parties within 2 points of each other.

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1983053821849817502

Labour and the Tories now tied and only just ahead of the Greens and LDs shows that both the main parties are finding it difficult to distinguish themselves. Labour are losing votes to their left to the Greens and to the centre to the LDs and the Tories have already lost the right to Reform and under Kemi are losing centrist voters to the LDs as well.

Reform ahead clearly but only on 27% so still very vulnerable to anti Farage tactical voting

It's a fascinating time to be involved in politics! There is a very simple message from the electorate - they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. The party who can offer the most convincing fix for the mess will win.

You don't think the winner will be the Party offering the most attractive illusion?

I think there are two more cycles: Reform and then radical left (Green or Sultana) And then we may consider facing up to our problems. But we are not at rock bottom yet.

Radical Left would be apocalyptic.

No-one would come out with any private assets intact out the other side, and it'd take us decades to recover, and many of us never would.

New York 2030.

Incidentally, good news and long overdue:

Headlights to be reviewed after drivers complain of being 'blinded' at night
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn971jlpvvro

I have unusually sensitive eyes and driving at night is becoming a highly unpleasant experience. Not only are many modern headlights far too bright (in some cases clearly illegally bright) but too few people seem to know how to use the dipper.

Same, it's the reason I've pretty much stopped driving at night and I drive vehicles with normal headlights that can be seen from the moon even before I put them in beam.

The usual question arises, though. Enforcement with no traffic policemen - how?

Clearly making the default safer is better - just like default speed limits in Wales which are delivering excellent results - but a significant % of vehicles are already out there with these already, so the cat is out of the bag.

There’s nothing to enforce. These lights are road legal if OEM fit. They also test them as part of the MOT and will fail a car if it does not meet the criteria.

Change the spec to appease a few complainants by all means but the reality is it is not an overnight fix, there’d be an,out of compliance and validation tests and would be very hard to apply retrospectively.

I worked in vehicle lighting for a few years up in Cannock and in Brum and these lights have to meet strict criteria to be able to be used on the road including the position of the beam.

From your experience, if the UK spec differs markedly from EU spec, will the manufacturers change? Running different specs through the same factory is a recipe for mistakes and costs, so wonder if they will do it.

We’re different anyway due to being RHD v LHD so the spec for UK vehicle lighting, front lighting, will differ anyway due to the position of the beam.

It’s a cost burden for sure, it also means two sets of tools for key parts. It makes RHD cars more expensive to their European counterparts as you recover your fixed costs for additional tooling over fewer cars. It also means multiple BOMs and component numbers. This adds admin and complexity, increases inventory and reduces manufacturing efficency. It’s manageable especially now you have the technology to scan a barcode on the part to match to the BOM before you fit it.

But this is applicable across plenty of other vehicle parts too.

There are three left hand drive countries in the EU.

I hope to see four again, before I die!