Best Of

Interesting stuff in the FT about the gender divide in Makerfield polling. Notably that Survation have Burnham +3 with men and +17 with women. Which demonstrates the reason why this contest long ago stopped being competitive is because Reform picked a knobber and then tried to style it out.

Yes, but given that Farage created the Reform party and still largely owns it, they're kind of stuck with Nigel.

Oh, you meant their candidate in Makerfield?

(But seriously, folks... the question of why Reform keep picking terrible people as candidates isn't just down to bad luck or poor vetting. Something about the party systematically attracts a certain sort of worst person.

No, not every Reformer is awful, and other parties have awful people as well. But there's a definite pattern in the data.)

Your final comment: yes, that’s what I was thinking when I read those Labour MPs’ claims.

Much easier to blame a football match than admit the reality - they were not popular enough to win because they had overseen a total mess up of the economy. (Which was, in fairness, not entirely their fault.)

Just as the Labour left constantly blame the Falklands War for 1983, when actually it was mostly due to their own terrible mistakes.

Yes, Labour lost the 1970 general election as inflation was high, taxes were high and the unions were on strike regularly and they had to get a bailout from the IMF not because of the World Cup. The 1966-70 Wilson government was so bad that even Ted Heath beat it (and Sir Edward had no interest in football at all which he considered a plebs game, his interests were sailing and classical music)

White House tells PM not to ban social media for children
Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech
...
...
Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)

That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.

If children need to be protected from all social media, not just some content, it suggests the problem is with social media as a whole, not children having access to it.

A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.

Council rejects 100 homes.

Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.

Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.

End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.

https://nitter.poast.org/jakewg_/status/2063551764796752183#m

No sympathy for NIMBYs

What about local democracy?

Sadly I seem to repeat the same issue

we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..

We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.

That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.

No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.

Here’s 170 you can redeploy already.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/170-jobs-lost-historic-gateshead-34087173

Where to start;

No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.

If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.


In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…

So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.

Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!

Peter.

We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.

We have had 25 years of large scale immigration.
We have increased the working age population.
We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population.
We have had low productivity and low wage growth.

And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.

Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.

Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.

Peter.

The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.

No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.

Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.

Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.

I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.

Peter.

That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.

We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.

It hasn't worked very well.

So, you don't like democracy then?

Democracy is the best system we have for choosing governments. Facts are not best decided by opinion poll.

This is fair illustration of the populist approach.

https://x.com/jaimerh354/status/2064028672525250561
Here we see populism in two easy compare and contrasts.

First we have Reform’s Zia Yousaf (self proclaimed “shadow Home Secretary) who Tweeted in outrage at the sacking of a police officer.

Then we have Reforms Steve Barrett Tweeting in outrage at the conduct of an officer.


...As you have guessed, it’s the same officer. The same incident.

Windsor Davies latest:



WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧
@WarMonitor3
·
3h
Russian forces according to reports are being forced to withdraw on mass from positions around the Kinburn Spit south of the Dnipro river due to severe supply difficulties caused by continued Ukrainian drone strike campaigns on Southern logistical routes.

https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/2064011164040806673

This is just the start. It is highly likely by later this year that the Russians will have to withdraw from Crimea due to lack of supplies, fuel and even water. They have lost this war and it is getting worse for them by the week. Zelenskyy must have been very confident that Putin would reject his latest peace offer or he wouldn't have made it. He was right.

And the consequences of that would do more for the popularity of Western governments than most of the actions they can take for themselves.

Success is more about right place/right time than we might want to be the case.

Interesting that Zelenskyy is aware of, and refers to, Reform councils taking down the Ukrainian flag in his latest interview.

Yet another example (do we need more?) that Farage and his cronies really do represent something new and malignant in British public life.

And, hopefully, temporary. There is certainly at least anecdotal evidence that Farage is facing an increasing backlash. The question is, if we are at peak Reform, will NF's fall pressage a recovery in the Tories .. or Labour?
My personal view is that, at least initially, it will be a Burnham-led Labour, rather that a Badenoch-led Conservative party.

I thought the polling was that vast majority of Reform voters would not consider voting labour, but also that Reform has a significant % of normally don't vote.

If that’s true - polling at the next election is going to be impossible to work out as identifying who will actually vote is going to be impossible

Good morning, everyone.

It's also going to be difficult because politics is far more fragmentary and motivation now seems to be far more negative (ie voters are increasingly voting against X rather than for Y).

White House tells PM not to ban social media for children
Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech
...
...
Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)

That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.

If children need to be protected from all social media, not just some content, it suggests the problem is with social media as a whole, not children having access to it.

Starmer's legacy might be making accessing half the internet a huge pain in the arse with an unholy mix of technological deficiency and authoritarian bullshit.

A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.

Council rejects 100 homes.

Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.

Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.

End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.

https://nitter.poast.org/jakewg_/status/2063551764796752183#m

No sympathy for NIMBYs

What about local democracy?

Sadly I seem to repeat the same issue

we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..

We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.

That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.

No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.

Here’s 170 you can redeploy already.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/170-jobs-lost-historic-gateshead-34087173

Where to start;

No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.

If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.


In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…

So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.

Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!

Peter.

We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.

We have had 25 years of large scale immigration.
We have increased the working age population.
We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population.
We have had low productivity and low wage growth.

And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.

Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.

Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.

Peter.

The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.

No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.

Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.

Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.

I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.

Peter.

That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.

We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.

It hasn't worked very well.

So, you don't like democracy then?

I am fine with democracy, but we used to have politicians who at least at times tried to lead the country for the longer term, and not expect to be popular all the time. Thatcher would be an example.

If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.

So, you're saying you want Thatcher back?

I agree.