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‪Sam Freedman‬
‪@samfr.bsky.social‬

For as long as the Tory/Reform split continues the Lib Dems are more or less guaranteed to hold their local and Westminster seats (and add more).

https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3ltoisjolqa2n

'More or less guaranteed'
Hmmmmmm.

He's probably right, though.

Forty percent right-of-centre vote in one box wins in lots of places. Split it into two boxes, twenty-five and fifteen, and it wins in very few places. Substitute "left" for "right", and you have the political story of much of the twentieth century.

RefCon have got two choices, neither of them that agreeable. One is to continue the fight until only one stands, and hope that the winner doesn't lose too many limbs in the process. The other is to come to some sort of under-the-desk implicit understanding, of the sort that LibLab had in the runup to 2024. However rational that would be, personal ambition would make it difficult.

In the meantime, Lib Dems make hay in nice seats, and Labour probably do OK in default seats by default. FPTP rewards "least bad" exactly as much as "best".

Overall, the centre right vote is well up on 2024, and Reform are winning about 60% of it, which is sufficient to deliver a lot of constituencies.

Who could have predicted that the Chancellor dramatically increasing taxes in April on employment could cause a recession with declines in April and May?

Apart from anyone who understands anything about Economics that is.

Do you know anyone on here who understands anything about Economics? Maybe Robert, but I can't think of anyone else.

There are several. You haven't been paying attention

I discount anyone who believes the voodoo Laffer Curve works in a real world context. Only genuine economists need apply.

Your obsession with the Laffer Curve is weird.

All Economics is subject to debate on how it works in a real world context. Any economist worth their salt would always place caveats onw what they're saying.

The Laffer Curve is abused, but the theory is perfectly reasonable economics that does work in a real world context as well as any other theory.

There are countless examples retold here on a regular basis on how people change their behaviour at the cliff-edges especially. People who won't work more than 16 hours as if they do they'll lose benefits at such a rate they'll earn no extra money. People who won't earn beyond the 100k threshold as if they do they'll be worse off. Etc, etc, etc

What is that if not the Laffer Curve working on a real world context.

Anyone who says we should cut from 47% to 45% "because Laffer" doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. Anyone who says we should deal with the 100% cliff edges "because Laffer" does.

The general principle that tax can drive behaviour is perfectly sound. The nonsense is the "Curve" descriptor - which bestows a false sense of numerical certainty and precision to it.

Would you object to a 'Laffer correlation'? A 'Laffer vague trend'?

Ooh, Root 100. Hurray.

Ref the comment earlier about council by election wins...
Since May 1st about 70% of the by elections have been won by Reform or the LDs
This was the tally before last night's 4 reform, 4 LD, 1 localist, 1 to come

Aggregate Result of the 49 Council By-Elections since the 2025 Local Elections:

LDM: 17 (+6)
RFM: 16 (+14)
LAB: 5 (-12)
CON: 4 (-5)
GRN: 3 (+2)
Ind: 3 (=)
SNP: 1 (=)
Local: 0 (-5)

The LDs are doing well, but they were defending a quarter of the seats fought so far, Reform doing best by a country mile in terms of gains but have yet to successfully defend a seat they hold

This was the tally from July 24 to May 1 this year
Aggregate Result of the 329 Council By-Elections (for 336 Seats) Since the 2024 General Election:

LAB: 86 (-72)
LDM: 81 (+3)
CON: 73 (+23)
RFM: 43 (+43)
GRN: 18 (+6)
INDs: 15 (-2)
SNP: 11 (+2)
LOCs: 5 (-3)
PLC: 4 (=)

Who could have predicted that the Chancellor dramatically increasing taxes in April on employment could cause a recession with declines in April and May?

Apart from anyone who understands anything about Economics that is.

Do you know anyone on here who understands anything about Economics? Maybe Robert, but I can't think of anyone else.

There are several. You haven't been paying attention

I discount anyone who believes the voodoo Laffer Curve works in a real world context. Only genuine economists need apply.

Your obsession with the Laffer Curve is weird.

All Economics is subject to debate on how it works in a real world context. Any economist worth their salt would always place caveats onw what they're saying.

The Laffer Curve is abused, but the theory is perfectly reasonable economics that does work in a real world context as well as any other theory.

There are countless examples retold here on a regular basis on how people change their behaviour at the cliff-edges especially. People who won't work more than 16 hours as if they do they'll lose benefits at such a rate they'll earn no extra money. People who won't earn beyond the 100k threshold as if they do they'll be worse off. Etc, etc, etc

What is that if not the Laffer Curve working on a real world context.

Anyone who says we should cut from 47% to 45% "because Laffer" doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. Anyone who says we should deal with the 100% cliff edges "because Laffer" does.

The general principle that tax can drive behaviour is perfectly sound. The nonsense is the "Curve" descriptor - which bestows a false sense of numerical certainty and precision to it.

Would you object to a 'Laffer correlation'? A 'Laffer vague trend'?

Ooh, Root 100. Hurray.

I find it a rather obvious and not massively useful insight. So I'd go for the Laffer Chestnut.

If its so obvious and not useful, why have we got so many awful cliff-edges in our tax system?

Why do so many get shocked that people don't want to work when facing an effective 100% tax rate?

Who could have predicted that the Chancellor dramatically increasing taxes in April on employment could cause a recession with declines in April and May?

Apart from anyone who understands anything about Economics that is.

Do you know anyone on here who understands anything about Economics? Maybe Robert, but I can't think of anyone else.

There are several. You haven't been paying attention

I discount anyone who believes the voodoo Laffer Curve works in a real world context. Only genuine economists need apply.

Your obsession with the Laffer Curve is weird.

All Economics is subject to debate on how it works in a real world context. Any economist worth their salt would always place caveats onw what they're saying.

The Laffer Curve is abused, but the theory is perfectly reasonable economics that does work in a real world context as well as any other theory.

There are countless examples retold here on a regular basis on how people change their behaviour at the cliff-edges especially. People who won't work more than 16 hours as if they do they'll lose benefits at such a rate they'll earn no extra money. People who won't earn beyond the 100k threshold as if they do they'll be worse off. Etc, etc, etc

What is that if not the Laffer Curve working on a real world context.

Anyone who says we should cut from 47% to 45% "because Laffer" doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. Anyone who says we should deal with the 100% cliff edges "because Laffer" does.

The general principle that tax can drive behaviour is perfectly sound. The nonsense is the "Curve" descriptor - which bestows a false sense of numerical certainty and precision to it.

Would you object to a 'Laffer correlation'? A 'Laffer vague trend'?

Ooh, Root 100. Hurray.

I find it a rather obvious and not massively useful insight. So I'd go for the Laffer Chestnut.

You may find it obvious that reducing taxes induces more work to be done but unfortunately many do not.

Aside from the Norwegians, today's ferry queue was a bunch of French motorcyclists, a couple of Finnish and a few Swedish vehicles, one Dane, one Dutch, an intrepid Spanish car, only me flying the flag for the UK, and a shedload of Germans in cars, campers, vans and motorbikes.

Off the ferry came something called a 'hotelbus', a double decker where the upper deck and some of the rear appeared to have been converted into compact accommodation for the travellers. Not seen one of those before..

Poor Mr Dog has a few hours confined in the car on the car deck, which he won't enjoy at all, especially with the numpties who don't turn their car alarms off. At least it is exceedingly calm today.

Between which 2 places was the ferry travelling?

Bodo to Moskenes. 10-11 hours by road, three by ferry

I don't think that we have a UK ferry to Norway any more, and it's a long way from Denmark too, so must be part of the reason for so few UK vehicles.

Yes, I expect fly and hire is easier (not that I have met many Brits at all, so far; in the towns, far more Americans).

Sadly the sea away from the coast isn't as calm as I had hoped, and the ship is now tossing about quite a bit.

A resumption of the Newcastle-Bergen service is perpetually rumoured, and I believe it's being considered again recently? Norway is a great, if relatively pricey, destination, but whether there's enough demand to make a direct UK ferry viable, I don't know.