Best Of

Morning all

As an aside, Goodwood reported a healthy increase in crowd numbers for its Festival meeting last week, The Public Enclosure (the cheap seats) had crowd numbers up 10% from 2024 while even the posh areas saw a 5% rise and that was despite last Thursdy's biblical deluge.

Attendances at race meetings are doing well and some evidence there's still plenty of discretionary income out there to be spent despite the notion we are on our knees, society is broken and we are one step away from anarchy and barbarism under Labour.

It's all much more nuanced than that - it always has been.

Inequality is increasing, despite what politicians say. If you are retired, self employed, have a skilled trade or don’t have young children or a large mortgage, the chances are you will be comfortably off. If you are renting, have a young family, have no useful skills, or on minimum wage, you will be ever poorer.

Yes, and I'd like to see more focus on it. A Labour government should have 'reduce inequality' at the top of its priorities. It's what the party is for.

I'll do it in Keir X speak:

Britain is a wealthy country but too much of it is held by the few. This leaves many people struggling.
We need a better and fairer way.
My government will leave no stone unturned to find it. Oh yes.

I think if he does that he also needs to make the connection between reducing inequality and a healthy economy. £1,000 in the hands of a poor person gets spent and recycled many times. £1,000 in the hands of the elite goes into speculative assets including housing, pushing assets further away from the reach of those reliant on a wage.

So you think what our economy needs is more consumption and less investment?

Interesting.

More consumption, more productive investment, less asset speculation and asset stripping.

But if that £1000 is in the hands of a poor person it is not going to be productively invested, it is going to get spent. Productive investment comes from those who have savings and if you redistribute their income they will invest less. Short term gain (because the consumption will boost demand, and imports of course) long term pain. I think we have had too much of that already.

Find Out Now voting intention:

🟦 Reform UK: 32% (+2)
🔴 Labour: 20% (-)
🔵 Conservatives: 16% (-1)
🟠 Lib Dems: 12% (-1)
🟢 Greens: 9% (-1)
SNP 2% (=)
Plaid 1% (=)

Others 7% (including 12% 18 to 29 y.o. and 10% in the London subsample)

Changes from 30th July
[Find Out Now, 6th August, N=2,627]

No sign that Reform has peaked. Slow decline of Lab and Con.

I have a detailed model by constituency.
It currently shows the Tories with just one seat. Harrow East.
Lab with 276 seats and Reform with 244. LD with 87.

Sorry. Found a major bug! Swapped the Labour and Tory previous share around!
Should be:
Lab 137
Con 27
LD 85
Ref 335
Green 9
SNP 35
PC 4
NI 18

I remain a Lib Dem sceptic for 2029. Time will tell.
I think Holyrood and the Senedd will be illuminating for the big two ability tk actually turn out voters under extreme pressure and give a bit more of a steer on what 2029 may hold

My guess is that the LDs will hold up in their traditional parts but not elsewhere. In almost every English seat they hold it's a LD v Tory fight. The voters' determination to scatter the Tories to the four winds does not extend to the LDs, nor in LD parts does it extend to a huge love for Reform.

They'll hold a fair few i think but the desire to get the Tories out no longer exists as they are out and I suspect the Tory focus will be blue wall based as they will be totally irrelevant in most of the red wall. As such the general total inefficiency of their vote in 2024 will reverse a little and they'll become a bit more efficient but a lot more patchy and regional.
I expect the LDs to be behind the Tories on seats but not too far. 50 LDs, 80 to 100 Tories (current expectation)

Personally, I don't think the Conservatives will be gaining many seats from the LDs, given the LDs are likely to be up a couple of points on their 2024 share, while the Conservatives will have dropped. And it's not like Reform will be egging them on; they'll both be fighting for right of centre votes.

Three and a half years is plenty of time for Reform to crash and burn.

Put them under ome scrutiny. See how they look when their answer to everything is "Er...."

There’s an article in the magnificent Spectator which says 45% of British voters want zero new migrants and a large scale remigration programme (YouGov - if the Spec is quoting correctly)

Half of Britons are of the opinion that got @williamglenn banned on here for being too fash

Like it or not the British have swung wildly to the right on all this and - I suspect - this time they won’t be satisfied with “oh we’ve moved them from hotels to big houses on your street” and “we send back two a week to France. Sometimes”

And remember immigration is now the single most important issue for voters

Do you not see how this pans out? All Farage has to do is promise minimal migration; the end of the boats: the deportation of much of the Boriswave - and he will easily win. That’s it

Everyone has now belatedly realised that many of our other problems stem directly from obscene levels of net immigration

Everyone has realised that the huge increase in immigration has given wrong uns the opportunity to blame immigration for the government's many failings.

You were claiming the other day that I was an interior decorating fool for putting my own photos on my wall, not art, as I do up my flat

This is just one corner of my new living room




Top right is a photo with no colour filter. It’s a woman serving me a gin and tonic in Nashville Tennessee. Halfway through a fucking amazing roadtrip I did from Nashville down to Natchez then to New Orleans. Epic

Bottom left is a photo of the billionaire (doffing his hat) who gave me ayahuasca. That’s taken in his special “ayahuasca taking” pyramid-dome, with the oculus, on the Balearics

We are about to sit down and consume little cups of the sacred vine. An hour after this photo I was chatting with God about global warming

Now, who the feck wants someone else’s stupid art on the wall when I can have THAT

I've been flagged for this, lol

Now unflagged. So, not only pathetic, but cowardly and pathetic - but also entertaining. Who was it? @bondegezou? @kinabalu? Someone else ending in oo? You?

Come off it. I don't flag. Not even the most racist of your racist posts have ever driven me to that.

Flagging is the act of a pitiful poltroon, and whatever else I may think of you (much of it exaggerated on here for my personal entertainment) no, I don't take you for a poltroon, let alone a pitiful one. So, fair enough

I remember Doug Seal calling you a pontificating poltroon. Very strong post that was.

Interesting character, @DougSeal

One of only three people who have, I believe, gone mad while posting here

@MartinDay was one - but before your time

That crazy dude in Scotland, @jonquil or something. Hated motorbikes. Total meltdown, spectacular but sad. Hope he's OK

And Mister Seal, who came back recently for a bit and seemed OK. Ins'allah

Plato went off the deep end while posting here and the ghost of ..... (Can't remember the name) did and I think got banned.

You couldn't even type Martin without your post getting binned at one time during the MartinDay saga
I kept slagging off Martine McCutcheon for some reason and couldn't work out for ages why my posts were disappearing

lol!

I love hearing old PB lore. It's like a folk history of an aural culture. It's never written down but the Elders Remember

Who else in the world will understand the term "Swissnick"? Only us

Baxtered, lagershed, gaylording ponceyboots, Martin Day, Martin Croxall arrested on telly, farmy farm, Creases, the Finland Rumour, on it goes. Lovely

Con Gain Bootle
Ed Miliband Is Crap Is PM
Tims off license

Licence.

See, it’s not just me !

😃 Let's hope it doesn't become a trend because it is irritating. PB could start having another meaning. Instead of politics it becomes pedantry. In most cases we are aware of our errors. I often use the wrong their/there, but I know the difference.

Homelessness Minisiter Rushanara Ali has resigned

I'm not sure what to say on that TBH. I really did think she was OK - except for anything around an MP getting a 70k or whatever it was rental income and as had been said the optics.

KS showing a glass jaw? IMO he's been a bit timid before.

What she did was legal. Inept, but legal.

It was however politically tin-eared for a minister with responsibility for housing.

Just as Whatserface couldn't remain as anti-corruption minister in this country while facing corruption charges which may be entirely spurious in Bangladesh.

If either of them had been minister for sport, they would have been much better placed to ride it out.

And if they'd been Minister for fisheries, they would have found it easier to remain afloat.

Homelessness Minisiter Rushanara Ali has resigned

I'm not sure what to say on that TBH. I really did think she was OK - except for anything around an MP getting a 70k or whatever it was rental income and as had been said the optics, and a personal decision. Does she have other questions?

KS showing a glass jaw? IMO he's been a bit timid before, and this may not augur well for the future.

Unless I have missed something.

MP salary is 90k-ish isn’t it, being a minister would puts it well into 100ks.

If I were at all inclined towards Lab I’d feel uncomfortable about their MPs being rentiers, let alone a minister for homelessness (that is part of Ali’s title I think).

It's a big like Dad's Army when Walker says 'I don't do much business with the orphanage' and Fraser says 'Aye, except for providing the orphans!'.

Rushanara Ali has resigned as a few people on social media were offended.

@MattW provided the background to what actually happened as opposed to the headlines.

Still, landlords eh.

https://x.com/paulbranditv/status/1953533008666824805?s=61

Yep. The actual sequencing looks fine, the optics dreadful.

It's the fact her government is currently outlawing exactly what she did which makes it super awks.

This Government seems stuffed full of people who definitely nick all the tiny toiletries and the flipflops whenever they stay in hotels.

I’ve a bag upstairs of tiny toiletries from hotels I’ve stopped in. Some nice ones.

You are Keir Starmer and I claim my £5.

Find Out Now voting intention:

🟦 Reform UK: 32% (+2)
🔴 Labour: 20% (-)
🔵 Conservatives: 16% (-1)
🟠 Lib Dems: 12% (-1)
🟢 Greens: 9% (-1)
SNP 2% (=)
Plaid 1% (=)

Others 7% (including 12% 18 to 29 y.o. and 10% in the London subsample)

Changes from 30th July
[Find Out Now, 6th August, N=2,627]

No sign that Reform has peaked. Slow decline of Lab and Con.

I have a detailed model by constituency.
It currently shows the Tories with just one seat. Harrow East.
Lab with 276 seats and Reform with 244. LD with 87.

Sorry. Found a major bug! Swapped the Labour and Tory previous share around!
Should be:
Lab 137
Con 27
LD 85
Ref 335
Green 9
SNP 35
PC 4
NI 18

I remain a Lib Dem sceptic for 2029. Time will tell.
I think Holyrood and the Senedd will be illuminating for the big two ability tk actually turn out voters under extreme pressure and give a bit more of a steer on what 2029 may hold

My guess is that the LDs will hold up in their traditional parts but not elsewhere. In almost every English seat they hold it's a LD v Tory fight. The voters' determination to scatter the Tories to the four winds does not extend to the LDs, nor in LD parts does it extend to a huge love for Reform.

They'll hold a fair few i think but the desire to get the Tories out no longer exists as they are out and I suspect the Tory focus will be blue wall based as they will be totally irrelevant in most of the red wall. As such the general total inefficiency of their vote in 2024 will reverse a little and they'll become a bit more efficient but a lot more patchy and regional.
I expect the LDs to be behind the Tories on seats but not too far. 50 LDs, 80 to 100 Tories (current expectation)

Personally, I don't think the Conservatives will be gaining many seats from the LDs, given the LDs are likely to be up a couple of points on their 2024 share, while the Conservatives will have dropped. And it's not like Reform will be egging them on; they'll both be fighting for right of centre votes.

Three and a half years is plenty of time for Reform to crash and burn.

Put them under ome scrutiny. See how they look when their answer to everything is "Er...."

There’s an article in the magnificent Spectator which says 45% of British voters want zero new migrants and a large scale remigration programme (YouGov - if the Spec is quoting correctly)

Half of Britons are of the opinion that got @williamglenn banned on here for being too fash

Like it or not the British have swung wildly to the right on all this and - I suspect - this time they won’t be satisfied with “oh we’ve moved them from hotels to big houses on your street” and “we send back two a week to France. Sometimes”

And remember immigration is now the single most important issue for voters

Do you not see how this pans out? All Farage has to do is promise minimal migration; the end of the boats: the deportation of much of the Boriswave - and he will easily win. That’s it

Everyone has now belatedly realised that many of our other problems stem directly from obscene levels of net immigration

Everyone has realised that the huge increase in immigration has given wrong uns the opportunity to blame immigration for the government's many failings.

You were claiming the other day that I was an interior decorating fool for putting my own photos on my wall, not art, as I do up my flat

This is just one corner of my new living room




Top right is a photo with no colour filter. It’s a woman serving me a gin and tonic in Nashville Tennessee. Halfway through a fucking amazing roadtrip I did from Nashville down to Natchez then to New Orleans. Epic

Bottom left is a photo of the billionaire (doffing his hat) who gave me ayahuasca. That’s taken in his special “ayahuasca taking” pyramid-dome, with the oculus, on the Balearics

We are about to sit down and consume little cups of the sacred vine. An hour after this photo I was chatting with God about global warming

Now, who the feck wants someone else’s stupid art on the wall when I can have THAT

I've been flagged for this, lol

Now unflagged. So, not only pathetic, but cowardly and pathetic - but also entertaining. Who was it? @bondegezou? @kinabalu? Someone else ending in oo? You?

Come off it. I don't flag. Not even the most racist of your racist posts have ever driven me to that.

Flagging is the act of a pitiful poltroon, and whatever else I may think of you (much of it exaggerated on here for my personal entertainment) no, I don't take you for a poltroon, let alone a pitiful one. So, fair enough

I remember Doug Seal calling you a pontificating poltroon. Very strong post that was.

Interesting character, @DougSeal

One of only three people who have, I believe, gone mad while posting here

@MartinDay was one - but before your time

That crazy dude in Scotland, @jonquil or something. Hated motorbikes. Total meltdown, spectacular but sad. Hope he's OK

And Mister Seal, who came back recently for a bit and seemed OK. Ins'allah

Plato went off the deep end while posting here and the ghost of ..... (Can't remember the name) did and I think got banned.

You couldn't even type Martin without your post getting binned at one time during the MartinDay saga
I kept slagging off Martine McCutcheon for some reason and couldn't work out for ages why my posts were disappearing

lol!

I love hearing old PB lore. It's like a folk history of an aural culture. It's never written down but the Elders Remember

Who else in the world will understand the term "Swissnick"? Only us

Baxtered, lagershed, gaylording ponceyboots, Martin Day, Martin Croxall arrested on telly, farmy farm, Creases, the Finland Rumour, on it goes. Lovely

Con Gain Bootle
Ed Miliband Is Crap Is PM
Tims off license

Licence.

Find Out Now voting intention:

🟦 Reform UK: 32% (+2)
🔴 Labour: 20% (-)
🔵 Conservatives: 16% (-1)
🟠 Lib Dems: 12% (-1)
🟢 Greens: 9% (-1)
SNP 2% (=)
Plaid 1% (=)

Others 7% (including 12% 18 to 29 y.o. and 10% in the London subsample)

Changes from 30th July
[Find Out Now, 6th August, N=2,627]

No sign that Reform has peaked. Slow decline of Lab and Con.

I have a detailed model by constituency.
It currently shows the Tories with just one seat. Harrow East.
Lab with 276 seats and Reform with 244. LD with 87.

Sorry. Found a major bug! Swapped the Labour and Tory previous share around!
Should be:
Lab 137
Con 27
LD 85
Ref 335
Green 9
SNP 35
PC 4
NI 18

I remain a Lib Dem sceptic for 2029. Time will tell.
I think Holyrood and the Senedd will be illuminating for the big two ability tk actually turn out voters under extreme pressure and give a bit more of a steer on what 2029 may hold

My guess is that the LDs will hold up in their traditional parts but not elsewhere. In almost every English seat they hold it's a LD v Tory fight. The voters' determination to scatter the Tories to the four winds does not extend to the LDs, nor in LD parts does it extend to a huge love for Reform.

They'll hold a fair few i think but the desire to get the Tories out no longer exists as they are out and I suspect the Tory focus will be blue wall based as they will be totally irrelevant in most of the red wall. As such the general total inefficiency of their vote in 2024 will reverse a little and they'll become a bit more efficient but a lot more patchy and regional.
I expect the LDs to be behind the Tories on seats but not too far. 50 LDs, 80 to 100 Tories (current expectation)

Personally, I don't think the Conservatives will be gaining many seats from the LDs, given the LDs are likely to be up a couple of points on their 2024 share, while the Conservatives will have dropped. And it's not like Reform will be egging them on; they'll both be fighting for right of centre votes.

Three and a half years is plenty of time for Reform to crash and burn.

Put them under ome scrutiny. See how they look when their answer to everything is "Er...."

There’s an article in the magnificent Spectator which says 45% of British voters want zero new migrants and a large scale remigration programme (YouGov - if the Spec is quoting correctly)

Half of Britons are of the opinion that got @williamglenn banned on here for being too fash

Like it or not the British have swung wildly to the right on all this and - I suspect - this time they won’t be satisfied with “oh we’ve moved them from hotels to big houses on your street” and “we send back two a week to France. Sometimes”

And remember immigration is now the single most important issue for voters

Do you not see how this pans out? All Farage has to do is promise minimal migration; the end of the boats: the deportation of much of the Boriswave - and he will easily win. That’s it

Everyone has now belatedly realised that many of our other problems stem directly from obscene levels of net immigration

Everyone has realised that the huge increase in immigration has given wrong uns the opportunity to blame immigration for the government's many failings.

You were claiming the other day that I was an interior decorating fool for putting my own photos on my wall, not art, as I do up my flat

This is just one corner of my new living room




Top right is a photo with no colour filter. It’s a woman serving me a gin and tonic in Nashville Tennessee. Halfway through a fucking amazing roadtrip I did from Nashville down to Natchez then to New Orleans. Epic

Bottom left is a photo of the billionaire (doffing his hat) who gave me ayahuasca. That’s taken in his special “ayahuasca taking” pyramid-dome, with the oculus, on the Balearics

We are about to sit down and consume little cups of the sacred vine. An hour after this photo I was chatting with God about global warming

Now, who the feck wants someone else’s stupid art on the wall when I can have THAT

I've been flagged for this, lol

Now unflagged. So, not only pathetic, but cowardly and pathetic - but also entertaining. Who was it? @bondegezou? @kinabalu? Someone else ending in oo? You?

Come off it. I don't flag. Not even the most racist of your racist posts have ever driven me to that.

Flagging is the act of a pitiful poltroon, and whatever else I may think of you (much of it exaggerated on here for my personal entertainment) no, I don't take you for a poltroon, let alone a pitiful one. So, fair enough

I remember Doug Seal calling you a pontificating poltroon. Very strong post that was.

Interesting character, @DougSeal

One of only three people who have, I believe, gone mad while posting here

@MartinDay was one - but before your time

That crazy dude in Scotland, @jonquil or something. Hated motorbikes. Total meltdown, spectacular but sad. Hope he's OK

And Mister Seal, who came back recently for a bit and seemed OK. Ins'allah

Plato went off the deep end while posting here and the ghost of ..... (Can't remember the name) did and I think got banned.

You couldn't even type Martin without your post getting binned at one time during the MartinDay saga
I kept slagging off Martine McCutcheon for some reason and couldn't work out for ages why my posts were disappearing

lol!

I love hearing old PB lore. It's like a folk history of an aural culture. It's never written down but the Elders Remember

Who else in the world will understand the term "Swissnick"? Only us

Baxtered, lagershed, gaylording ponceyboots, Martin Day, Martin Croxall arrested on telly, farmy farm, Creases, the Finland Rumour, on it goes. Lovely

Con Gain Bootle
Ed Miliband Is Crap Is PM
Tims off license

Licence.

See, it’s not just me !

Sadly not!