Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
In some senses but not others. There’s little in common between Surrey commuter villages and the vast swathes of Cramlington or Blyth Persimmon housing estates.
I could be proven wrong, but I think that by the time the next election comes the so-called Red Wall seats will revert to type. Why were they previously Labour? Because their demographic meant that the average voter more identified with voting Labour. Did many actually swap from Labour to Tory, and if they did do they now identify as "Tories", the latter which I find very hard to believe? I imagine that in a lot of these seats it was because trad Labour types just didn't vote. A few switched to Tory and a few to other parties. Mike's data seemed to infer what I have always believed, which is that many of these traditionalists were put off by Corbyn, rather than (as many Tories want to believe) voting to "Get Brexit Done". Either way, both these issues will no longer be there at the next election. It will be interesting to see what happens. Tories who rely on their own wishful group think might get a shock.
Not sure. Is it not the case that many have moved to the right because of gradual demographic changes - a process begun long before Johnson or May entered the fray?. In the NE certainly many of the seats have simply steadily become more m/c or l/m/c. In the area of Kent I used to work in Dartford and the Medway towns - these have been solidly Tory for some time, possibly for similar reasons. It could simply be that parts of the north are simply catching up. Also it will be really difficult to anlayse if at the next GE there is a national move to Labour which could mask a long-term trend bedding in. I suspect analysis of what did and will happen is a very difficult task unless approached dispassionately - not sure we get much of this on here as most of us have strongish views, including OGH!
Indeed, I think Nigel is looking at the wrong end of the stick. These are areas that vote Labour in part because they'd always voted Labour, despite the demographics now being fairly Conservative-friendly.
Over the past decade many of these areas have drifted to the Conservatives because of the voting catching up with the demographics, not despite of it.
There is a bit of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy trying to blame/credit all of the change of voting with either Corbyn, or Brexit, or Boris or whatever suits the speaker's agenda a lot of the time. However a considerable portion of the change is simply voting catching up with reality. Middle class home owners with kids and two cars deciding they want to back the Conservatives afterall.
Corbyn/Brexit/Boris etc may have been the final straw, but not the deciding factor alone. Having finally made the jump I think the Labour Party might really struggle to regain these seats because the old reasons for voting Labour just don't exist anymore and Labour have forgotten how to speak to these voters anymore.
Mr. Urquhart, I've been watching one episode of Blake's 7 every weeknight for a while now (onto the third season). It's been rather odd returning to an almost televisual viewing habit. Except for F1 (which is irregular) and the odd snippet of news I just don't watch TV.
What I've heard of current New Who leaves me in little doubt that this 40 year old show with ropey special effects is far superior.
We have done this before, but the BBC are stuck in an out dated mode of thinking, based upon their own belief that everything they produce is superior quality. And that its fine to wait 3 years for a second seasons of a popular show in which they only produce 5-6 episodes.
The problem is they aren't competing against crappy ITV or Sky One, its Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, HBO, they have more money, can hire top quality acting talent and spent crazy money on better tech, and most importantly they have the resources to turn around high quality shows every year.
You are weirdly obsessed with this. You probably need to rein in your TV watching if the current output is too little for you. As for Sky One, Amazon and Apple – I can find the totality of ONE series on all three combined currently that's worth watching (The Morning Show) – and even that is a very poor relation to series one. As is so often the case, they'd have been better calling it a day after the first season.
Disney TV is largely absolute drivel.
The best TV series of modern times is Big Little Lies Season 1 – it was a masterpiece told over five episodes. Again, they should have called it a day after season one and found a different book rather than elongating the story pointlessly, undermining their perfect original.
This is Us, The Shield, Clarkson's Farm, Handmaid's Tale (not watched, that said), The Good Doctor (fluff), Parks & Recs, Modern Family, Fargo and, of course, Succession.
All on Amazon all excellent.
In fairness I haven't seen This is Us or Handmaid's. Of the others, I only like Clarkson's Farm.
Succession is not on Amazon but on Sky Atlantic, which is the one channel I don't have, so cannot comment on that.
Succession is on Amazon but of course is showing first on SA. Fargo is just fantastic well worth watching or seeking out, although is in discrete one-series chunks, while Parks & Recs and Modern Family both started out brilliantly but then tailed off in the later series which perhaps supports your point.
Schitt's Creek was the opposite. Started off slowly but became unmissable. On Amazon also. Edit: and also Netflix, that said.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguig you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
On the previous thread, there was some discussion about driving tests. Here in California, they recently removed the reversing section of the test, because it was causing too many people to fail.
And what was this incredibly difficult reversing task? It was reversing in a straight line.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
The boundary changes give the Conservatives 13 extra seats UK wide and Labour 8 less and the LDs 3 less and Plaid 2 less, even if they may even boost the SNP.
So Boris will obviously still do them as they increase his chance of staying in power. Even if the SNP won every Scottish Westminster seat it would not matter as long as Boris still had a UK wide majority as he would just refuse indyref2 as he is now and nothing the SNP can do about it. Though I expect the Tories to at least hold the 3 Scottish border seats and Banff and Buchan even with the boundary changes and the LDs to hold Edinburgh West and Orkney and Shetland with Tory and Labour tactical votes https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/boundaries2023.html
Because it’s more racist than Midsomer Murders (or was 7 years ago)
“ In 1985 there were 49 cast members, 37 of whom were White British.. This compares with 41 out of 52 now. As a proportion of the cast this is an increase from 75.5% to 78.8%
(I would be interested to see the numbers for East London as a whole from 1985 compared to 2014)
Walford is supposedly a combination of Walthamstow and Stratford. The actual percentage of White Brits in Walthamstow in 2011 was 38%. In Stratford it was 17%, giving an average of 22.5%, and an overstatement by the BBC in 2014 of 56.3%
The proportion of Asian cast members was 4.1% in 1985, rising to 7.7% in 2014. This is against 21% of Walthamstow & 42% in Stratford, and average of 31.5% and an understatement of 23.8%”
Interesting. Of course, that does assume Walthamstow and Stratford have the same population each. But even Walthamstow shows a massive disparity with the soap in the 'best' case!
Edit: I must be misreading - or is that 22.5% an error for 27.5? (It's the end digits that make me wonder.)
You’re right it should be 27.5% 👍🏻
Yes it is quite amazing, and possibly racist, that the East End is portrayed the way EastEnders has it. That said, in 2021 parts of Hackney and Stratford are being gentrified to the point where you only see middle class white people living a Chelsea village life, so I’m told.
I lived in the East End between 1991 and 1994 (moving to Chelsea in 1995). In those years, I don't think I met when I'd call a 'genuine' Cockney; perhaps outside a couple of fellas at Whitechapel market. Even the pubs leading up towards Bethnal Green didn't really have anyone acting or speaking as you'd imagine a Cockney to.
Perhaps because London is full of incomers; or because I was a student, and mostly (not not wholly) hung out with students. Or because the perception of a 'cockney' to a late teens / early twenties lad (mainly from Only Fools and Horses) is very different to reality.
Even the wonderful Blind Beggar seemed to have non-locals in most of the time. When I last went in there ten years ago, it seemed to be full of tourists ...
Someone just sent me an email saying he wanted to "reach out" to me. I responded saying that I was not a member of the Four Tops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaflX0MWRo
If you were a member of the Four Tops, I’d have much respect for you.
It is unusual for soul legends to take an interest in U.K. politics, although not unknown for them to play active roles in the domestic scene.
Then there's Edwin Starr - I don't know of the interest he took in UK politics, but he was a big fan of the UK - to the extent that he ended up living (and dying) in the perfectly-adequate-but-not-wildly-exciting Nottingham suburb of Chilwell.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
The boundary changes give the Conservatives 13 extra seats UK wide and Labour 8 less and the LDs 3 less and Plaid 2 less, even if they may even boost the SNP.
So Boris will obviously still do them as they increase his chance of staying in power. Even if the SNP won every Scottish Westminster seat it would not matter as long as Boris still had a UK wide majority as he would just refuse indyref2 as he is now and nothing the SNP can do about it. Though I expect the Tories to at least hold the 3 Scottish border seats and Banff and Buchan even with the boundary changes and the LDs to hold Edinburgh West and Orkney and Shetland with Tory and Labour tactical votes https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/boundaries2023.html
On what basis do you expect the lickspittle Hey Duggie to hold Banff and Buchan? Brexit has been bad for local fishing and farming, and the government ignored us on CCS. Kicking the community's biggest three industries is hardly a good strategy for re-election.
Why did the estate of Gene Rodenberry not sue them into the ground???
Parody is protected against copyright claims e.g. even those "Weird Al" Yankovic parody songs, although he has always got permission, he doesn't need it.
Under the "fair use" provision of U.S. copyright law, affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in the 1994 case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
Mr. Urquhart, I've been watching one episode of Blake's 7 every weeknight for a while now (onto the third season). It's been rather odd returning to an almost televisual viewing habit. Except for F1 (which is irregular) and the odd snippet of news I just don't watch TV.
What I've heard of current New Who leaves me in little doubt that this 40 year old show with ropey special effects is far superior.
We have done this before, but the BBC are stuck in an out dated mode of thinking, based upon their own belief that everything they produce is superior quality. And that its fine to wait 3 years for a second seasons of a popular show in which they only produce 5-6 episodes.
The problem is they aren't competing against crappy ITV or Sky One, its Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, HBO, they have more money, can hire top quality acting talent and spent crazy money on better tech, and most importantly they have the resources to turn around high quality shows every year.
You are weirdly obsessed with this. You probably need to rein in your TV watching if the current output is too little for you. As for Sky One, Amazon and Apple – I can find the totality of ONE series on all three combined currently that's worth watching (The Morning Show) – and even that is a very poor relation to series one. As is so often the case, they'd have been better calling it a day after the first season.
Disney TV is largely absolute drivel.
The best TV series of modern times is Big Little Lies Season 1 – it was a masterpiece told over five episodes. Again, they should have called it a day after season one and found a different book rather than elongating the story pointlessly, undermining their perfect original.
Disney TV has a lot of good shows in their back catalogue now and is starting to come up with new original programming as well as owning the back catalogue of a lot of ABC or Fox etc shows. Far better value for money than BBC.
If I was to rate the TV viewing in our household I'd say its Netflix, Disney, YouTube, ITV, Sky Sports [just me] in that order. BBC would barely feature.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguig you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
Peaky Blinders is produced at the speed it is because the show runner is also running other shows that he wants to write.
That's unavoidable in this day and age unless you have seriously, seriously deep pockets.
Because it’s more racist than Midsomer Murders (or was 7 years ago)
“ In 1985 there were 49 cast members, 37 of whom were White British.. This compares with 41 out of 52 now. As a proportion of the cast this is an increase from 75.5% to 78.8%
(I would be interested to see the numbers for East London as a whole from 1985 compared to 2014)
Walford is supposedly a combination of Walthamstow and Stratford. The actual percentage of White Brits in Walthamstow in 2011 was 38%. In Stratford it was 17%, giving an average of 22.5%, and an overstatement by the BBC in 2014 of 56.3%
The proportion of Asian cast members was 4.1% in 1985, rising to 7.7% in 2014. This is against 21% of Walthamstow & 42% in Stratford, and average of 31.5% and an understatement of 23.8%”
Interesting. Of course, that does assume Walthamstow and Stratford have the same population each. But even Walthamstow shows a massive disparity with the soap in the 'best' case!
Edit: I must be misreading - or is that 22.5% an error for 27.5? (It's the end digits that make me wonder.)
You’re right it should be 27.5% 👍🏻
Yes it is quite amazing, and possibly racist, that the East End is portrayed the way EastEnders has it. That said, in 2021 parts of Hackney and Stratford are being gentrified to the point where you only see middle class white people living a Chelsea village life, so I’m told.
I lived in the East End between 1991 and 1994 (moving to Chelsea in 1995). In those years, I don't think I met when I'd call a 'genuine' Cockney; perhaps outside a couple of fellas at Whitechapel market. Even the pubs leading up towards Bethnal Green didn't really have anyone acting or speaking as you'd imagine a Cockney to.
Perhaps because London is full of incomers; or because I was a student, and mostly (not not wholly) hung out with students. Or because the perception of a 'cockney' to a late teens / early twenties lad (mainly from Only Fools and Horses) is very different to reality.
Even the wonderful Blind Beggar seemed to have non-locals in most of the time. When I last went in there ten years ago, it seemed to be full of tourists ...
These days there are more of the old school Cockneys living in south Essex, Hertfordshire and East Kent than actually live in the East End of London now
Someone just sent me an email saying he wanted to "reach out" to me. I responded saying that I was not a member of the Four Tops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaflX0MWRo
If you were a member of the Four Tops, I’d have much respect for you.
It is unusual for soul legends to take an interest in U.K. politics, although not unknown for them to play active roles in the domestic scene.
Then there's Edwin Starr - I don't know of the interest he took in UK politics, but he was a big fan of the UK - to the extent that he ended up living (and dying) in the perfectly-adequate-but-not-wildly-exciting Nottingham suburb of Chilwell.
One star who ended up somewhere you wouldn't expect was the singer Tiffany, who for many years was shacked up with a guy in Rugeley (or perhaps Cannock)...
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguig you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
Peaky Blinders is produced at the speed it is because the show runner is also running other shows that he wants to write.
That's unavoidable in this day and age unless you have seriously, seriously deep pockets.
Which is part of my whole point.....of why the BBC has a huge issue. Its like people are doing these shows as a favour that they fit around their "proper" work.
A North Shropshire Conservative councillor has defected to the Reclaim Party days before a by-election for a new MP.
He becomes the first elected official of the party which was set up by actor Laurence Fox in September 2020.
Anthony Allen said the Conservatives had "gone soft on immigration".
The Conservatives are hoping to hold on to the North Shropshire constituency on 16 December. The seat was made vacant when former MP Owen Paterson resigned.
One of the weirdest things about that Stephen Merchant show Outlaws, it was co-written with Elgin James, the man behind Mayan MC (the spin-off of Sons of Anarchy). What he knows about the probation services in Bristol I have no idea.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguig you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
Peaky Blinders is produced at the speed it is because the show runner is also running other shows that he wants to write.
That's unavoidable in this day and age unless you have seriously, seriously deep pockets.
Its entirely avoidable in this day and age, if you base your business around doing things properly.
When they're filming a new series of Grey's Anatomy they don't call up Ellen Pompeo and Shonda Rhimes to see if they're available and could they fit in a few episodes in a couple of years time.
If a show runner isn't available to commit to the schedule you need, then hire a different show runner.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguing you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
Or in this case, the Koreans. Though of course both they and we are now making TV for Netflix, Amazon, Apple etc. The difference fro before is that the real profits are offshored. The Korean example is interesting since traditionally they would only make one series of a given drama*; second seasons are still rare, which might be one of the things behind their inventiveness. US money is changing that (see for example the now likely, but originally unplanned second season of Squid Game).
*Though a season could/can run to as much as fifty one hour episodes - each usually filmed the week they are aired.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
In some senses but not others. There’s little in common between Surrey commuter villages and the vast swathes of Cramlington or Blyth Persimmon housing estates.
I could be proven wrong, but I think that by the time the next election comes the so-called Red Wall seats will revert to type. Why were they previously Labour? Because their demographic meant that the average voter more identified with voting Labour. Did many actually swap from Labour to Tory, and if they did do they now identify as "Tories", the latter which I find very hard to believe? I imagine that in a lot of these seats it was because trad Labour types just didn't vote. A few switched to Tory and a few to other parties. Mike's data seemed to infer what I have always believed, which is that many of these traditionalists were put off by Corbyn, rather than (as many Tories want to believe) voting to "Get Brexit Done". Either way, both these issues will no longer be there at the next election. It will be interesting to see what happens. Tories who rely on their own wishful group think might get a shock.
Not sure. Is it not the case that many have moved to the right because of gradual demographic changes - a process begun long before Johnson or May entered the fray?. In the NE certainly many of the seats have simply steadily become more m/c or l/m/c. In the area of Kent I used to work in Dartford and the Medway towns - these have been solidly Tory for some time, possibly for similar reasons. It could simply be that parts of the north are simply catching up. Also it will be really difficult to anlayse if at the next GE there is a national move to Labour which could mask a long-term trend bedding in. I suspect analysis of what did and will happen is a very difficult task unless approached dispassionately - not sure we get much of this on here as most of us have strongish views, including OGH!
Indeed, I think Nigel is looking at the wrong end of the stick. These are areas that vote Labour in part because they'd always voted Labour, despite the demographics now being fairly Conservative-friendly.
Over the past decade many of these areas have drifted to the Conservatives because of the voting catching up with the demographics, not despite of it.
There is a bit of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy trying to blame/credit all of the change of voting with either Corbyn, or Brexit, or Boris or whatever suits the speaker's agenda a lot of the time. However a considerable portion of the change is simply voting catching up with reality. Middle class home owners with kids and two cars deciding they want to back the Conservatives afterall.
Corbyn/Brexit/Boris etc may have been the final straw, but not the deciding factor alone. Having finally made the jump I think the Labour Party might really struggle to regain these seats because the old reasons for voting Labour just don't exist anymore and Labour have forgotten how to speak to these voters anymore.
Yes, you're quite right. The crumbling of the red wall didn't happen overnight, it has been happening for my whole adult life. It's been pretty much coincident with the end of the mining industry and the arrival of modern private houses across the red wall. The Blyth of today, for example, is very different to the Blyth of 1985. Ditto Rother Valley, North East Derbyshire, Bolsover, and so on, and so on.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
On the previous thread, there was some discussion about driving tests. Here in California, they recently removed the reversing section of the test, because it was causing too many people to fail.
And what was this incredibly difficult reversing task? It was reversing in a straight line.
I would highly recommend learning to drive in Barbados. Very easy theory test, nice quiet roads, and you can convert it directly to a UK license with no further testing. I did spend a lot of time learning to reverse round corners, which seemed to be considered the litmus test of driving ability. Passed first time. But I have no idea what is in the UK Highway Code.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
I’m impressed you went more than once. Do you have any theories on its popularity to out-of-towners?
Mind you, food is unbearably grim outside the M25 (or even the Circle Line).
On the previous thread, there was some discussion about driving tests. Here in California, they recently removed the reversing section of the test, because it was causing too many people to fail.
And what was this incredibly difficult reversing task? It was reversing in a straight line.
That's such a California way of responding to people's failures, just make it so they can't. Idiotic.
On the previous thread, there was some discussion about driving tests. Here in California, they recently removed the reversing section of the test, because it was causing too many people to fail.
And what was this incredibly difficult reversing task? It was reversing in a straight line.
I would highly recommend learning to drive in Barbados. Very easy theory test, nice quiet roads, and you can convert it directly to a UK license with no further testing. I did spend a lot of time learning to reverse round corners, which seemed to be considered the litmus test of driving ability. Passed first time. But I have no idea what is in the UK Highway Code.
Do not take your test in Auckland where you will be expected to do a parallel-park-on-a-hill.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
In some senses but not others. There’s little in common between Surrey commuter villages and the vast swathes of Cramlington or Blyth Persimmon housing estates.
I could be proven wrong, but I think that by the time the next election comes the so-called Red Wall seats will revert to type. Why were they previously Labour? Because their demographic meant that the average voter more identified with voting Labour. Did many actually swap from Labour to Tory, and if they did do they now identify as "Tories", the latter which I find very hard to believe? I imagine that in a lot of these seats it was because trad Labour types just didn't vote. A few switched to Tory and a few to other parties. Mike's data seemed to infer what I have always believed, which is that many of these traditionalists were put off by Corbyn, rather than (as many Tories want to believe) voting to "Get Brexit Done". Either way, both these issues will no longer be there at the next election. It will be interesting to see what happens. Tories who rely on their own wishful group think might get a shock.
Not sure. Is it not the case that many have moved to the right because of gradual demographic changes - a process begun long before Johnson or May entered the fray?. In the NE certainly many of the seats have simply steadily become more m/c or l/m/c. In the area of Kent I used to work in Dartford and the Medway towns - these have been solidly Tory for some time, possibly for similar reasons. It could simply be that parts of the north are simply catching up. Also it will be really difficult to anlayse if at the next GE there is a national move to Labour which could mask a long-term trend bedding in. I suspect analysis of what did and will happen is a very difficult task unless approached dispassionately - not sure we get much of this on here as most of us have strongish views, including OGH!
Indeed, I think Nigel is looking at the wrong end of the stick. These are areas that vote Labour in part because they'd always voted Labour, despite the demographics now being fairly Conservative-friendly.
Over the past decade many of these areas have drifted to the Conservatives because of the voting catching up with the demographics, not despite of it.
There is a bit of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy trying to blame/credit all of the change of voting with either Corbyn, or Brexit, or Boris or whatever suits the speaker's agenda a lot of the time. However a considerable portion of the change is simply voting catching up with reality. Middle class home owners with kids and two cars deciding they want to back the Conservatives afterall.
Corbyn/Brexit/Boris etc may have been the final straw, but not the deciding factor alone. Having finally made the jump I think the Labour Party might really struggle to regain these seats because the old reasons for voting Labour just don't exist anymore and Labour have forgotten how to speak to these voters anymore.
Yes, you're quite right. The crumbling of the red wall didn't happen overnight, it has been happening for my whole adult life. It's been pretty much coincident with the end of the mining industry and the arrival of modern private houses across the red wall. The Blyth of today, for example, is very different to the Blyth of 1985. Ditto Rother Valley, North East Derbyshire, Bolsover, and so on, and so on.
The seat I couldn't believe when the YouGov model came out was Leigh. My wife used to live in Leigh when I first met her and thinking of Leigh as Conservative is as alien as thinking it of Walton in Liverpool.
But I was driving through the area recently detouring due to a motorway incident and there's lots of very nice new housing estates in the area. Those areas simply aren't the same as the terraces of Leigh town centre that I knew.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguig you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
Peaky Blinders is produced at the speed it is because the show runner is also running other shows that he wants to write.
That's unavoidable in this day and age unless you have seriously, seriously deep pockets.
Its entirely avoidable in this day and age, if you base your business around doing things properly.
When they're filming a new series of Grey's Anatomy they don't call up Ellen Pompeo and Shonda Rhimes to see if they're available and could they fit in a few episodes in a couple of years time.
If a show runner isn't available to commit to the schedule you need, then hire a different show runner.
That worked so well with Doctor Who.
There simply isn't that many show runners to go round at the moment.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought a) not to want to fund it and b) to be rather too 1950s in their idea of how education should work; the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
In some senses but not others. There’s little in common between Surrey commuter villages and the vast swathes of Cramlington or Blyth Persimmon housing estates.
I could be proven wrong, but I think that by the time the next election comes the so-called Red Wall seats will revert to type. Why were they previously Labour? Because their demographic meant that the average voter more identified with voting Labour. Did many actually swap from Labour to Tory, and if they did do they now identify as "Tories", the latter which I find very hard to believe? I imagine that in a lot of these seats it was because trad Labour types just didn't vote. A few switched to Tory and a few to other parties. Mike's data seemed to infer what I have always believed, which is that many of these traditionalists were put off by Corbyn, rather than (as many Tories want to believe) voting to "Get Brexit Done". Either way, both these issues will no longer be there at the next election. It will be interesting to see what happens. Tories who rely on their own wishful group think might get a shock.
Not sure. Is it not the case that many have moved to the right because of gradual demographic changes - a process begun long before Johnson or May entered the fray?. In the NE certainly many of the seats have simply steadily become more m/c or l/m/c. In the area of Kent I used to work in Dartford and the Medway towns - these have been solidly Tory for some time, possibly for similar reasons. It could simply be that parts of the north are simply catching up. Also it will be really difficult to anlayse if at the next GE there is a national move to Labour which could mask a long-term trend bedding in. I suspect analysis of what did and will happen is a very difficult task unless approached dispassionately - not sure we get much of this on here as most of us have strongish views, including OGH!
Indeed, I think Nigel is looking at the wrong end of the stick. These are areas that vote Labour in part because they'd always voted Labour, despite the demographics now being fairly Conservative-friendly.
Over the past decade many of these areas have drifted to the Conservatives because of the voting catching up with the demographics, not despite of it.
There is a bit of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy trying to blame/credit all of the change of voting with either Corbyn, or Brexit, or Boris or whatever suits the speaker's agenda a lot of the time. However a considerable portion of the change is simply voting catching up with reality. Middle class home owners with kids and two cars deciding they want to back the Conservatives afterall.
Corbyn/Brexit/Boris etc may have been the final straw, but not the deciding factor alone. Having finally made the jump I think the Labour Party might really struggle to regain these seats because the old reasons for voting Labour just don't exist anymore and Labour have forgotten how to speak to these voters anymore.
Yes, you're quite right. The crumbling of the red wall didn't happen overnight, it has been happening for my whole adult life. It's been pretty much coincident with the end of the mining industry and the arrival of modern private houses across the red wall. The Blyth of today, for example, is very different to the Blyth of 1985. Ditto Rother Valley, North East Derbyshire, Bolsover, and so on, and so on.
The seat I couldn't believe when the YouGov model came out was Leigh. My wife used to live in Leigh when I first met her and thinking of Leigh as Conservative is as alien as thinking it of Walton in Liverpool.
But I was driving through the area recently detouring due to a motorway incident and there's lots of very nice new housing estates in the area. Those areas simply aren't the same as the terraces of Leigh town centre that I knew.
This is very true. The Leigh Sports Village area is really nice too. Ironically, that was a lot to do with Burnham. However, the Council votes still tend to be 50%+ Labour in the main, unlike many of the other Tory gains. Suggesting that it might be a one off. There were some special local factors.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
The other demographic for it is giggly students.
God knows why, there are surely better ways of spunking £20 than on “corn beef hash and bubbles” or whatever the fuck.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
I'd be very surprised if the LDs lost Edinburgh W or NE fife. Orkney and Shetland is very unpredictable with the SNP having more momentum in Shetland but probably an LD hold. I wouldn't be surprised to see the LDs lose Caithness though.
I can't see the Tories going up or down much in Scotland. They've been doing quite well in Aberdeenshire with a near perfect run of winning/gaining by elections there since 2017, only narrowly missing out in Ellon.
On current boundaries I can see the Tories holding 5 of their 6 seats, with Gordon as a toss up and only losing Moray, which may or may not be butchered in potential boundary changes.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
Is it 80s themed ? I'd hope it would be being the err..
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Why would Labour claim to be 22% clear of the Lib Dems in N Shrop if they’re doing an unofficial anti Tory pact? My first instinct is that this would hand the seat to the Tories
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
The other demographic for it is giggly students.
God knows why, there are surely better ways of spunking £20 than on “corn beef hash and bubbles” or whatever the fuck.
Bonkers.
A full breakfast at the lovely English Restaurant, just around the corner from the the original BC, costs £14. The Ivy City Garden, also nearby, is great and £14.75.
The courts do have jurisdiction but decided that the PM had not misdirected himself on any issue of law when taking his decision. The courts, as is common in many judicial review cases, do not substitute their own decision on the facts but simply determine, whether as a matter of law, there has been some misdirection or misunderstanding such that the person taking the decision needs to go away and take it again properly.
Of course this does not suit the frothers who think that courts ruling on the law is somehow some form of lese-majeste. But there you go.
When Peaky Blinders comes out in the next few months, it will be a big ratings success and the BBC won't stop talking about how high quality programming is only possible yadda yadda yadda....only problem being it will just be 6hrs of telly that everybody had to wait years for.
Same with the Bodyguard...3 years for a second season.
Wrong. Who cares? Shorter, six episode occasional series tend to be far better than the elongated super-series that emanate mainly from the US. Most of that stuff is just airtime filler. I mean they managed to tell the entire Godfather story in nine hours of celluloid. The obsession with length is ludicrous.
Its not just length, its the point that the BBC have a ratings hit, and they can't even make 6hrs a year of it. 3 years between seasons isn't how modern media landscape works.
They also have this problem where if they manage to get a big star to make something, they can't tie them for future seasons e.g. They got Tom Hardy to star in Taboo which was very good, then they couldn't make any future seasons as he is too busy with other projects. And so it gets canned. Same with Sherlock.
Taboo was getting 7 million viewers an episode. It was a winner. 5 years later, and oh f##k, that's canned.
You are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
Big Little Lies was a ratings hit. That didn't mean there was a case for another series. There wasn't. Season 2 simply undermined the perfect original, which was a masterful adaptation from the novel.
It's the same with cinema. The Godfather series was superb. That doesn't mean that they should make parts IV and V. It's a story, and the story has been told. Like a good novel, it has a start, a middle and an end. Not a start, an end, another end, another end and another middle etc etc etc.
I am not arguig you need to have 24 episode per season and season after season after season of every show. But some shows are setup to be multiple seasons, and the BBC are piss poor at running with those that can be. No other tv company is doing that now.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
Peaky Blinders is produced at the speed it is because the show runner is also running other shows that he wants to write.
That's unavoidable in this day and age unless you have seriously, seriously deep pockets.
Its entirely avoidable in this day and age, if you base your business around doing things properly.
When they're filming a new series of Grey's Anatomy they don't call up Ellen Pompeo and Shonda Rhimes to see if they're available and could they fit in a few episodes in a couple of years time.
If a show runner isn't available to commit to the schedule you need, then hire a different show runner.
That worked so well with Doctor Who.
There simply isn't that many show runners to go round at the moment.
And if all you ever do is wait for the "Talent" to be made available to you on their schedule, there never will be either.
Other networks and services seem to cope just fine. One thing the other networks do better than the BBC is to bring in relatively unknown people to play roles and do the jobs that need doing thus building them up and they can be made available again and again rather than relying upon the same faces.
The odd thing to me is for a 'public sector' broadcaster building through and developing new talent really should be you'd think a part of their remit, not recycling the same people again and again then wondering why nobody is available.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
How they fund it poses a problem if they still want the same numbers going through Uni, and would they scrap it restrospectively too ?
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
In some senses but not others. There’s little in common between Surrey commuter villages and the vast swathes of Cramlington or Blyth Persimmon housing estates.
I could be proven wrong, but I think that by the time the next election comes the so-called Red Wall seats will revert to type. Why were they previously Labour? Because their demographic meant that the average voter more identified with voting Labour. Did many actually swap from Labour to Tory, and if they did do they now identify as "Tories", the latter which I find very hard to believe? I imagine that in a lot of these seats it was because trad Labour types just didn't vote. A few switched to Tory and a few to other parties. Mike's data seemed to infer what I have always believed, which is that many of these traditionalists were put off by Corbyn, rather than (as many Tories want to believe) voting to "Get Brexit Done". Either way, both these issues will no longer be there at the next election. It will be interesting to see what happens. Tories who rely on their own wishful group think might get a shock.
Not sure. Is it not the case that many have moved to the right because of gradual demographic changes - a process begun long before Johnson or May entered the fray?. In the NE certainly many of the seats have simply steadily become more m/c or l/m/c. In the area of Kent I used to work in Dartford and the Medway towns - these have been solidly Tory for some time, possibly for similar reasons. It could simply be that parts of the north are simply catching up. Also it will be really difficult to anlayse if at the next GE there is a national move to Labour which could mask a long-term trend bedding in. I suspect analysis of what did and will happen is a very difficult task unless approached dispassionately - not sure we get much of this on here as most of us have strongish views, including OGH!
Indeed, I think Nigel is looking at the wrong end of the stick. These are areas that vote Labour in part because they'd always voted Labour, despite the demographics now being fairly Conservative-friendly.
Over the past decade many of these areas have drifted to the Conservatives because of the voting catching up with the demographics, not despite of it.
There is a bit of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy trying to blame/credit all of the change of voting with either Corbyn, or Brexit, or Boris or whatever suits the speaker's agenda a lot of the time. However a considerable portion of the change is simply voting catching up with reality. Middle class home owners with kids and two cars deciding they want to back the Conservatives afterall.
Corbyn/Brexit/Boris etc may have been the final straw, but not the deciding factor alone. Having finally made the jump I think the Labour Party might really struggle to regain these seats because the old reasons for voting Labour just don't exist anymore and Labour have forgotten how to speak to these voters anymore.
Yes, you're quite right. The crumbling of the red wall didn't happen overnight, it has been happening for my whole adult life. It's been pretty much coincident with the end of the mining industry and the arrival of modern private houses across the red wall. The Blyth of today, for example, is very different to the Blyth of 1985. Ditto Rother Valley, North East Derbyshire, Bolsover, and so on, and so on.
The seat I couldn't believe when the YouGov model came out was Leigh. My wife used to live in Leigh when I first met her and thinking of Leigh as Conservative is as alien as thinking it of Walton in Liverpool.
But I was driving through the area recently detouring due to a motorway incident and there's lots of very nice new housing estates in the area. Those areas simply aren't the same as the terraces of Leigh town centre that I knew.
This is very true. The Leigh Sports Village area is really nice too. Ironically, that was a lot to do with Burnham. However, the Council votes still tend to be 50%+ Labour in the main, unlike many of the other Tory gains. Suggesting that it might be a one off. There were some special local factors.
At local level most councils in Redwall areas which elected a Conservative MP for the first time in 2019 like Leigh are still Labour controlled.
By contrast some wealthy Remain areas like Wandsworth are still Conservative controlled at local level even though all 3 Wandsworth MPs are Labour (Hampstead also elects Conservative councillors still despite having a Labour MP with a big majority).
In council elections Brexit is less of a factor therefore and wealthier Remain areas are more likely to elect Conservative councillors still even if not Conservative MPs while strong Leave RedWall areas by contrast are still more likely to elect Labour councillors even if not Labour MPs
Why would Labour claim to be 22% clear of the Lib Dems in N Shrop if they’re doing an unofficial anti Tory pact? My first instinct is that this would hand the seat to the Tories
I agree.
It amounts to Labour saying “We’d rather lose this, then allow the Libs to win it”, which bodes ill for the GE.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
How they fund it poses a problem if they still want the same numbers going through Uni, and would they scrap it restrospectively too ?
It doesn't make any difference - the numbers going through Uni are currently (as a whole) not earning enough to pay enough of the money back.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
using the same tecknick how many (if any) seats do the SNP loes, and do many/any have a low possibility of being retained by the SNP?
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
How they fund it poses a problem if they still want the same numbers going through Uni, and would they scrap it restrospectively too ?
I probably wouldn’t scrap them entirely. I would introduce significant reforms to existing debt (cancel interest, provide big incentives to pay back).
As for how funded, I don’t know, how do we fund the un-ending benefits and tax breaks for wealthy pensioners? That’s a facetious response, but it annoys me that the Tories are never asked this question despite hosing their client base with cash.
Why would Labour claim to be 22% clear of the Lib Dems in N Shrop if they’re doing an unofficial anti Tory pact? My first instinct is that this would hand the seat to the Tories
I agree.
It amounts to Labour saying “We’d rather lose this, then allow the Libs to win it”, which bodes ill for the GE.
This was the mentality in 2019 - it was heresy to suggest that The Jeremy would not win a majority of 704. Appears that some in Labour still don't get it - to forma government they both need to win seats and have the Tories lose seats.
Why would Labour claim to be 22% clear of the Lib Dems in N Shrop if they’re doing an unofficial anti Tory pact? My first instinct is that this would hand the seat to the Tories
I agree.
It amounts to Labour saying “We’d rather lose this, then allow the Libs to win it”, which bodes ill for the GE.
Lib Dem puff polling indicated their postals were in the 30s.
I don't know who will win this seat, but either Labour or Lib Dem is fibbing/has the most dreadful internal figures. We'll find out when the BE hits I guess. The money says Labour is full of shit, but the money has been known to be wrong before.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
Why would Labour claim to be 22% clear of the Lib Dems in N Shrop if they’re doing an unofficial anti Tory pact? My first instinct is that this would hand the seat to the Tories
I agree.
It amounts to Labour saying “We’d rather lose this, then allow the Libs to win it”, which bodes ill for the GE.
Lib Dem puff polling indicated their postals were in the 30s.
I don't know who will win this seat, but either Labour or Lib Dem is fibbing/has the most dreadful internal figures. We'll find out when the BE hits I guess. The money says Labour is full of shit, but the money has been known to be wrong before.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
I’m impressed you went more than once. Do you have any theories on its popularity to out-of-towners?
Mind you, food is unbearably grim outside the M25 (or even the Circle Line).
Don't be silly.
On driving - I learnt in Naples and Ireland.
Passed my test after travelling overnight from Cork via Holyhead and the train (a long, grim and sleepless journey) on the day the Argies invaded the Falklands.
Driving a campervan - the ideal vehicle if you have lots of small children - round London taught me more about driving skills than anything else. It was also great fun watching the horrified faces of the more poncey North London parents of some of their school friends as I parked outside their houses. You could see some of them wonder whether gypsies were moving in and what this thing was doing to house prices.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
I'm annoyed at being asked how I want my steak cooked. Part of the attraction of eating out is to have an expert prepare the food in the most delicious way possible. In never asked how I want my potatoes cooked, or anything else. Why ask someone without a clue how they want the centrepiece of their meal to be cooked?
Why would Labour claim to be 22% clear of the Lib Dems in N Shrop if they’re doing an unofficial anti Tory pact? My first instinct is that this would hand the seat to the Tories
I agree.
It amounts to Labour saying “We’d rather lose this, then allow the Libs to win it”, which bodes ill for the GE.
Lib Dem puff polling indicated their postals were in the 30s.
I don't know who will win this seat, but either Labour or Lib Dem is fibbing/has the most dreadful internal figures. We'll find out when the BE hits I guess. The money says Labour is full of shit, but the money has been known to be wrong before.
2 or 3 massive value bets if the Labour polling is right (lay LD; back Tory; back Labour, probably, although the latter would still likely be a 'value' loser).
Glad I'm all green on this one, I'm not sure what to make of it now.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
I dont think anyone follows the Lib Dems - or Ed Davey - to care.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
It's horse. Seriously, cheap steak frites always is.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
I've seen, on two occasions, tables of Americans asked to leave because some of them were insisting on well-done steaks. Le Relais de Venise does medium or rare, with rare red or blue. There are no other options.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
Is it 80s themed ? I'd hope it would be being the err..
Not that I noticed. I may have simply internally erased the memory, on mercy grounds.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
Is it 80s themed ? I'd hope it would be being the err..
Not that I noticed. I may have simply internally erased the memory, on mercy grounds.
I believe it “is”, if playing Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” on heavy rotate is sufficient to make it so.
Again, it makes no sense. Everyone has Spotify or Apple Music now. There’s no need to go to a restaurant to pretend you are Molly Ringwald.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
I've seen, on two occasions, tables of Americans asked to leave because some of them were insisting on well-done steaks. Le Relais de Venise does medium or rare, with rare red or blue. There are no other options.
Haha. Berks.
Reminds me of the time I saw an American tourist shriek that the horseradish sauce was “burning me!” at a choucroute restaurant in Strasbourg.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
I dont think anyone follows the Lib Dems - or Ed Davey - to care.
Students of my acquaintance were still mentioning it pre-pandemic (when we still had research group lunches). Might be the 'Thatcher stole our milk' for the next but one generation
But yeah, in many ways people even noticing the LDs could be an improvement for them...
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
How they fund it poses a problem if they still want the same numbers going through Uni, and would they scrap it restrospectively too ?
Start with schools - that is where the biggest and most urgent problems are. University does of course have to be part of the overall package, but start with schools. They've had a torrid few years.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
I've seen, on two occasions, tables of Americans asked to leave because some of them were insisting on well-done steaks. Le Relais de Venise does medium or rare, with rare red or blue. There are no other options.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
Although it has to be said that St Andrews is neither more nor less Lib Demmy than most of the other 80% of Fife NE, and twas ever thus.
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
Le Relais De Venise L'Entrecôte in Marylebone. Shortest menu in the world - Steak and chips. Or chips for vegetarians
I discovered that chain by accident in Paris - loitering on the Left Bank one day I saw the queue and thought "the French never queue!" - so I joined the queue and only when at the table discovered what the deal was! Been a fan ever since - it started after the war when a family in the south of France came up with an idea to shift their red wine - sell it with steak frites. I'm convinced they use poorer quality meat for steaks ordered anything above "rare".....
It's horse. Seriously, cheap steak frites always is.
It'd take some balls to do that with the only thing on the menu, which does describe it as beef steak
"Un contre-filet de bœuf grillé accompagné de pommes allumettes bien dorées et croustillantes et de sa fameuse sauce"
Queuing was a thing to show how hot the restaurant was. Or was supposed to be. Ask Giles Coren. No idea now after Covid.
Queuing for a restaurant would be my idea of hell but I am 100% not the demographic a new, a la mode restaurant is targeting.
I always book ahead.
For these places queuing is a feature not a bug and hence they don't take bookings.
There are two places that seem to have persistent queues.
The first, “Dishoom”, is a great concept but you do not need to waste any of your life queuing for it. Anyway, you can get in off-peak, or even Deliveroo it.
The second, “Breakfast Club”, is a really shit concept (all day breakfasts) and I’ve never understood it’s attraction to the sort of people who queue (out of towners and giggly students).
The Breakfast Club is effing shite. Despite its bizarre popularity, it doesn't even do the best breakfasts in its own street.
It's very popular with out of town types IMO, I always get asked to go there whenever we have guests from other places. In general we just go with it but the last couple of times I've just let them know where to get it and then my wife and I meet them afterwards. We both just find it terrible. The three times we've done that so far (as I said, it's really very popular with out of towners!) the other people have agreed it wasn't worth it and understand why we just meet them afterwards.
It's a really odd phenomenon. How do out-of-towners learn of its existence? Do provincial types with really low breakfasting standards pass on the 'tip' to other provincial types via word of, er, mouth?
Is it 80s themed ? I'd hope it would be being the err..
Not that I noticed. I may have simply internally erased the memory, on mercy grounds.
Is there a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse?
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
I dont think anyone follows the Lib Dems - or Ed Davey - to care.
Students of my acquaintance were still mentioning it pre-pandemic (when we still had research group lunches). Might be the 'Thatcher stole our milk' for the next but one generation
But yeah, in many ways people even noticing the LDs could be an improvement for them...
The contrast between the new testament levels of forgiveness and absolution afforded on a daily basis to the Tories for breaking the law, screwing the economy and public services, tanking Britain's reputation and influence overseas and indulging in key stage 1 levels of stupidity, and the zero-tolerance, 1 strike and you're out attitude towards the Lib Dems over 1 policy is one of the great political head scratchers of the era.
But explained because the Lib Dems don't have a fanatical "base". There is no Lib Dem equivalent of HYUFD or BJO.
90 additional confirmed cases of the #Omicron variant of COVID-19 have been reported across the UK. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the UK is 336.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
Yes, Martin Baxter is of course heavily depending on the accuracy of current (mid-term) voting intention polls. Immense pinches of salt are of course obligatory. But if I was Alex Cole-Hamilton, I certainly wouldn’t want to be starting “here”.
My gut feeling is that the SLDs will get about the same share as last time (not Baxter’s 2.5 point drop). Yes, they’ve lost their Scottish leader at UK level, but on the other hand it looks likely that a lot of SLD tactical votes for the SCons will be “coming home”.
So, in summary, I concur with your Highland North and O&S guesses. Edinburgh West is tricky due to the unusually poor calibre of the SLD incumbent. I’m not touching your Fife NE prediction: you can say that, but I will get relentlessly hounded if I said anything similar. But well worth noting that the new Fife NE seat gets a huge chunk of the old Glenrothes seat: profoundly poor territory for SLDs.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau's new rules for international travellers are not going down well, leaving many Canadians stranded in southern Africa or forced to spend hours in third countries on their way home.
The root of the problem is that Canadians are not allowed to show the results of coronavirus tests taken in southern Africa.
Instead they must obtain a molecular test from another country.
According to the Globe and Mail newspaper, this has resulted in several citizens being forced to make lengthy stops in Ethiopia - a regional travel hub - on their way home, in spite of a federal travel advisory on account of the country's civil war.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
Although it has to be said that St Andrews is neither more nor less Lib Demmy than most of the other 80% of Fife NE, and twas ever thus.
St Andrews is probably the least SNP university in Scotland and indeed probably has the highest percentage of Conservative supporting students of any university in the UK.
It has lots of wealthy ex private school students and is very posh, hence the Cambridges went there
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
It's the sort of case which would make me want to give people indeterminate sentences and not release them until confident they were safe, but apparently New Labour tried that and it was something of a disaster in some way.
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
I dont think anyone follows the Lib Dems - or Ed Davey - to care.
Students of my acquaintance were still mentioning it pre-pandemic (when we still had research group lunches). Might be the 'Thatcher stole our milk' for the next but one generation
But yeah, in many ways people even noticing the LDs could be an improvement for them...
The contrast between the new testament levels of forgiveness and absolution afforded on a daily basis to the Tories for breaking the law, screwing the economy and public services, tanking Britain's reputation and influence overseas and indulging in key stage 1 levels of stupidity, and the zero-tolerance, 1 strike and you're out attitude towards the Lib Dems over 1 policy is one of the great political head scratchers of the era.
But explained because the Lib Dems don't have a fanatical "base". There is no Lib Dem equivalent of HYUFD or BJO.
Yep. Among the students I knew in 2010, they were seen as different, principled, Nick Clegg as 'a pretty straight sort of guy' Probably unrealistic expectations and all the more anger when they weren't met. Since then that mantle has been largely taken up by the Greens, from what I hear (again, most of this a couple of years out of date). Also Labour under Corbyn in 2017; the shine had worn off a bit by 2019.
Much of the electorate's relationship with Con/Lab is more transactional - whichever will do the least bad things...
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
I dont think anyone follows the Lib Dems - or Ed Davey - to care.
Students of my acquaintance were still mentioning it pre-pandemic (when we still had research group lunches). Might be the 'Thatcher stole our milk' for the next but one generation
But yeah, in many ways people even noticing the LDs could be an improvement for them...
The contrast between the new testament levels of forgiveness and absolution afforded on a daily basis to the Tories for breaking the law, screwing the economy and public services, tanking Britain's reputation and influence overseas and indulging in key stage 1 levels of stupidity, and the zero-tolerance, 1 strike and you're out attitude towards the Lib Dems over 1 policy is one of the great political head scratchers of the era.
But explained because the Lib Dems don't have a fanatical "base". There is no Lib Dem equivalent of HYUFD or BJO.
Residents of Orkney and Shetland and Westmoreland and Lonsdale are effectively the LD base ie the only seats which the LDs held in 2015 and which still have a LD MP today.
Flag of United Kingdom Birleşik Krallık Seçim Anketi:
Red square %38 İşçi Partisi Orange square %37 Muhafazakar Parti Purple square %10 Liberal Demokrat Parti White large square %5 İskoç Ulusal Partisi Green square %5 Yeşiller Partisi
Wondering about the definition of the RedWall. Perhaps a useful way of looking at is politically is a series of constituencies where there used to be a disconnect between the underlying demographics and the voting record, due to historical loyalties and traditions. But which now votes much more in line with similar areas in the rest of the country.
I agree. The most important thing about the red wall is that they were constituencies that Labour could and did take for granted for a long time. Now they can't. The result is that what they actually want is now a relevant question. Which is a good thing.
It is a good thing, and perhaps people who were traditionally Tory in Tory safe seats like myself might want to ponder on the new reality that is that if a government thinks it can't rely on an area, it might well invest that much more in that area
Absolutely. Works both ways. Running a country solely in the interests of the Home Counties or North London were never great alternatives. If Labour had more to gain or lose in the south outside London they might be a bit more interested in their economy and force the Tories to be likewise.
Where Davey has a point is that the counterpoint to the Tory gains in the ‘red wall’ isn’t any collection of seats that Labour might win in return - educated urban/university seats moved away from the Tories long ago - but there is a batch of middle class remain-leaning Home Counties seats where the LibDems could pull off surprises. Ed’s stunt with the hammer and wall of blue bricks might yet prove to be prophetic.
Basically Labour's problem is that while many RedWall white working class Leavers who used to be their core vote have gone Tory post Brexit, posh wealthy Remainers in the South might consider voting LD as they did in Chesham and Amersham but would not be seen dead voting Labour
"posh wealthy Remainers"
That's the party leadership, isn't it?
Many of the Labour membership and MPs however are still Corbynites.
The LDs however are more fiscally conservative than Labour if still socially liberal and anti hard Brexit and the LD leader Ed Davey was even a Minister in Cameron's coalition government. For a high earning home owning Home Counties Remainer the LDs are the safe non Tory choice, not Labour
Plenty of the entryists have now either left the party or been kicked out. The PLP has never contained 'many' Corbynites.
However, I agree with your assessment of which party is likely to be a threat to the Tories in the leafy south east.
If I were in charge of Lib Dem strategy I would focus them on becoming the party of choice of parents. There is a huge gap not serviced by either of the other parties. The Tories' client electorate is the retired, and Labour's such as it exists leans more towards the young and those in the rental market as well as public sector employees and urban constituencies like here in Lewisham.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years - Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them - Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut - Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite - School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
And it's a subject that neither Tories or Labour are trusted on - the former are thought not to fund it, the latter thought to be a) more sympathetic to the wants of the unions than the parents, and b) too woke. It's an open goal for the Lib Dems.
Any Education offer from the Lib Dems needs to be accompanied by a scrapping of tuition fees.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
It's not particularly fair, but if the Lib Dems pledge to scrap tuition fees my instinctive response is to fear that they'll end up tripling them again.
Cannot trust them.
It also brings the topic back to the last time they promised that, which is unfortunate, particularly as Ed Davey was - presumably? - one of the promise breakers. It should be an ideal LD policy, but they'd probably do best not to talk about it at all.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
I dont think anyone follows the Lib Dems - or Ed Davey - to care.
Students of my acquaintance were still mentioning it pre-pandemic (when we still had research group lunches). Might be the 'Thatcher stole our milk' for the next but one generation
But yeah, in many ways people even noticing the LDs could be an improvement for them...
The contrast between the new testament levels of forgiveness and absolution afforded on a daily basis to the Tories for breaking the law, screwing the economy and public services, tanking Britain's reputation and influence overseas and indulging in key stage 1 levels of stupidity, and the zero-tolerance, 1 strike and you're out attitude towards the Lib Dems over 1 policy is one of the great political head scratchers of the era.
But explained because the Lib Dems don't have a fanatical "base". There is no Lib Dem equivalent of HYUFD or BJO.
No that's not it and it just shows your own zealotry and bias talking about "loss of reputation and influence" etc
The difference isn't one of fanaticism, if it was you and others here like Clipp etc could fall under that. The difference is that with the Conservatives you know what you're going to get and a lot of people are OK with that.
You can try and build up a 'charge sheet' against the Conservatives of all the things you dislike that piss you off, but most voters don't view any party as perfect. The Conservatives aren't ashamed to offer the platform they're offering - and they by and large deliver on it. If you vote Conservative you know what you're getting, even if it isn't perfect.
With the Lib Dems what do you get if you vote for them? What major achievement can you point to and say "this is what we represent, this is what we've delivered"?
Comments
Over the past decade many of these areas have drifted to the Conservatives because of the voting catching up with the demographics, not despite of it.
There is a bit of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy trying to blame/credit all of the change of voting with either Corbyn, or Brexit, or Boris or whatever suits the speaker's agenda a lot of the time. However a considerable portion of the change is simply voting catching up with reality. Middle class home owners with kids and two cars deciding they want to back the Conservatives afterall.
Corbyn/Brexit/Boris etc may have been the final straw, but not the deciding factor alone. Having finally made the jump I think the Labour Party might really struggle to regain these seats because the old reasons for voting Labour just don't exist anymore and Labour have forgotten how to speak to these voters anymore.
Schitt's Creek was the opposite. Started off slowly but became unmissable. On Amazon also. Edit: and also Netflix, that said.
Peaky Blinders taking 9 years to film 35 episodes in the modern landscape is ridiculous. Netflix, HBO, etc would never let that happen. They would have produced the show to exactly the same, if not higher standard, and done all 6 seasons in 5 years.
It reminds me of the old style (British) car factories, then the Japanese came along....
And what was this incredibly difficult reversing task? It was reversing in a straight line.
So Boris will obviously still do them as they increase his chance of staying in power. Even if the SNP won every Scottish Westminster seat it would not matter as long as Boris still had a UK wide majority as he would just refuse indyref2 as he is now and nothing the SNP can do about it. Though I expect the Tories to at least hold the 3 Scottish border seats and Banff and Buchan even with the boundary changes and the LDs to hold Edinburgh West and Orkney and Shetland with Tory and Labour tactical votes
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/boundaries2023.html
Perhaps because London is full of incomers; or because I was a student, and mostly (not not wholly) hung out with students. Or because the perception of a 'cockney' to a late teens / early twenties lad (mainly from Only Fools and Horses) is very different to reality.
Even the wonderful Blind Beggar seemed to have non-locals in most of the time. When I last went in there ten years ago, it seemed to be full of tourists ...
Why did the estate of Gene Rodenberry not sue them into the ground???
May be one or two others, too.
Chilwell has excellent tram services.
Under the "fair use" provision of U.S. copyright law, affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in the 1994 case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
If I was to rate the TV viewing in our household I'd say its Netflix, Disney, YouTube, ITV, Sky Sports [just me] in that order. BBC would barely feature.
That's unavoidable in this day and age unless you have seriously, seriously deep pockets.
There are a number of ways in which the parent demographic is under-serviced despite this age group - mid 30s to mid 50s, being the biggest contributors of tax revenue and one of the biggest consumer groupings:
- Education is chronically under-invested in, from early years up to A-levels particularly compared with healthcare. Anyone with children in schools will have seen how it has been further hollowed out in recent years
- Kids were the fall guys for much of the pandemic, messed around with over exams and in and out of home schooling, and neither of the major parties properly stuck up for them
- Local services that benefit children, from libraries to buses and trains to play schemes etc have been cut and cut
- Older children have lost the opportunities to live and work abroad afforded by free movement (and Erasmus) and that impact is felt much more widely than the supposed metropolitan elite
- School age kids are really sensitive to environmental harm and that's another policy area where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and visible
Why the Lib Dems? Because nobody else is, because education has always been a cornerstone priority of the party, because we need to move on from the shadow of the tuition fees decision, and because this is a very valuable section of the electorate that happens to live disproportionately in the blue wall home counties seats the party is targeting.
Degree educated home owners in their 30s and 40s who have largely moved on from student politics but not yet discovered the joys of patriotic nostalgia and imperial weights and measures should be a prime target market.
When they're filming a new series of Grey's Anatomy they don't call up Ellen Pompeo and Shonda Rhimes to see if they're available and could they fit in a few episodes in a couple of years time.
If a show runner isn't available to commit to the schedule you need, then hire a different show runner.
Though of course both they and we are now making TV for Netflix, Amazon, Apple etc. The difference fro before is that the real profits are offshored.
The Korean example is interesting since traditionally they would only make one series of a given drama*; second seasons are still rare, which might be one of the things behind their inventiveness.
US money is changing that (see for example the now likely, but originally unplanned second season of Squid Game).
*Though a season could/can run to as much as fifty one hour episodes - each usually filmed the week they are aired.
It's probably enough to ensure a Conservative victory (which was what I reckoned likely all along), as it muddies the tactical voting picture.
End result
Con 45
LD 28
Lab 20
Reform 7
Do you have any theories on its popularity to out-of-towners?
Mind you, food is unbearably grim outside the M25 (or even the Circle Line).
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
But I was driving through the area recently detouring due to a motorway incident and there's lots of very nice new housing estates in the area. Those areas simply aren't the same as the terraces of Leigh town centre that I knew.
There simply isn't that many show runners to go round at the moment.
(Which was a toxic and totemic fuck-up).
However, the Council votes still tend to be 50%+ Labour in the main, unlike many of the other Tory gains.
Suggesting that it might be a one off. There were some special local factors.
God knows why, there are surely better ways of spunking £20 than on “corn beef hash and bubbles” or whatever the fuck.
"Big tech and woke are destroying the middle class | Joel Kotkin interview"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yXBHDyCx3o
I can't see the Tories going up or down much in Scotland. They've been doing quite well in Aberdeenshire with a near perfect run of winning/gaining by elections there since 2017, only narrowly missing out in Ellon.
On current boundaries I can see the Tories holding 5 of their 6 seats, with Gordon as a toss up and only losing Moray, which may or may not be butchered in potential boundary changes.
Cannot trust them.
A full breakfast at the lovely English Restaurant, just around the corner from the the original BC, costs £14. The Ivy City Garden, also nearby, is great and £14.75.
Lord only knows.
LORD ONLY KNOWS.
The courts do have jurisdiction but decided that the PM had not misdirected himself on any issue of law when taking his decision. The courts, as is common in many judicial review cases, do not substitute their own decision on the facts but simply determine, whether as a matter of law, there has been some misdirection or misunderstanding such that the person taking the decision needs to go away and take it again properly.
Of course this does not suit the frothers who think that courts ruling on the law is somehow some form of lese-majeste. But there you go.
Other networks and services seem to cope just fine. One thing the other networks do better than the BBC is to bring in relatively unknown people to play roles and do the jobs that need doing thus building them up and they can be made available again and again rather than relying upon the same faces.
The odd thing to me is for a 'public sector' broadcaster building through and developing new talent really should be you'd think a part of their remit, not recycling the same people again and again then wondering why nobody is available.
By contrast some wealthy Remain areas like Wandsworth are still Conservative controlled at local level even though all 3 Wandsworth MPs are Labour (Hampstead also elects Conservative councillors still despite having a Labour MP with a big majority).
In council elections Brexit is less of a factor therefore and wealthier Remain areas are more likely to elect Conservative councillors still even if not Conservative MPs while strong Leave RedWall areas by contrast are still more likely to elect Labour councillors even if not Labour MPs
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1467835378782588928
It amounts to Labour saying “We’d rather lose this, then allow the Libs to win it”, which bodes ill for the GE.
I would introduce significant reforms to existing debt (cancel interest, provide big incentives to pay back).
As for how funded, I don’t know, how do we fund the un-ending benefits and tax breaks for wealthy pensioners? That’s a facetious response, but it annoys me that the Tories are never asked this question despite hosing their client base with cash.
I don't know who will win this seat, but either Labour or Lib Dem is fibbing/has the most dreadful internal figures. We'll find out when the BE hits I guess. The money says Labour is full of shit, but the money has been known to be wrong before.
A completely clean leader could perhaps get away with it, particularly one who expressed oposition at the time.
Do you have any theories on its popularity to out-of-towners?
Mind you, food is unbearably grim outside the M25 (or even the Circle Line).
Don't be silly.
On driving - I learnt in Naples and Ireland.
Passed my test after travelling overnight from Cork via Holyhead and the train (a long, grim and sleepless journey) on the day the Argies invaded the Falklands.
Driving a campervan - the ideal vehicle if you have lots of small children - round London taught me more about driving skills than anything else. It was also great fun watching the horrified faces of the more poncey North London parents of some of their school friends as I parked outside their houses. You could see some of them wonder whether gypsies were moving in and what this thing was doing to house prices.
Glad I'm all green on this one, I'm not sure what to make of it now.
Again, it makes no sense. Everyone has Spotify or Apple Music now. There’s no need to go to a restaurant to pretend you are Molly Ringwald.
Reminds me of the time I saw an American tourist shriek that the horseradish sauce was “burning me!” at a choucroute restaurant in Strasbourg.
But yeah, in many ways people even noticing the LDs could be an improvement for them...
"Un contre-filet de bœuf grillé accompagné de pommes allumettes bien dorées et croustillantes et de sa fameuse sauce"
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
But explained because the Lib Dems don't have a fanatical "base". There is no Lib Dem equivalent of HYUFD or BJO.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the UK is 336.
For more on this and other news visit http://news.sky.com
My gut feeling is that the SLDs will get about the same share as last time (not Baxter’s 2.5 point drop). Yes, they’ve lost their Scottish leader at UK level, but on the other hand it looks likely that a lot of SLD tactical votes for the SCons will be “coming home”.
So, in summary, I concur with your Highland North and O&S guesses. Edinburgh West is tricky due to the unusually poor calibre of the SLD incumbent. I’m not touching your Fife NE prediction: you can say that, but I will get relentlessly hounded if I said anything similar. But well worth noting that the new Fife NE seat gets a huge chunk of the old Glenrothes seat: profoundly poor territory for SLDs.
The root of the problem is that Canadians are not allowed to show the results of coronavirus tests taken in southern Africa.
Instead they must obtain a molecular test from another country.
According to the Globe and Mail newspaper, this has resulted in several citizens being forced to make lengthy stops in Ethiopia - a regional travel hub - on their way home, in spite of a federal travel advisory on account of the country's civil war.
It has lots of wealthy ex private school students and is very posh, hence the Cambridges went there
Much of the electorate's relationship with Con/Lab is more transactional - whichever will do the least bad things...
IIRC there where 80 cases yesterday, so 80 to 90 is an increase of 10 or a 12.5% 'day on day' rise.
Still big! Roughly doubling every 5 or 6 days by my estimation
If O-Mike-Ron is really bad, only having 2% of your population vaccinated isn't going to work out very well for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B--S1tzXH3g
Red square %38 İşçi Partisi
Orange square %37 Muhafazakar Parti
Purple square %10 Liberal Demokrat Parti
White large square %5 İskoç Ulusal Partisi
Green square %5 Yeşiller Partisi
The difference isn't one of fanaticism, if it was you and others here like Clipp etc could fall under that. The difference is that with the Conservatives you know what you're going to get and a lot of people are OK with that.
You can try and build up a 'charge sheet' against the Conservatives of all the things you dislike that piss you off, but most voters don't view any party as perfect. The Conservatives aren't ashamed to offer the platform they're offering - and they by and large deliver on it. If you vote Conservative you know what you're getting, even if it isn't perfect.
With the Lib Dems what do you get if you vote for them? What major achievement can you point to and say "this is what we represent, this is what we've delivered"?