Best Of

You Gov are always bad for Reform, but this must be the worst for some time

Westminster Voting Intention:

REF: 25% (-3)
LAB: 20% (+2)
CON: 19% (+2)
LDM: 15% (+1)
GRN: 15% (-2)
SNP: 3% (-1)

Via @YouGov, On 21-22 December,
Changes w/ 14-15 December.

https://x.com/electpoliticsuk/status/2003369188841443503?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

They're dying on their feet. Who knew? Their voters are thick as planks so it's taking them a bit longer than normal to work out that they're an empty vessel led by a racist sleazeball and a gang of failed Tories. They even manage to look old fashioned........

The new kids on the block are the Greens....

Despite "dying on their feet", they've gained 61 seats since May 2nd, and the Greens have gained ... two.

And the Lib Dems 56.

You Gov are always bad for Reform, but this must be the worst for some time

Westminster Voting Intention:

REF: 25% (-3)
LAB: 20% (+2)
CON: 19% (+2)
LDM: 15% (+1)
GRN: 15% (-2)
SNP: 3% (-1)

Via @YouGov, On 21-22 December,
Changes w/ 14-15 December.

https://x.com/electpoliticsuk/status/2003369188841443503?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

Good morning

Maybe the shine is coming off Farage and hopefully it will continue

I think you mean the glitter is getting covered over

It's the same playbook for the last 20 years or so, big up the "man of the people" Farage party, drawing the "socially conservative" vote away from Labour and the Conservatives further right, then dump Farage for the Conservatives.

Reform are just over evens for most seats, against the Conservative party machine and FPTP, I think that's a lay

Reform are on track under FPTP for an overall majority on less than one third of the vote.

Another "loveless landslide" though Imimagine that won't be the sentiment in the media or on GB News.

We've yet to see Reform fight a proper GE campaign - will they work 500 seats, 400? Do they have the ground organisation or are we suggesting they'll come through the middle in hundreds of seats between a collapsing Labour vote and a slowly recovering Tory vote?

FPTP is a pernicious and capricious mistress - never forget that.

This has a distinct echo of the topic that cannot be mentioned.

It only took 20 years. The FBI labeling the case as a “child prostitution” case back in 2005 — and the Palm Beach state attorney telling these victims they could be arrested themselves (for prostitution) was/is unforgivable. Congress must investigate who benefited (besides Epstein) from the whitewashing of this crime.
https://x.com/jkbjournalist/status/2003162097710952507

What's the betting angle? It won't bring down Trump and most (all?) of his likely successors are too young to have been involved with Epstein.

Does there need to be a betting angle ?

FWIW, I think their complicity in trying to bury this to protect Trump will be one of the things which will doom any Republican candidate (no one who repudiates MAGA will get the nomination) in 2028.

Yes because if there are political consequences there will be a betting angle so if there is no betting angle, there's nothing. In Britain, the Epstein scandal has brought down a senior member of the Royal Family. There, nothing.

Now, the way the Trump White House switched so quickly and unexpectedly from releasing the lot to almost nothing does make me think they did discover a hidden bombshell very late on, but so far it's not gone off, and is most unlikely to involve Trump himself.

What sort of complete and utter idiot yells "More" at the end of Handel's Messiah?

That should be an instant ban from attending any further performances. No better than a football hooligan.

Those that insist on clapping immediately rather than letting it settle for a few seconds at least are also on shaky ground.

Still, assuming you were listening to R3 as I was, the performance was not the worst. Every time I hear it I wonder how Handel managed to get so many bangers into one piece.

[That's me banned too]

I approve both sentiments (and have thought much the same about the absolute bangers myself).

I was lucky enough to be at a Proms performance of Gotterdammerung with Barenboim conducting.

As the world ended and the final notes echoed round the Albert Hall he held his baton up for a good number of seconds. Absolutely everyone was paying attention and nobody in the 5000+ audience made a single sound until he lowered it.

More concerts should end like that.

I don't know why it worked that time. It was a monumental performance, yes, but perhaps also the proportion of musicians in the audience was very high? No idea. But it made a big impression.

Good conductors know how both to milk a silence, and to command an audience - particularly in a dramatic form like opera.

The Messiah is quasi opera, and last weekend we had the orchestra of Opera North, with a conductor who made full use of the silences, and the audience played along.
Very different from the full symphony Beecham/Goossens scored version I remember as a kid, though that was memorable in its own way.

This has a distinct echo of the topic that cannot be mentioned.

It only took 20 years. The FBI labeling the case as a “child prostitution” case back in 2005 — and the Palm Beach state attorney telling these victims they could be arrested themselves (for prostitution) was/is unforgivable. Congress must investigate who benefited (besides Epstein) from the whitewashing of this crime.
https://x.com/jkbjournalist/status/2003162097710952507

What's the betting angle? It won't bring down Trump and most (all?) of his likely successors are too young to have been involved with Epstein.

There’s a fracturing of the MAGA alliance.

See the Israeli/Jews are responsible for child abuse/framing some of the GOP.



My brain is in holiday mode so I don’t have the energy to write a thread on it this side of the new year.

There’s an awful lot of antisemitism that’s appeared seemingly out of nowhere among the conservative commentator class in the US.

One theory is that the person holding everything together in a relatively moderate fashion was Charlie Kirk.

There's always been a lot of antisemitism on the right. What kept it in check for a period was that antisemitism was a useful weapon to use against the left.

But in the US they're now onto the "revolution eating itself" stage of proceedings, where fighting the left is no longer the most important thing, but fighting each other to gain most of the spoils of victory is. This antisemitism has re-emerged as an identifier on the isolationism axis, I think, or just as a useful scapegoat.

This is to misread the underlying dynamics imo. It is not about American Jews per se. Essentially there is a split between MAGA isolationists, including Trump, who want American soldiers kept a safe distance from the Middle East, and the pro-Israel lobby which includes GOP neocons who want to bomb any country that looks at Bibi a bit funny. (Slightly complicated by extreme Evangelicals who see Middle East tumult as leading to the second coming, but that's gone off the boil recently so we can ignore them.)

Adding in those MAGA's who think that Putin is the second coming of Hitler, and believe that to be a good thing.

You Gov are always bad for Reform, but this must be the worst for some time

Westminster Voting Intention:

REF: 25% (-3)
LAB: 20% (+2)
CON: 19% (+2)
LDM: 15% (+1)
GRN: 15% (-2)
SNP: 3% (-1)

Via @YouGov, On 21-22 December,
Changes w/ 14-15 December.

https://x.com/electpoliticsuk/status/2003369188841443503?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.

The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.

Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?

Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.

Story of election night is now also dependent on which councils decide to do an overnight count. If councils are serious about saving money they should be waiting until Friday morning.

It’s hard to see which councils Labour can hold on to, where there are all-elections, apart from Newham.

They’re being hit on four fronts.

In Muslim-majority wards, they’re shedding votes to Your Party.

In trendy urban wards, they’re losing to Greens and Lib Dem’s.

In well-heeled wards, they’re losing to the Conservatives.

And in working class/Red Wall wards, they’re losing to Reform.

They could easily lose 1,500 seats in May.

Not quite accurate - in Newham, they are losing to the Newham Independents who are NOT Your Party but very much their own group.

You Gov are always bad for Reform, but this must be the worst for some time

Westminster Voting Intention:

REF: 25% (-3)
LAB: 20% (+2)
CON: 19% (+2)
LDM: 15% (+1)
GRN: 15% (-2)
SNP: 3% (-1)

Via @YouGov, On 21-22 December,
Changes w/ 14-15 December.

https://x.com/electpoliticsuk/status/2003369188841443503?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

They're dying on their feet. Who knew? Their voters are thick as planks so it's taking them a bit longer than normal to work out that they're an empty vessel led by a racist sleazeball and a gang of failed Tories. They even manage to look old fashioned........

The new kids on the block are the Greens....

Despite "dying on their feet", they've gained 61 seats since May 2nd, and the Greens have gained ... two.