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Morning all

Thank you for the piece, @GarethoftheVale2 which wasn't easy reading for an LD supporter.

The truth is, the challenge the LDs face now is the one they have always faced, to build local success in previously fallow areas and over time turn that into parliamentary success.

The 1997 "gains" were largely in areas where the party had a proven track record of activity at local level and I suspect a similar correlation occurred in 2024. There were some new areas of parliamentary progress in seats which had resolutely remained Conservative in the past and in other areas the earlier progress had dissipated entirely and the party was once again irrelevant.

So much depends on having a dedicated core of hard working activists who put in the time and effort to build local bases, delivery and membership networks and a reputation for being there for the voters. When I was a Liberal and later LD activist it astonished me how much the Conservatives took their vote for granted and did little or nothing between elections - that has changed.

The other side of the challenge is to be heard beyond the seats already with an LD MP or where the party is challenging hard. Vast oceans of inactivity surround islands of activity - in London, you have the six LD seats but where are the seventh and eighth coming from?

Yes, we can concentrate on more "affluent" areas, as an example Wanstead has a Gail's and an M&S but is hardly fertile LD territory but it's not much different from parts of Woking.

However, "breaking out" from the heartlands into other areas either requires a fortuitous by-election or two or a distinctive policy selling point which can cut through but it's a crowded field and I don't know where that policy is currently.

Contrary to a few other views, I'm quite happy with Sir Ed and I think the 2024 intake is very strong with two or three real stars of the future (Josh Babarinde, Bobby Dean and Helen Maguire would be my picks so far).

I’m struggling to get excited by politics at the moment. Somehow the summer and the sunshine suck the interest out of me. This is the time I start to obsess over weather models.

And there is potentially something for the ages in store there. Several global models and their ensemble sets are throwing out the landmark heatwave, the one which gets remembered for posterity: in other words, that June-July 1976 spell but with 50 years of climate change.

In these scenarios this current hot spell is just a warm up act.

Several are not though. They’re just showing an extended spell of quite hot weather with some showers.

One to keep an eye on.

I have to say looking at tonight's output, apart from the possibility of a brief (18-24 hour) incursion into the south in ten days, it all looks pretty average through to the end of the month.

I've also heard early August may be less settled (to be fair, August can be a very wet month) but that's a very long way off.

Are you on ayahuasca?

Whatever this is, it certainly is not “average”

It’s glorious, and it looks like a forecast for Rome rather than London, but it is not average

Apart from Saturday 19th, my home town is forecast for two weeks of Scorchio. Up here in the far north, the next couple of days look more mixed but next week is shaping up to be another fairly decent one.

Roll on Autumn, this hot weather absolutely does my head in.

I adore it. The world seems kinder and sweeter

It's spelled sweatier.

Macron

This pilot framework will be decided once the legal issues are resolved and agreed in the EU

So not agreed yet

Hello ECHR

Oh god. He hasn’t actually got any agreement at all, yet?

He is so dismally wet

Got an agreement to try to agree an agreement....

I know I keep banging on about this, but Starmer needs to stop seeking agreements by consent using legal frameworks, and start imposing solutions by force without consent. The small boats should be turned around and sent back whence they came.

If the French disapprove they can start a war. If the lawyers disapprove then laws should be passed to disapply human rights legislation outside the UK jurisdiction against the armed forces. If the Navy disagree, then a new branch ("Border Security") should be created to do it and the RN can bugger off to the Falklands.

But we need to stop asking people, since they obviously aren't getting it done.

You’re asking those deemed with that task to try and force boats to turn back to France and what happens when some sink and people drown. Practically forcing a boat to turn round isn’t easy notwithstanding the moral issues.

You bring them ashore safely then fly them to a processing centre outside Europe

And if necessary leave the ECHR

This present position cannot continue if the country wants to prevent a Farage coronation

Leaving the ECHR is not a good idea. Are you Reform with HYUFD now?

I'm still Tory better than I ever did. Lookin' like a true survivor, feelin' like a little kid. And I'm still Tory after all this time....