A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
🚨 | BREAKING: Plans are being drawn up for a two week circuit breaker after Christmas, which would ban indoor mixing and have the rule of six outdoors. Pubs and restaurants outdoors only
Oh goodie we are going for the half lockdown, which is neither here nor there.
"Weddings would be limited to 15 people and funerals 30 during the potential circuit breaker"
Unacceptable, a VONC inevitable if Boris agreed that
He's safe for now surely. Changing leader with the pandemic raging would be a dreadful look.
If there's a contest later in 2022 who do you think has a serious chance other than Sunak and Truss?
Does anyone seriously believe that if the backbenchers let Johnson do a two week circuit breaker it wont become two months shortly afterwards?
I could live with a two week one. I am not prepared to deal with a two month one or live in a country suffering the economic consequences of another long lockdown.
I think you're saying you can't live with a 2 week one because you'd assume it would last 2 months.
I like Rishi but I think its fairly reasonable to argue that he wont be able to do the “man of the people” thing that Boris can. He’s basically a billionaire Ed Miliband.
Funny you should say that. My closest friend is a passionate tory, has never voted anything other than Conservative all her life. But she was contemptuous of Rishi Sunak and really dislikes him on exactly your grounds. 'He and his wife are multi-millionaires' she virtually spat down the phone to me. She said he has nothing in common with any of the rest of us. Mind you, she (still) adores Boris.
In the US a leader can probably get away with it but I'm not too sure it will work over here. There have been well-off and gentrified PMs but comparing like for like and adjusting for the years, would Sunak be the richest PM in our history?
It is his wife's money. While rich in his own right, he comes from a fairly modest middle class Hampshire background.
In America being rich is seen as a sign of being successful, hence Trumps hypersensitivity to people pointing out that a lot of his wealth is fictitious.
In Britain we see it more as a political handicap, but not an insurmountable one.
David Cameron was said to be worth £30 million; Mrs Thatcher was married to a millionaire. Boris is probably a millionaire, even if he doesn't like spending his own money.
Can we rebase millionaire to mean 100 million or something meaningful? When the word was coined it was certainly closer to bn than mn in modern money.
I have cleverly arranged my affairs such that I do not need to count up to a million. The point is that rich Prime Ministers are nothing new so Rishi's bank balance is an unlikely barrier.
On scales of wealth, dunno. Having a private chef or a private jet? Having two kitchens like Ed Milliband? Three homes (most MPs have two as a requirement of the job)?
Sunak will be the first Goldman Sachs alumnus PM and son in law of a billionaire however. As an Oxford first too he probably has the best CV of any potential PM we have had since the War on paper, including Starmer, however that does not automatically he can win a general election or do the job well, even if the polls look good for him now
Who are you backing, HYUFD ?
Sunak but I will stay loyal to Boris unless he is forced out, resigns or does another lockdown
Peter Oborne is a Jeremy Hunt backer and predicts VONC in New Year:
“… likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is favourite among Tory voters to win the leadership contest that will take place when Johnson goes. She is out of her depth, and I expect her to be found out. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, is inexperienced and yet to acquire a robust public voice.
The right-wing newspapers – which without exception support Boris Johnson to be prime minister in 2019– will present the succession as a contest between Truss and Sunak. Yet both are deeply implicated in the moral squalor and falsehoods of Johnson’s shortly-to-be defunct administration.
Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign secretary who came second to Johnson in the 2019 Tory leadership election, is not contaminated in the same way. He is a traditional Tory statesman who would offer a fresh start and return to decency and common sense. But that may count against Hunt, given the state of the British Conservative Party as it is today.
Meanwhile Johnson's reputation is shattered: he is held widely in contempt not just by most voters but also by Tory colleagues. If he does not go of his own accord – he has a potential alibi in two small children and could plausibly claim family commitments – Tory MPs will strike with a vote of no-confidence in the New Year.”
'likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss ...' Beautifully understated!
I can't believe they are going to go for Sunak.
An Action Man sized Fulbright Scholar Hedge Fund Parasite Wanna Be Tech Bro just isn't going to connect with the shitmunchers in Hartlepool like Johnson can.
Sunak has by far the highest net favourables of any potential Tory leadership contender and crucially is also the only Tory leadership contender with a higher net favourable rating than Starmer
That's because all most people know of him is that he's a doe eyed twink who gives them money.
It'll be a different story when he's PM. He'll be surveying (from on top of a wheelie bin) the radioactive, plague stricken wreckage of The Johnson Project and have to put it all right with hard choices.
Agree. Sunak is the person I fear most as a Tory leader, but actually doing the job may end up as a different kettle of fish.
Why do you "fear" him?
Fear him as in you think he'll be bad in the job?
Or fear him as in you think he'll be good at it?
It is funny you should say that because I was trying to think of a different word to use because of the double meaning in this context and I don't want to be confused with HYUFD where the main concern is for your party and not the country.
So most important to me is what is best for the country not my party (I am a LD but not wedded to them), but in the context I used 'fear' here I actually did mean the LDs. So I think he will be better for the country and worse for the LDs prospects, but of the course the point I was making is we will never know until he does the job and also that is not my priority.
*Betting Post *🐎 Paging as usual @Malky@Stodge (both of whom tipped winners last week) and @anyone who wants to join in PBs Morning Line and share love of the sport or add racing tips.
I do appreciate not every gambler loves sharing, or sharing publicly. But I suspect some people reading PB may be putting on bets or accumulators regular on a Saturday, as I will be placing bets today, that means doing a degree of “due diligence” on my choices, I don’t mind sharing what led to my decision if you like to use it with your own workings to complete your slip 🙂
I tend to go for hurdles, as there is I think less risk. Similarly I prefer front runners who like to take it on and make honest race.
Latest look at Going stick. Ascot good to soft, Haydock soft.
15:35 Ascot. Samarrive (NAP) why? Won for me in style two weeks ago. This is a difference race, he is surrounded by class and cruelly weighted in the handicap, and there is not place for sentiment backing winners. But I already feel 💘 with my special 4yr old.
14:25 Ascot. Champ (nb) why? Proven winner at 3 miles, as classy as anyone in this field, jumping bigger fences has been a problem, hence back to hurdles
14:05 Haydock. Little Awkward (my long shot this week) Why? Always competitive so far with 2 wins from 4. Likes distance and going.
I am NOT drinking today so my feedback should make sense. 😌We are getting ready to pack up the car, and are driving up the M1 to Yorkshire tonight! Straight to the Barn conversion that will be base camp and wake up to lots of woodpigeon ooooing tomorrow and straight into holiday mode.
iirc @malcolmg posted his selections on last night's thread. Gaulois and Samarrive.
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Peter Oborne is a Jeremy Hunt backer and predicts VONC in New Year:
“… likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is favourite among Tory voters to win the leadership contest that will take place when Johnson goes. She is out of her depth, and I expect her to be found out. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, is inexperienced and yet to acquire a robust public voice.
The right-wing newspapers – which without exception support Boris Johnson to be prime minister in 2019– will present the succession as a contest between Truss and Sunak. Yet both are deeply implicated in the moral squalor and falsehoods of Johnson’s shortly-to-be defunct administration.
Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign secretary who came second to Johnson in the 2019 Tory leadership election, is not contaminated in the same way. He is a traditional Tory statesman who would offer a fresh start and return to decency and common sense. But that may count against Hunt, given the state of the British Conservative Party as it is today.
Meanwhile Johnson's reputation is shattered: he is held widely in contempt not just by most voters but also by Tory colleagues. If he does not go of his own accord – he has a potential alibi in two small children and could plausibly claim family commitments – Tory MPs will strike with a vote of no-confidence in the New Year.”
'likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss ...' Beautifully understated!
I can't believe they are going to go for Sunak.
An Action Man sized Fulbright Scholar Hedge Fund Parasite Wanna Be Tech Bro just isn't going to connect with the shitmunchers in Hartlepool like Johnson can.
I've met him, and have closely studied his efforts in red wall seats - he can. He's got that unexpected charm that was so significant for John Major. And he is (supposedly) committed to hosing towns fund monies at these places, and makes sure the local MP is there with him to tell everyone how much money he's given them.
Most red wallers didn't vote for sovereignty - you can't feed their kids with it. They voted for prosperity, and as long as Sunak sends money in their direction they'll take it.
Well Sunak's grubby hands will be all over the galling cuts we have ahead of us.
He will be blame the previous leader. Currently we have this war of words / ideas between the two of them. Easy for Sunak to say that Johnson didn't have a ckue what he was doing, set conflicting priorities and gave orders which are responsible for the stupid you are upset about. Anyway, fixed now, here's a shiny ha'penny for your troubles.
Trouble is that the economy won't be fixed, and if anything the government will be taking a lot more shiny ha'pennies off us for a few years yet.
Yep. Dire Straights ahead. But Sunak is better placed to have a shot at winning the next election than Hunt or Truss would be.
Is there really no beginning to the talents of the Tory front bench? That really is a very poor choice.
Oh well. How sad. Never mind. Its not the leader now, its the party that is toxic.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
They've learnt absolutely nothing from GE 2019, which should have showed what contempt for the LDs leads to.
I like Rishi but I think its fairly reasonable to argue that he wont be able to do the “man of the people” thing that Boris can. He’s basically a billionaire Ed Miliband.
Funny you should say that. My closest friend is a passionate tory, has never voted anything other than Conservative all her life. But she was contemptuous of Rishi Sunak and really dislikes him on exactly your grounds. 'He and his wife are multi-millionaires' she virtually spat down the phone to me. She said he has nothing in common with any of the rest of us. Mind you, she (still) adores Boris.
In the US a leader can probably get away with it but I'm not too sure it will work over here. There have been well-off and gentrified PMs but comparing like for like and adjusting for the years, would Sunak be the richest PM in our history?
It is his wife's money. While rich in his own right, he comes from a fairly modest middle class Hampshire background.
In America being rich is seen as a sign of being successful, hence Trumps hypersensitivity to people pointing out that a lot of his wealth is fictitious.
In Britain we see it more as a political handicap, but not an insurmountable one.
David Cameron was said to be worth £30 million; Mrs Thatcher was married to a millionaire. Boris is probably a millionaire, even if he doesn't like spending his own money.
Can we rebase millionaire to mean 100 million or something meaningful? When the word was coined it was certainly closer to bn than mn in modern money.
I have cleverly arranged my affairs such that I do not need to count up to a million. The point is that rich Prime Ministers are nothing new so Rishi's bank balance is an unlikely barrier.
On scales of wealth, dunno. Having a private chef or a private jet? Having two kitchens like Ed Milliband? Three homes (most MPs have two as a requirement of the job)?
Sunak will be the first Goldman Sachs alumnus PM and son in law of a billionaire however. As an Oxford first too he probably has the best CV of any potential PM we have had since the War on paper, including Starmer, however that does not automatically he can win a general election or do the job well, even if the polls look good for him now
Who are you backing, HYUFD ?
Sunak but I will stay loyal to Boris unless he is forced out, resigns or does another lockdown
Good nevertheless to see, reading between the lines, that you have the champagne on ice with the rest of us.
🚨 | BREAKING: Plans are being drawn up for a two week circuit breaker after Christmas, which would ban indoor mixing and have the rule of six outdoors. Pubs and restaurants outdoors only
Oh goodie we are going for the half lockdown, which is neither here nor there.
"Weddings would be limited to 15 people and funerals 30 during the potential circuit breaker"
Unacceptable, a VONC inevitable if Boris agreed that
He's safe for now surely. Changing leader with the pandemic raging would be a dreadful look.
If there's a contest later in 2022 who do you think has a serious chance other than Sunak and Truss?
Does anyone seriously believe that if the backbenchers let Johnson do a two week circuit breaker it wont become two months shortly afterwards?
I could live with a two week one. I am not prepared to deal with a two month one or live in a country suffering the economic consequences of another long lockdown.
I think you're saying you can't live with a 2 week one because you'd assume it would last 2 months.
That would be my strong suspicion. "Just two weeks to save the NHS" etc etc etc.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was sad to read sane centrists like Luke Akehurst falling into the same Labour Uber Alles mindset. There is a MAJOR problem with some of them for all the reasons above but also one more.
When the world is Labour or Tory, all others must also be allocated to Labour or Tory. They assumed the LDs were Labour, then we had the coalition. Hence the "yellow Tories" dig.
We will only have a Labour led or Tory led government, but that doesn't mean the other parties are one or the other. Centre ground parties are free to align where they like, that's reality and Labour need to get that into their heads quickly.
Yes. The most telling section of the tweet is surely “didn’t get the reward it so deserved”. Entitlement that comes from a binary political system.
Peter Oborne is a Jeremy Hunt backer and predicts VONC in New Year:
“… likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is favourite among Tory voters to win the leadership contest that will take place when Johnson goes. She is out of her depth, and I expect her to be found out. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, is inexperienced and yet to acquire a robust public voice.
The right-wing newspapers – which without exception support Boris Johnson to be prime minister in 2019– will present the succession as a contest between Truss and Sunak. Yet both are deeply implicated in the moral squalor and falsehoods of Johnson’s shortly-to-be defunct administration.
Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign secretary who came second to Johnson in the 2019 Tory leadership election, is not contaminated in the same way. He is a traditional Tory statesman who would offer a fresh start and return to decency and common sense. But that may count against Hunt, given the state of the British Conservative Party as it is today.
Meanwhile Johnson's reputation is shattered: he is held widely in contempt not just by most voters but also by Tory colleagues. If he does not go of his own accord – he has a potential alibi in two small children and could plausibly claim family commitments – Tory MPs will strike with a vote of no-confidence in the New Year.”
'likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss ...' Beautifully understated!
I can't believe they are going to go for Sunak.
An Action Man sized Fulbright Scholar Hedge Fund Parasite Wanna Be Tech Bro just isn't going to connect with the shitmunchers in Hartlepool like Johnson can.
Sunak has by far the highest net favourables of any potential Tory leadership contender and crucially is also the only Tory leadership contender with a higher net favourable rating than Starmer
That's because all most people know of him is that he's a doe eyed twink who gives them money.
It'll be a different story when he's PM. He'll be surveying (from on top of a wheelie bin) the radioactive, plague stricken wreckage of The Johnson Project and have to put it all right with hard choices.
Agree. Sunak is the person I fear most as a Tory leader, but actually doing the job may end up as a different kettle of fish.
Why do you "fear" him?
Fear him as in you think he'll be bad in the job?
Or fear him as in you think he'll be good at it?
It is funny you should say that because I was trying to think of a different word to use because of the double meaning in this context and I don't want to be confused with HYUFD where the main concern is for your party and not the country.
So most important to me is what is best for the country not my party (I am a LD but not wedded to them), but in the context I used 'fear' here I actually did mean the LDs. So I think he will be better for the country and worse for the LDs prospects, but of the course the point I was making is we will never know until he does the job and also that is not my priority.
You are right there, many high earning upper middle class graduates would not now consider voting for Boris under any circumstances but they would consider Sunak. Many of those will now be backing the LDs
The white working class though may not be as keen on Sunak as Boris even if he gets a short term poll bounce. The Tory vote would likely get more posh again if Sunak replaced Boris, no doubt
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
Corbynites and some Labour supporters will never forgive the LDs for their 2010 to 2015 coalition government with the Conservatives
Will you ever forgive those liberal Tories for opposing Brexit?
*Betting Post *🐎 Paging as usual @Malky@Stodge (both of whom tipped winners last week) and @anyone who wants to join in PBs Morning Line and share love of the sport or add racing tips.
I do appreciate not every gambler loves sharing, or sharing publicly. But I suspect some people reading PB may be putting on bets or accumulators regular on a Saturday, as I will be placing bets today, that means doing a degree of “due diligence” on my choices, I don’t mind sharing what led to my decision if you like to use it with your own workings to complete your slip 🙂
I tend to go for hurdles, as there is I think less risk. Similarly I prefer front runners who like to take it on and make honest race.
Latest look at Going stick. Ascot good to soft, Haydock soft.
15:35 Ascot. Samarrive (NAP) why? Won for me in style two weeks ago. This is a difference race, he is surrounded by class and cruelly weighted in the handicap, and there is not place for sentiment backing winners. But I already feel 💘 with my special 4yr old.
14:25 Ascot. Champ (nb) why? Proven winner at 3 miles, as classy as anyone in this field, jumping bigger fences has been a problem, hence back to hurdles
14:05 Haydock. Little Awkward (my long shot this week) Why? Always competitive so far with 2 wins from 4. Likes distance and going.
I am NOT drinking today so my feedback should make sense. 😌We are getting ready to pack up the car, and are driving up the M1 to Yorkshire tonight! Straight to the Barn conversion that will be base camp and wake up to lots of woodpigeon ooooing tomorrow and straight into holiday mode.
iirc @malcolmg posted his selections on last night's thread. Gaulois and Samarrive.
Thank you. 🙏🏻
That gives me reassurance to know I am on a horse Malky is also backing 🙂
I will go and have a look for it now.
Edit or remember to use notifications thing more !
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was sad to read sane centrists like Luke Akehurst falling into the same Labour Uber Alles mindset. There is a MAJOR problem with some of them for all the reasons above but also one more.
When the world is Labour or Tory, all others must also be allocated to Labour or Tory. They assumed the LDs were Labour, then we had the coalition. Hence the "yellow Tories" dig.
We will only have a Labour led or Tory led government, but that doesn't mean the other parties are one or the other. Centre ground parties are free to align where they like, that's reality and Labour need to get that into their heads quickly.
Akehurst is Oxford City Labour and they are incredibly tribal.
There has been an unedifying spat in the last week with the City councillors publicly laying into a County Council policy supported by the Labour councillors for city divisions on County. (Labour is part of the rainbow coalition running Oxfordshire.)
To be honest the whole of Oxford Labour looks poisonous to me.
Good morning pb. Just been boostered and passing my 15 minutes sitting time looking in on my favourite imaginary friends. Whole family LTD this morning in preparation for seeing the extended in-laws. Mostly I'd be inclined to consider this, er, not what normal life should be - but sister-in-law and her partner are off to Australia tomorrow: partner will be seeing her parents for the first time in two years and for the first time since they've had a baby. And I very much do not want to jeopardise that. It's not the virus we fear, it's the restrictions placed upon us as its consequence...
The last three days have been a social whirl, by comparison with the previous two years. Which if generalised across the country is to a large extent is probably what's driving the increase in cases.
*whole family LFTd* - bloody autocorrect.
I was wondering ...
Just did my LFT ready for a pre-xmas visit by family this weekend.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was sad to read sane centrists like Luke Akehurst falling into the same Labour Uber Alles mindset. There is a MAJOR problem with some of them for all the reasons above but also one more.
When the world is Labour or Tory, all others must also be allocated to Labour or Tory. They assumed the LDs were Labour, then we had the coalition. Hence the "yellow Tories" dig.
We will only have a Labour led or Tory led government, but that doesn't mean the other parties are one or the other. Centre ground parties are free to align where they like, that's reality and Labour need to get that into their heads quickly.
Akehurst is Oxford City Labour and they are incredibly tribal.
There has been an unedifying spat in the last week with the City councillors publicly laying into a County Council policy supported by the Labour councillors for city divisions on County. (Labour is part of the rainbow coalition running Oxfordshire.)
To be honest the whole of Oxford Labour looks poisonous to me.
In Oxford Council Labour are in control and the LDs are the main opposition and there is not a single Tory Councillor. So for Oxford Labour, the LDs are indeed their main opponents
Peter Oborne is a Jeremy Hunt backer and predicts VONC in New Year:
“… likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is favourite among Tory voters to win the leadership contest that will take place when Johnson goes. She is out of her depth, and I expect her to be found out. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, is inexperienced and yet to acquire a robust public voice.
The right-wing newspapers – which without exception support Boris Johnson to be prime minister in 2019– will present the succession as a contest between Truss and Sunak. Yet both are deeply implicated in the moral squalor and falsehoods of Johnson’s shortly-to-be defunct administration.
Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign secretary who came second to Johnson in the 2019 Tory leadership election, is not contaminated in the same way. He is a traditional Tory statesman who would offer a fresh start and return to decency and common sense. But that may count against Hunt, given the state of the British Conservative Party as it is today.
Meanwhile Johnson's reputation is shattered: he is held widely in contempt not just by most voters but also by Tory colleagues. If he does not go of his own accord – he has a potential alibi in two small children and could plausibly claim family commitments – Tory MPs will strike with a vote of no-confidence in the New Year.”
'likely successors… are low calibre. Liz Truss ...' Beautifully understated!
I can't believe they are going to go for Sunak.
An Action Man sized Fulbright Scholar Hedge Fund Parasite Wanna Be Tech Bro just isn't going to connect with the shitmunchers in Hartlepool like Johnson can.
Sunak has by far the highest net favourables of any potential Tory leadership contender and crucially is also the only Tory leadership contender with a higher net favourable rating than Starmer
That's because all most people know of him is that he's a doe eyed twink who gives them money.
It'll be a different story when he's PM. He'll be surveying (from on top of a wheelie bin) the radioactive, plague stricken wreckage of The Johnson Project and have to put it all right with hard choices.
Agree. Sunak is the person I fear most as a Tory leader, but actually doing the job may end up as a different kettle of fish.
Why do you "fear" him?
Fear him as in you think he'll be bad in the job?
Or fear him as in you think he'll be good at it?
It is funny you should say that because I was trying to think of a different word to use because of the double meaning in this context and I don't want to be confused with HYUFD where the main concern is for your party and not the country.
So most important to me is what is best for the country not my party (I am a LD but not wedded to them), but in the context I used 'fear' here I actually did mean the LDs. So I think he will be better for the country and worse for the LDs prospects, but of the course the point I was making is we will never know until he does the job and also that is not my priority.
You are right there, many high earning upper middle class graduates would not now consider voting for Boris under any circumstances but they would consider Sunak. Many of those will now be backing the LDs
The white working class though may not be as keen on Sunak as Boris even if he gets a short term poll bounce. The Tory vote would likely get more posh again if Sunak replaced Boris, no doubt
I’d agree and it also has betting implications. MPs pick the final two to go to the members. If RW MPs think Rishi is going to lose them votes vs a BJ, they are not going to ditch BJ. If BJ goes, they will be looking around for a candidate that appeals to their voters. I doubt Rishi is that nor Truss hence why I’d be shorting both *
* I was going to say lay both but I know what smutty minds inhabit PB
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
An ounce of common sense would prompt the thought that Labour are quite likely to need them propping up a Starmer government.
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
It is noticeably how he is coming under fire from the left who must realise he would take on Starmer with a passion
I'm not sure what point you're making. He's a conservative chancellor who's raising taxes on those who work for a living and cutting investment in the North. Further, he's also a staunch brexiteer. It would be noticeable if he wasn't coming "under fire" from "the left".
My point is he would be a threat to labour and as has been said will invest in the north
The next leader is fighting a two-fronted war. The southern England trad Tories unhappy with the way the government is taxing and spending and is corrupt and stupid, and the red wallers who want money quickly.
I struggle to see how Hunt and Truss can connect with both groups. The trad Tories perhaps, but what do the offer to people north of the Watford Gap?
The reason why I have been backing Sunak is that he is a rare kind of modern Tory - an actual human person. The economic outlook is grim whoever takes over so can't blame him for the costs of Covid. But can praise him for the herculean effort in rescuing so many businesses and people with Furlough etc. And he gets that Capitalism = make and investment and gain a return on that investment.
Labour would struggle more against him that they would against Jeremy Goebbels and Liz "In't Brexit Shit" Truss.
I think that Sunak too would struggle with the new Tories, but probably do better with the older Tory voters. Nothing to do with his wealth or ethnicity, but he is a low tax, pro financial services Atlantacist by instinct, who is concerned, albeit heavily implicated, by financial profligacy.
His policy would be retrenchment to the point of austerity at a time of a cost of living crisis. More popular in the SE than the NE.
Sure - its an almost impossible brief. But would Trade Deals Truss or Jeremy Goebbels do any better? Sunak for me stands the greatest chance of providing a robust defence of Tory seats.
Why on Earth are you calling Jeremy Hunt Goebbels. He’s a middle of the road Tory. MP Hardly comparable with one of the leading Nazis who poisoned his six children before taking his own life. Get a grip.language like that is hardly helpful in our febrile political landscape.
I like Rishi but I think its fairly reasonable to argue that he wont be able to do the “man of the people” thing that Boris can. He’s basically a billionaire Ed Miliband.
Funny you should say that. My closest friend is a passionate tory, has never voted anything other than Conservative all her life. But she was contemptuous of Rishi Sunak and really dislikes him on exactly your grounds. 'He and his wife are multi-millionaires' she virtually spat down the phone to me. She said he has nothing in common with any of the rest of us. Mind you, she (still) adores Boris.
In the US a leader can probably get away with it but I'm not too sure it will work over here. There have been well-off and gentrified PMs but comparing like for like and adjusting for the years, would Sunak be the richest PM in our history?
It is his wife's money. While rich in his own right, he comes from a fairly modest middle class Hampshire background.
In America being rich is seen as a sign of being successful, hence Trumps hypersensitivity to people pointing out that a lot of his wealth is fictitious.
In Britain we see it more as a political handicap, but not an insurmountable one.
David Cameron was said to be worth £30 million; Mrs Thatcher was married to a millionaire. Boris is probably a millionaire, even if he doesn't like spending his own money.
Can we rebase millionaire to mean 100 million or something meaningful? When the word was coined it was certainly closer to bn than mn in modern money.
I have cleverly arranged my affairs such that I do not need to count up to a million. The point is that rich Prime Ministers are nothing new so Rishi's bank balance is an unlikely barrier.
On scales of wealth, dunno. Having a private chef or a private jet? Having two kitchens like Ed Milliband? Three homes (most MPs have two as a requirement of the job)?
Sunak will be the first Goldman Sachs alumnus PM and son in law of a billionaire however. As an Oxford first too he probably has the best CV of any potential PM we have had since the War on paper, including Starmer, however that does not automatically he can win a general election or do the job well, even if the polls look good for him now
Who are you backing, HYUFD ?
Sunak but I will stay loyal to Boris unless he is forced out, resigns or does another lockdown
It is noticeably how he is coming under fire from the left who must realise he would take on Starmer with a passion
I'm not sure what point you're making. He's a conservative chancellor who's raising taxes on those who work for a living and cutting investment in the North. Further, he's also a staunch brexiteer. It would be noticeable if he wasn't coming "under fire" from "the left".
My point is he would be a threat to labour and as has been said will invest in the north
The next leader is fighting a two-fronted war. The southern England trad Tories unhappy with the way the government is taxing and spending and is corrupt and stupid, and the red wallers who want money quickly.
I struggle to see how Hunt and Truss can connect with both groups. The trad Tories perhaps, but what do the offer to people north of the Watford Gap?
The reason why I have been backing Sunak is that he is a rare kind of modern Tory - an actual human person. The economic outlook is grim whoever takes over so can't blame him for the costs of Covid. But can praise him for the herculean effort in rescuing so many businesses and people with Furlough etc. And he gets that Capitalism = make and investment and gain a return on that investment.
Labour would struggle more against him that they would against Jeremy Goebbels and Liz "In't Brexit Shit" Truss.
I think that Sunak too would struggle with the new Tories, but probably do better with the older Tory voters. Nothing to do with his wealth or ethnicity, but he is a low tax, pro financial services Atlantacist by instinct, who is concerned, albeit heavily implicated, by financial profligacy.
His policy would be retrenchment to the point of austerity at a time of a cost of living crisis. More popular in the SE than the NE.
Sure - its an almost impossible brief. But would Trade Deals Truss or Jeremy Goebbels do any better? Sunak for me stands the greatest chance of providing a robust defence of Tory seats.
Why on Earth are you calling Jeremy Hunt Goebbels. He’s a middle of the road Tory. MP Hardly comparable with one of the leading Nazis who poisoned his six children before taking his own life. Get a grip.language like that is hardly helpful in our febrile political landscape.
Why is Dominic Raab as short as 40/1? He is not going to be an MP after the next GE.
Hunt a tasty 16/1 (Vbet)
Raab will probably find a safer seat. Boundary changes offer a reason to move.
Indeed? Who’s seat is he going to nick?
So far only one Con MP has announced not standing for re-election, Douglas Ross. Is Raab going to be the SCon candidate in Highland East & Elgin?
Probably at least 50 Tory MPs will announce their retirement by the time of the election. There's Chris Grayling's seat in Epsom and Ewell for example.
Ta. I knew someone around here would have an idea.
Chris Grayling is so incompetent he would probably stand up to announce his retirement and somehow end up announcing he was contesting the next election for the Liberal Democrats.
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Only an inch shorter than the FLSOJ I believe? Perhaps if Rishi put on some lard, sorry, muscle it would dissipate his pixieness.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
An ounce of common sense would prompt the thought that Labour are quite likely to need them propping up a Starmer government.
The fanatical ones lack common sense. That is why they are fanatics...
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
I do believe he would bring a very different attitude and professionalism to the Premiership and tomorrow would be excellent
However, I cannot predict just how his colleagues will react to nominating him and more importantly the membership but I am on anyone but Boris (ABB)
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
Corbynites and some Labour supporters will never forgive the LDs for their 2010 to 2015 coalition government with the Conservatives
Will you ever forgive those liberal Tories for opposing Brexit?
Provided they accepted the referendum result after as I did
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
An ounce of common sense would prompt the thought that Labour are quite likely to need them propping up a Starmer government.
Point made here. Labour need Lib Dems to take votes off Conservatives, but not at the expense of votes that might go to them. It's a balance.
From 1923 onwards, getting Labour into power has almost always required a Liberal revival, drawing off Conservative voters that Labour can't reach. By contrast, a collapse in the Liberal vote almost always puts the Conservatives into govt.
It is noticeably how he is coming under fire from the left who must realise he would take on Starmer with a passion
I'm not sure what point you're making. He's a conservative chancellor who's raising taxes on those who work for a living and cutting investment in the North. Further, he's also a staunch brexiteer. It would be noticeable if he wasn't coming "under fire" from "the left".
My point is he would be a threat to labour and as has been said will invest in the north
The next leader is fighting a two-fronted war. The southern England trad Tories unhappy with the way the government is taxing and spending and is corrupt and stupid, and the red wallers who want money quickly.
I struggle to see how Hunt and Truss can connect with both groups. The trad Tories perhaps, but what do the offer to people north of the Watford Gap?
The reason why I have been backing Sunak is that he is a rare kind of modern Tory - an actual human person. The economic outlook is grim whoever takes over so can't blame him for the costs of Covid. But can praise him for the herculean effort in rescuing so many businesses and people with Furlough etc. And he gets that Capitalism = make and investment and gain a return on that investment.
Labour would struggle more against him that they would against Jeremy Goebbels and Liz "In't Brexit Shit" Truss.
I think that Sunak too would struggle with the new Tories, but probably do better with the older Tory voters. Nothing to do with his wealth or ethnicity, but he is a low tax, pro financial services Atlantacist by instinct, who is concerned, albeit heavily implicated, by financial profligacy.
His policy would be retrenchment to the point of austerity at a time of a cost of living crisis. More popular in the SE than the NE.
Sure - its an almost impossible brief. But would Trade Deals Truss or Jeremy Goebbels do any better? Sunak for me stands the greatest chance of providing a robust defence of Tory seats.
Why on Earth are you calling Jeremy Hunt Goebbels. He’s a middle of the road Tory. MP Hardly comparable with one of the leading Nazis who poisoned his six children before taking his own life. Get a grip.language like that is hardly helpful in our febrile political landscape.
Cases in Gauteng appear to have reached a peak of about 10,100 per day on 6 Dec on 7-day moving average basis. Cases are now about 8,000 per day on average. ......The above means in R in Gauteng has dropped below 1.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
I don’t go along with that. He bestrides the commons when performing there.
I think his handicap is being the due diligence guy in the Boris “we do what we like” administration, but Sunak can still win if he can answer his way out of the hole he is in.
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
The last acceptable prejudice? Is heightism a word?
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
I do believe he would bring a very different attitude and professionalism to the Premiership
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
An ounce of common sense would prompt the thought that Labour are quite likely to need them propping up a Starmer government.
As a one-time Lib activist, then LD supporter I thought to Coalition seemed a good idea at first. Further, and this has always worried me about the more hysterical Labour anti-coalitionists, any other combination was mathematically challenged to say the least. That thought was compounded by the fact the it was pretty obvious that Labour, as a party of government was tired and fractious.
However, by no stretch of the imagination should anyone imaging I liked, or approved then or now of some of the things the Coalition did. Tuition fees is high on the list and the same applies to the evisceration of the justice system. And I thought that hanging on until the bitter end was bat-shit insane! Two years Coalition to steady the markets, followed by a year or two C&S. Then that should have been that.
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
The last acceptable prejudice? Is heightism a word?
We're not allowed to have a go at the obese any more?
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
I do believe he would bring a very different attitude and professionalism to the Premiership
Which team?
Seem to remember that Cameron used to get confused on that question.
I like Rishi but I think its fairly reasonable to argue that he wont be able to do the “man of the people” thing that Boris can. He’s basically a billionaire Ed Miliband.
Funny you should say that. My closest friend is a passionate tory, has never voted anything other than Conservative all her life. But she was contemptuous of Rishi Sunak and really dislikes him on exactly your grounds. 'He and his wife are multi-millionaires' she virtually spat down the phone to me. She said he has nothing in common with any of the rest of us. Mind you, she (still) adores Boris.
In the US a leader can probably get away with it but I'm not too sure it will work over here. There have been well-off and gentrified PMs but comparing like for like and adjusting for the years, would Sunak be the richest PM in our history?
It is his wife's money. While rich in his own right, he comes from a fairly modest middle class Hampshire background.
In America being rich is seen as a sign of being successful, hence Trumps hypersensitivity to people pointing out that a lot of his wealth is fictitious.
In Britain we see it more as a political handicap, but not an insurmountable one.
David Cameron was said to be worth £30 million; Mrs Thatcher was married to a millionaire. Boris is probably a millionaire, even if he doesn't like spending his own money.
Can we rebase millionaire to mean 100 million or something meaningful? When the word was coined it was certainly closer to bn than mn in modern money.
I have cleverly arranged my affairs such that I do not need to count up to a million. The point is that rich Prime Ministers are nothing new so Rishi's bank balance is an unlikely barrier.
On scales of wealth, dunno. Having a private chef or a private jet? Having two kitchens like Ed Milliband? Three homes (most MPs have two as a requirement of the job)?
Sunak will be the first Goldman Sachs alumnus PM and son in law of a billionaire however. As an Oxford first too he probably has the best CV of any potential PM we have had since the War on paper, including Starmer, however that does not automatically he can win a general election or do the job well, even if the polls look good for him now
Who are you backing, HYUFD ?
Sunak but I will stay loyal to Boris unless he is forced out, resigns or does another lockdown
Isn’t it exciting - Big G and HYUFD ‘almost’ on the same side 🤗
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
The last acceptable prejudice? Is heightism a word?
Heightism??? Surely "Vertically challenged" is the correct phrasing? Or is "Heightism" the philosophy and "Vertically challenged" an actual instance applying to an individual?
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
An ounce of common sense would prompt the thought that Labour are quite likely to need them propping up a Starmer government.
Point made here. Labour need Lib Dems to take votes off Conservatives, but not at the expense of votes that might go to them. It's a balance.
From 1923 onwards, getting Labour into power has almost always required a Liberal revival, drawing off Conservative voters that Labour can't reach. By contrast, a collapse in the Liberal vote almost always puts the Conservatives into govt.
Exactly this. Labour need the Lib Dems to peel off soft Tory voters but they need to prevent centrist Labour voters switching to the Lib Dems. Painting the Lib Dems as a softer version of the Tories may well be helpful for both those goals.
I like Rishi but I think its fairly reasonable to argue that he wont be able to do the “man of the people” thing that Boris can. He’s basically a billionaire Ed Miliband.
Funny you should say that. My closest friend is a passionate tory, has never voted anything other than Conservative all her life. But she was contemptuous of Rishi Sunak and really dislikes him on exactly your grounds. 'He and his wife are multi-millionaires' she virtually spat down the phone to me. She said he has nothing in common with any of the rest of us. Mind you, she (still) adores Boris.
In the US a leader can probably get away with it but I'm not too sure it will work over here. There have been well-off and gentrified PMs but comparing like for like and adjusting for the years, would Sunak be the richest PM in our history?
It is his wife's money. While rich in his own right, he comes from a fairly modest middle class Hampshire background.
In America being rich is seen as a sign of being successful, hence Trumps hypersensitivity to people pointing out that a lot of his wealth is fictitious.
In Britain we see it more as a political handicap, but not an insurmountable one.
David Cameron was said to be worth £30 million; Mrs Thatcher was married to a millionaire. Boris is probably a millionaire, even if he doesn't like spending his own money.
Can we rebase millionaire to mean 100 million or something meaningful? When the word was coined it was certainly closer to bn than mn in modern money.
I have cleverly arranged my affairs such that I do not need to count up to a million. The point is that rich Prime Ministers are nothing new so Rishi's bank balance is an unlikely barrier.
On scales of wealth, dunno. Having a private chef or a private jet? Having two kitchens like Ed Milliband? Three homes (most MPs have two as a requirement of the job)?
Sunak will be the first Goldman Sachs alumnus PM and son in law of a billionaire however. As an Oxford first too he probably has the best CV of any potential PM we have had since the War on paper, including Starmer, however that does not automatically he can win a general election or do the job well, even if the polls look good for him now
Who are you backing, HYUFD ?
Sunak but I will stay loyal to Boris unless he is forced out, resigns or does another lockdown
Isn’t it exciting - Big G and HYUFD ‘almost’ on the same side 🤗
It is a temporary shock caused by North Shropshire. I am sure normal betrayal will be resumed as soon as possible
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
I was expecting the tweet to be a lot worse based on your write-up! Probably just some activist who's tired and pissed off after spending weeks pounding the pavements only to see their vote share go backwards, and maybe seen some of the Lib Dems' famed low-level electoral skulduggery up close. And while I personally don't harbour much animus towards the Lib Dems, it is nevertheless true that their main contribution to modern British politics was propping up the 2015 Tory led government and facilitating swinging cuts to local public services. So it's not like the "yellow Tory" jibe is wholly without foundation. Still, a more gracious response to the Lib Dem victory would have been wiser.
An ounce of common sense would prompt the thought that Labour are quite likely to need them propping up a Starmer government.
Point made here. Labour need Lib Dems to take votes off Conservatives, but not at the expense of votes that might go to them. It's a balance.
From 1923 onwards, getting Labour into power has almost always required a Liberal revival, drawing off Conservative voters that Labour can't reach. By contrast, a collapse in the Liberal vote almost always puts the Conservatives into govt.
Exactly this. Labour need the Lib Dems to peel off soft Tory voters but they need to prevent centrist Labour voters switching to the Lib Dems. Painting the Lib Dems as a softer version of the Tories may well be helpful for both those goals.
The Lib-Lab pact when Steel was Liberal leader worked quite well. And IIRC there are places where there are Tory/Lab coalitions in control, admittedly usually in opposition to the SNP.
🚨 | BREAKING: Plans are being drawn up for a two week circuit breaker after Christmas, which would ban indoor mixing and have the rule of six outdoors. Pubs and restaurants outdoors only
Oh goodie we are going for the half lockdown, which is neither here nor there.
"Weddings would be limited to 15 people and funerals 30 during the potential circuit breaker"
Unacceptable, a VONC inevitable if Boris agreed that
He's safe for now surely. Changing leader with the pandemic raging would be a dreadful look.
If there's a contest later in 2022 who do you think has a serious chance other than Sunak and Truss?
Does anyone seriously believe that if the backbenchers let Johnson do a two week circuit breaker it wont become two months shortly afterwards?
I could live with a two week one. I am not prepared to deal with a two month one or live in a country suffering the economic consequences of another long lockdown.
I think you're saying you can't live with a 2 week one because you'd assume it would last 2 months.
That would be my strong suspicion. "Just two weeks to save the NHS" etc etc etc.
See you at Easter.
To me, the history of the pandemic doesn't show the government rushing into unnecessary NPIs and then hanging onto them for dear life, therefore I don't share this fear. Putting together the politics and the virus data, my view is we won't see a lockdown for Omicron or anything close to a lockdown. I also think the NHS might collapse this winter. This is the thing to really fear imo.
Wait, but wait in your car, somewhere else. Or just go away if you're not driving. Seems reasonable.
FWIW when I was in for my booster on Monday somebody in the waiting area did faint (non-serious). So not everybody is 100% immediate side effect free. The balance of risks does currently seem to favour "don't hang around, but don't drive", though, I agree.
Wait until they find out how much UK patients pay:
But the United States remains a far cry from Europe, where more than three dozen types of at-home tests are available for as little as $1 to $2 per test. Americans can pay as much as $25 for a box of two, and Mr. Biden’s plan to have insurers reimburse for those purchases will not take effect until mid-January at the earliest.
Wait, but wait in your car, somewhere else. Or just go away if you're not driving. Seems reasonable.
FWIW when I was in for my booster on Monday somebody in the waiting area did faint (non-serious). So not everybody is 100% immediate side effect free. The balance of risks does currently seem to favour "don't hang around, but don't drive", though, I agree.
Fainting after an injection is usually psychological, as I understand it. The reason for the 15 minutes was for potential allergic reaction, but they have clearly decided recently that this is so rare as to be not worth holding up the throughput, and the extra infection risk.
“At the same time, Pfizer, one of the chief vaccine makers, on Friday predicted the pandemic would last until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for children ages 2 to 4 generated a weaker-than-expected immune response, which could delay authorisation.”
Wait, but wait in your car, somewhere else. Or just go away if you're not driving. Seems reasonable.
FWIW when I was in for my booster on Monday somebody in the waiting area did faint (non-serious). So not everybody is 100% immediate side effect free. The balance of risks does currently seem to favour "don't hang around, but don't drive", though, I agree.
Fainting after an injection is usually psychological, as I understand it. The reason for the 15 minutes was for potential allergic reaction, but they have clearly decided recently that this is so rare as to be not worth holding up the throughput, and the extra infection risk.
One big positive for me of having four separate injections (and at least one blood test) in a year is that I'm now pretty much over my needle phobia.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
🚨 | BREAKING: Plans are being drawn up for a two week circuit breaker after Christmas, which would ban indoor mixing and have the rule of six outdoors. Pubs and restaurants outdoors only
Oh goodie we are going for the half lockdown, which is neither here nor there.
"Weddings would be limited to 15 people and funerals 30 during the potential circuit breaker"
Unacceptable, a VONC inevitable if Boris agreed that
He's safe for now surely. Changing leader with the pandemic raging would be a dreadful look.
If there's a contest later in 2022 who do you think has a serious chance other than Sunak and Truss?
Does anyone seriously believe that if the backbenchers let Johnson do a two week circuit breaker it wont become two months shortly afterwards?
I could live with a two week one. I am not prepared to deal with a two month one or live in a country suffering the economic consequences of another long lockdown.
I think you're saying you can't live with a 2 week one because you'd assume it would last 2 months.
That would be my strong suspicion. "Just two weeks to save the NHS" etc etc etc.
See you at Easter.
To me, the history of the pandemic doesn't show the government rushing into unnecessary NPIs and then hanging onto them for dear life, therefore I don't share this fear. Putting together the politics and the virus data, my view is we won't see a lockdown for Omicron or anything close to a lockdown. I also think the NHS might collapse this winter. This is the thing to really fear imo.
SAGE are hovering over the government like buzzards hovering over road-kill. Resistance is futile.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
If the Leavers aren't voting Tory any more, have they forgotten about the issue (or not tried to go on holiday abroad) or just relapsed into electoral torpor?
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
But that doesn't necessarily work either.
The realignment was pure cakeism- adding Red Wallers without losing anything else. (Conservatives Implacably Opposed To Johnson exist, but are pretty rare in the general public.) That worked in 2019, partly because of Fear Of Corbyn and partly because of making the first move.
But anyone post-Johnson is going to have to ask themselves which slice of the coalition to ditch. (Truss probably won't which why she might well win, but the problem won't go away.) And whilst an 80 seat majority is impressive, it's not big enough to deliberately cut bits off it.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
You joke, but there are those who thought (or still think) that the Article 16 business and rolling dispute with France provide a way back. Most of this week's commentary discount this on the grounds that it risks playing still further to the developing narrative of the PM's irresponsibility.
In terms of political strategy, the Professor is probably right - recovering the educated middle classes in the next year or two isn't viable and so he has to try and deliver for his new voters.
The reason that the crisis for the PM is potentially so serious is that it has two dimensions - the political and the personal - which would require different, and conflicting, solutions (and in the case of his personality may well be insoluble)
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
But that doesn't necessarily work either.
The realignment was pure cakeism- adding Red Wallers without losing anything else. (Conservatives Implacably Opposed To Johnson exist, but are pretty rare in the general public.) That worked in 2019, partly because of Fear Of Corbyn and partly because of making the first move.
But anyone post-Johnson is going to have to ask themselves which slice of the coalition to ditch. (Truss probably won't which why she might well win, but the problem won't go away.) And whilst an 80 seat majority is impressive, it's not big enough to deliberately cut bits off it.
And they've already abandoned levelling up. Trying to bring it back would have no credibility.
A thoughtful contribution as always from Matthew Goodwin.
The point he makes too little of however is the varying priorities swing/election changing voters have.
As of the 2019 GE Get Brexit Done was quite enough, along with Avoid Having Jezza.
But now the most problematic of the political triad has emerged. Government is judged on the triad of policy, values/integrity and competence. But people keep shifting these priorities and the order they take.
Competence is always the most problematic. Policies can be devised; most people can keep their hands out of the till for self interested reasons if no other. Competence is both very difficult and can go wrong in a million places.
At a time of managing post-Brexit and a unique medical situation competence is by far the most valued quality. From a betting point of view a question is: Can Boris or any Tory restore competence in state management; and can anyone else do this more convincingly.
The Tories have avoidably trashed for now their image with regard to integrity and probity; also for competence. I am doubtful whether this can be recovered by Boris or by A N Other.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Except Boris has already cancelled levelling up - and with it those new Northern voters will return to apathy or their default of voting labour.
I pointed out a while back - Redcar is a prime Northern Red Wall seat and has been since 2005 when the steel works first had problems. And watch how subsequent elections play out.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
If the Leavers aren't voting Tory any more, have they forgotten about the issue (or not tried to go on holiday abroad) or just relapsed into electoral torpor?
Holidays abroad are a bit of a non-starter at the moment. The worst effects of Brexit are hiding behind Covid and, IIRC, the full force of the Brexit agreements does not come into force for some months yet, there are still some transitional elements in force
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
The problem with this strategy is the PM’s own non-red-wall mps, who have him by the nuts when it comes to meaningful levelling up. Johnson simply doesn’t have the political space to fully pivot the party in that direction.
Whilst each byelection is an individual event, comparing the actual number of votes cast in the last four may be instructive. The Conservative vote, in terms of votes cast, fell in Chesham and Amersham, Batley and Spen, Old Bexley and N. Shropshire by 31%, 32%, 63% and 67% respectively. The performance of the challenging party in each constituency was: Chesham and Amersham (Lib Dem +47%), Batley and Spen (Labour - Down 42%), Old Bexley (Labour - down 38%) and North Shropshire (Lib Dem +218%).
Electors are understandably becoming less inclined to vote for the Conservative candidate. It does appear that the Labour Party, unlike the Liberal Democrats, has not yet persuaded voters to actually vote for them.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
But that doesn't necessarily work either.
The realignment was pure cakeism- adding Red Wallers without losing anything else. (Conservatives Implacably Opposed To Johnson exist, but are pretty rare in the general public.) That worked in 2019, partly because of Fear Of Corbyn and partly because of making the first move.
But anyone post-Johnson is going to have to ask themselves which slice of the coalition to ditch. (Truss probably won't which why she might well win, but the problem won't go away.) And whilst an 80 seat majority is impressive, it's not big enough to deliberately cut bits off it.
And they've already abandoned levelling up. Trying to bring it back would have no credibility.
But shouting at Scots, foreigners and the woke elite is dead cheap.
Why is Dominic Raab as short as 40/1? He is not going to be an MP after the next GE.
Hunt a tasty 16/1 (Vbet)
Raab will probably find a safer seat. Boundary changes offer a reason to move.
Indeed? Who’s seat is he going to nick?
So far only one Con MP has announced not standing for re-election, Douglas Ross. Is Raab going to be the SCon candidate in Highland East & Elgin?
Probably at least 50 Tory MPs will announce their retirement by the time of the election. There's Chris Grayling's seat in Epsom and Ewell for example.
Ta. I knew someone around here would have an idea.
I don't see that necessarily happening.
50 is basically every Tory MP over the age of 62. Here is the age profile by party at the 2019 election. Unless you know of younger ones who are going?
And they have a lot of new blood from 2019 (107 iirc) who would tend to want to stay. My Red Wall MP has moved to a rather larger house in a cul-de-sac near a high end golf course (though inexpensive by subsidised southern standards ), and may have a rather larger mortgage to pay especially if interest rates go up.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
If the Leavers aren't voting Tory any more, have they forgotten about the issue (or not tried to go on holiday abroad) or just relapsed into electoral torpor?
Holidays abroad are a bit of a non-starter at the moment. The worst effects of Brexit are hiding behind Covid and, IIRC, the full force of the Brexit agreements does not come into force for some months yet, there are still some transitional elements in force
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
The last acceptable prejudice? Is heightism a word?
We're not allowed to have a go at the obese any more?
Fat-shaming is verboten. Oddly perhaps, it is more controversial to show figures who are "too thin".
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
This is a good article.
If it looks like it's going to be close, the Tories will re-run the "in the pocket of the SNP" campaign and it will likely be enough for them to scrape through again.
The idea of Starmer in Sturgeon's pocket will resonate just as much with English voters (and I suspect even more so with red wall leave voters) as it did with Miliband in Salmond's pocket six years ago.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
If the Leavers aren't voting Tory any more, have they forgotten about the issue (or not tried to go on holiday abroad) or just relapsed into electoral torpor?
Holidays abroad are a bit of a non-starter at the moment. The worst effects of Brexit are hiding behind Covid and, IIRC, the full force of the Brexit agreements does not come into force for some months yet, there are still some transitional elements in force
Weeks isn't it, not months?
I have it in my head that it is June, but that might have been last June, not June 2022.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Does this mean that the next step will be to instruct the RAF to strafe refugee boats in the Channel and for the Navy to bombard the beaches near Calais around sunset each day?
If the Leavers aren't voting Tory any more, have they forgotten about the issue (or not tried to go on holiday abroad) or just relapsed into electoral torpor?
Holidays abroad are a bit of a non-starter at the moment. The worst effects of Brexit are hiding behind Covid and, IIRC, the full force of the Brexit agreements does not come into force for some months yet, there are still some transitional elements in force
Weeks isn't it, not months?
Holidays abroad in Europe will become a lot more straightforward once the EU extracts its finger out of its backside and gets its e-border up and running. That is some way away.
I like Rishi but I think its fairly reasonable to argue that he wont be able to do the “man of the people” thing that Boris can. He’s basically a billionaire Ed Miliband.
Funny you should say that. My closest friend is a passionate tory, has never voted anything other than Conservative all her life. But she was contemptuous of Rishi Sunak and really dislikes him on exactly your grounds. 'He and his wife are multi-millionaires' she virtually spat down the phone to me. She said he has nothing in common with any of the rest of us. Mind you, she (still) adores Boris.
In the US a leader can probably get away with it but I'm not too sure it will work over here. There have been well-off and gentrified PMs but comparing like for like and adjusting for the years, would Sunak be the richest PM in our history?
It is his wife's money. While rich in his own right, he comes from a fairly modest middle class Hampshire background.
In America being rich is seen as a sign of being successful, hence Trumps hypersensitivity to people pointing out that a lot of his wealth is fictitious.
In Britain we see it more as a political handicap, but not an insurmountable one.
David Cameron was said to be worth £30 million; Mrs Thatcher was married to a millionaire. Boris is probably a millionaire, even if he doesn't like spending his own money.
Can we rebase millionaire to mean 100 million or something meaningful? When the word was coined it was certainly closer to bn than mn in modern money.
I have cleverly arranged my affairs such that I do not need to count up to a million. The point is that rich Prime Ministers are nothing new so Rishi's bank balance is an unlikely barrier.
On scales of wealth, dunno. Having a private chef or a private jet? Having two kitchens like Ed Milliband? Three homes (most MPs have two as a requirement of the job)?
Sunak will be the first Goldman Sachs alumnus PM and son in law of a billionaire however. As an Oxford first too he probably has the best CV of any potential PM we have had since the War on paper, including Starmer, however that does not automatically he can win a general election or do the job well, even if the polls look good for him now
Who are you backing, HYUFD ?
Sunak but I will stay loyal to Boris unless he is forced out, resigns or does another lockdown
Isn’t it exciting - Big G and HYUFD ‘almost’ on the same side 🤗
You mean @HYUFD is coming round to my long held position !!!!!
Perhaps I am mistaken but Liz Truss used to be a Young Liberal, on demos etc. At a party conference there was a motion put forward, early 1990's, to abolish the Royal Family, I seem to reecall it was that strong. I am told she supported it, if that is brought up and it is correct, then I cannot see how she will compete. It is all 30 years ago so memories fade, mine especially!!! But .............
I have unbeaten 100% record in my politics betting (what they call one match winning streak) my second political bet is/was as a few weeks back, Saj for Boris replacement £50 14-1.
Big G is right, clear front runner is Rishi Sunak. He is okay on TV and excellent at dispatch box.
Problem. He does carry quite a handicap into this race.
It’s the Job of himself and his department to carry out due diligence on spending on behalf of the taxpayer. And after the last two years there are some good questions needing good answers about his performance.
I’m not a expert, just a failed artist whose fallen off many horses, but the first question I understand is he gave awful lot of money to banks for quick distribution, now complains the banks didn’t do enough due diligence in handing out this taxpayer money. This obstacle can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
The second question is any iffy covid contracts can lead back to asking his department what was the part you played in them? Again, can either bring him down in leadership race, or he gets the job and this dogs him and tarnishes his credibility.
These are clear differentials between him and other candidates.
Currently, Rishi is under attack from his own side, the Conservatives, the Party of Business demanding action on lockdown by stealth killing businesses. In his car crash interview today, Boris could not explain the difference between his line, and the C-MO line. Can Rishi?
And those are just the known knowns as they say.
Saj seems able. Likeable. Resigned on principle and proved right to (see the second link) and good natured to joke about it in his resignation speech. More recently the Tory benches masked up virtually overnight when he told them to. His backstory is growing up in flat above shop in rundown high street. He is archetypal Tory Leader candidate. At 14-1 could go deep into this race.
I name checked you as Sunak cheerleader Big G I hope you don’t mind. I’m not attacking Rishi from very far left, and I do say he is very classy politician, especially in that field. But he does have to overcome those questions and I am interested to learn how he answers.
Rishi is also short as f*ck. For a male leader, that seems to be a major handicap, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries.
The last acceptable prejudice? Is heightism a word?
We're not allowed to have a go at the obese any more?
Fat-shaming is verboten. Oddly perhaps, it is more controversial to show figures who are "too thin".
Unless you are anti-the current Gov commentating on members of the current Gov.
Worth a read - strategy advice from the politics professor, probably not that popular either here or there (and also ignores entirely the huge problems of his personality flaws):
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
Except Boris has already cancelled levelling up - and with it those new Northern voters will return to apathy or their default of voting labour.
I pointed out a while back - Redcar is a prime Northern Red Wall seat and has been since 2005 when the steel works first had problems. And watch how subsequent elections play out.
Yup, red wall voters are not stupid in spite of what labour activists on twitter say.
They know Boris is all piss and wind and let them down
I suspect the Tories are looking to 2017 as the core and holding onto those seats while retaining a few won in 2019. As the likes of HYUFD made quite clear. They do not see the red wall as Tories merely people who lent their vote to get Brexit done.
It is noticeably how he is coming under fire from the left who must realise he would take on Starmer with a passion
I'm not sure what point you're making. He's a conservative chancellor who's raising taxes on those who work for a living and cutting investment in the North. Further, he's also a staunch brexiteer. It would be noticeable if he wasn't coming "under fire" from "the left".
My point is he would be a threat to labour and as has been said will invest in the north
The next leader is fighting a two-fronted war. The southern England trad Tories unhappy with the way the government is taxing and spending and is corrupt and stupid, and the red wallers who want money quickly.
I struggle to see how Hunt and Truss can connect with both groups. The trad Tories perhaps, but what do the offer to people north of the Watford Gap?
The reason why I have been backing Sunak is that he is a rare kind of modern Tory - an actual human person. The economic outlook is grim whoever takes over so can't blame him for the costs of Covid. But can praise him for the herculean effort in rescuing so many businesses and people with Furlough etc. And he gets that Capitalism = make and investment and gain a return on that investment.
Labour would struggle more against him that they would against Jeremy Goebbels and Liz "In't Brexit Shit" Truss.
I think that Sunak too would struggle with the new Tories, but probably do better with the older Tory voters. Nothing to do with his wealth or ethnicity, but he is a low tax, pro financial services Atlantacist by instinct, who is concerned, albeit heavily implicated, by financial profligacy.
His policy would be retrenchment to the point of austerity at a time of a cost of living crisis. More popular in the SE than the NE.
Sure - its an almost impossible brief. But would Trade Deals Truss or Jeremy Goebbels do any better? Sunak for me stands the greatest chance of providing a robust defence of Tory seats.
Why on Earth are you calling Jeremy Hunt Goebbels. He’s a middle of the road Tory. MP Hardly comparable with one of the leading Nazis who poisoned his six children before taking his own life. Get a grip.language like that is hardly helpful in our febrile political landscape.
Perhaps I am mistaken but Liz Truss used to be a Young Liberal, on demos etc. At a party conference there was a motion put forward, early 1990's, to abolish the Royal Family, I seem to reecall it was that strong. I am told she supported it, if that is brought up and it is correct, then I cannot see how she will compete. It is all 30 years ago so memories fade, mine especially!!! But .............
I don’t think republicanism is the deal-breaker it once was, for the Tory faithful.
Wait, but wait in your car, somewhere else. Or just go away if you're not driving. Seems reasonable.
FWIW when I was in for my booster on Monday somebody in the waiting area did faint (non-serious). So not everybody is 100% immediate side effect free. The balance of risks does currently seem to favour "don't hang around, but don't drive", though, I agree.
Fainting after an injection is usually psychological, as I understand it. The reason for the 15 minutes was for potential allergic reaction, but they have clearly decided recently that this is so rare as to be not worth holding up the throughput, and the extra infection risk.
One big positive for me of having four separate injections (and at least one blood test) in a year is that I'm now pretty much over my needle phobia.
What amuses me is people with tattoos who say they are scared of needles.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
Your extensive post is an utter work of fiction compared to the few words actually posted, namely "Thank you @btwodo for a great campaign that didn't get the reward it so deserved - onwards and upwards when people realize the #FibDems are just yellow Tories.."
There's nothing wrong with congratulating a hard working candidate and stating that he deserved better.
And it's perfectly reasonable for Labour to continue to remind people that 5 years of very recent Conservative austerity was facilitated by the Lib Dems. When I read Telegraph commentators and the likes of John Redwood this week bemoaning the looser fiscal policies of Johnson compared to the hard line gruel that Osborne and Cameron served up, it only confirms that the 2010 to 2015 years really were true blue ones.
Lib Dem hopes at the next GE will be focused entirely on picking up mainly Conservative votes in Conservative held seats. The reminder of their recent past probably helped the Lib Dems in N Shropshire and will help them in similar seats elsewhere.
Perhaps I am mistaken but Liz Truss used to be a Young Liberal, on demos etc. At a party conference there was a motion put forward, early 1990's, to abolish the Royal Family, I seem to reecall it was that strong. I am told she supported it, if that is brought up and it is correct, then I cannot see how she will compete. It is all 30 years ago so memories fade, mine especially!!! But .............
I don’t think republicanism is the deal-breaker it once was, for the Tory faithful.
Especially, as it is at least likely, that the tory leadership Hunger Games will be transacted under the reign of King Gobshite.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
Your extensive post is an utter work of fiction compared to the few words actually posted, namely "Thank you @btwodo for a great campaign that didn't get the reward it so deserved - onwards and upwards when people realize the #FibDems are just yellow Tories.."
There's nothing wrong with congratulating a hard working candidate and stating that he deserved better.
And it's perfectly reasonable for Labour to continue to remind people that 5 years of very recent Conservative austerity was facilitated by the Lib Dems. When I read Telegraph commentators and the likes of John Redwood this week bemoaning the looser fiscal policies of Johnson compared to the hard line gruel that Osborne and Cameron served up, it only confirms that the 2010 to 2015 years really were true blue ones.
Lib Dem hopes at the next GE will be focused entirely on picking up mainly Conservative votes in Conservative held seats. The reminder of their recent past probably helped the Lib Dems in N Shropshire and will help them in similar seats elsewhere.
The Lib Dems are a centrist party. If the electorate continues to return minority largest parties then you can expect a centre party to sometimes support the Tories, sometimes support Labour. Labour needs to understand this.
Comments
So most important to me is what is best for the country not my party (I am a LD but not wedded to them), but in the context I used 'fear' here I actually did mean the LDs. So I think he will be better for the country and worse for the LDs prospects, but of the course the point I was making is we will never know until he does the job and also that is not my priority.
Oh well. How sad. Never mind. Its not the leader now, its the party that is toxic.
See you at Easter.
The white working class though may not be as keen on Sunak as Boris even if he gets a short term poll bounce. The Tory vote would likely get more posh again if Sunak replaced Boris, no doubt
That gives me reassurance to know I am on a horse Malky is also backing 🙂
I will go and have a look for it now.
Edit or remember to use notifications thing more !
There has been an unedifying spat in the last week with the City councillors publicly laying into a County Council policy supported by the Labour councillors for city divisions on County. (Labour is part of the rainbow coalition running Oxfordshire.)
To be honest the whole of Oxford Labour looks poisonous to me.
Beginning to forget what normal life was like.
* I was going to say lay both but I know what smutty minds inhabit PB
Welcome.
However, I cannot predict just how his colleagues will react to nominating him and more importantly the membership but I am on anyone but Boris (ABB)
From 1923 onwards, getting Labour into power has almost always required a Liberal revival, drawing off Conservative voters that Labour can't reach. By contrast, a collapse in the Liberal vote almost always puts the Conservatives into govt.
https://mobile.twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1471789523893956608
......The above means in R in Gauteng has dropped below 1.
https://twitter.com/lrossouw/status/1472137614203445248?s=20
https://unherd.com/?p=297422?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=dfe0bf5e59&mc_eid=836634e34b
It is the defection of these Leavers which poses the biggest problem to Johnson. He reshaped his entire premiership and political party around them. If his core voters go, then the realignment collapses and the Conservatives will be finished. The party will haemorrhage middle-class graduate votes to the Liberal Democrats in the south and pro-Brexit, working-class votes to apathy in the north. They will come under attack from all sides and no longer have a viable coalition.
The only way forward for Johnson now, for his increasingly rebellious party too, is to reconnect with the very people who put them in power to begin with, to double down on the realignment and forget about everybody else. It’s not popular but it is politics. Brexit may be fading into the distance but there are many other issues that could just as powerfully unite the new Conservative electorate particularly ahead of a general election at which a Labour-SNP coalition is a serious prospect. Immigration is one. Crime is another. Defining and delivering a serious levelling-up strategy is another. And so too is robustly defending British identity, history and culture from an increasingly radical progressive left (just ask Republicans in Virgina).
There simply is no alternative. If you think that after everything we have witnessed in the past two years — Brexit, Cummings, Covid, Johnson’s personal failings and the utter chaos in No. 10 — that the Conservative Party can win back the Londoners, Remainers and professional middle-classes in time for the next election, then I have a bridge to sell you. No, the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began.
I think his handicap is being the due diligence guy in the Boris “we do what we like” administration, but Sunak can still win if he can answer his way out of the hole he is in.
However, by no stretch of the imagination should anyone imaging I liked, or approved then or now of some of the things the Coalition did. Tuition fees is high on the list and the same applies to the evisceration of the justice system.
And I thought that hanging on until the bitter end was bat-shit insane! Two years Coalition to steady the markets, followed by a year or two C&S. Then that should have been that.
Those photos in the header..... Sunak looks ok in his, but did Liz Truss even bother to comb her hair for that?
But the United States remains a far cry from Europe, where more than three dozen types of at-home tests are available for as little as $1 to $2 per test. Americans can pay as much as $25 for a box of two, and Mr. Biden’s plan to have insurers reimburse for those purchases will not take effect until mid-January at the earliest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/us/politics/us-covid-tests-omicron.html
“At the same time, Pfizer, one of the chief vaccine makers, on Friday predicted the pandemic would last until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for children ages 2 to 4 generated a weaker-than-expected immune response, which could delay authorisation.”
2024. Half a decade
The realignment was pure cakeism- adding Red Wallers without losing anything else. (Conservatives Implacably Opposed To Johnson exist, but are pretty rare in the general public.) That worked in 2019, partly because of Fear Of Corbyn and partly because of making the first move.
But anyone post-Johnson is going to have to ask themselves which slice of the coalition to ditch. (Truss probably won't which why she might well win, but the problem won't go away.) And whilst an 80 seat majority is impressive, it's not big enough to deliberately cut bits off it.
In terms of political strategy, the Professor is probably right - recovering the educated middle classes in the next year or two isn't viable and so he has to try and deliver for his new voters.
The reason that the crisis for the PM is potentially so serious is that it has two dimensions - the political and the personal - which would require different, and conflicting, solutions (and in the case of his personality may well be insoluble)
A thoughtful contribution as always from Matthew Goodwin.
The point he makes too little of however is the varying priorities swing/election changing voters have.
As of the 2019 GE Get Brexit Done was quite enough, along with Avoid Having Jezza.
But now the most problematic of the political triad has emerged. Government is judged on the triad of policy, values/integrity and competence. But people keep shifting these priorities and the order they take.
Competence is always the most problematic. Policies can be devised; most people can keep their hands out of the till for self interested reasons if no other. Competence is both very difficult and can go wrong in a million places.
At a time of managing post-Brexit and a unique medical situation competence is by far the most valued quality. From a betting point of view a question is: Can Boris or any Tory restore competence in state management; and can anyone else do this more convincingly.
The Tories have avoidably trashed for now their image with regard to integrity and probity; also for competence. I am doubtful whether this can be recovered by Boris or by A N Other.
I pointed out a while back - Redcar is a prime Northern Red Wall seat and has been since 2005 when the steel works first had problems. And watch how subsequent elections play out.
https://twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1472145221182005251?s=20
Electors are understandably becoming less inclined to vote for the Conservative candidate. It does appear that the Labour Party, unlike the Liberal Democrats, has not yet persuaded voters to actually vote for them.
50 is basically every Tory MP over the age of 62. Here is the age profile by party at the 2019 election. Unless you know of younger ones who are going?
And they have a lot of new blood from 2019 (107 iirc) who would tend to want to stay. My Red Wall MP has moved to a rather larger house in a cul-de-sac near a high end golf course (though inexpensive by subsidised southern standards
1. Watch a random episode of The Thick of It
2. See how much of it they can implement
If it looks like it's going to be close, the Tories will re-run the "in the pocket of the SNP" campaign and it will likely be enough for them to scrape through again.
The idea of Starmer in Sturgeon's pocket will resonate just as much with English voters (and I suspect even more so with red wall leave voters) as it did with Miliband in Salmond's pocket six years ago.
For now, I would go elsewhere. Or Ireland.
This thread has lost its by-election
They know Boris is all piss and wind and let them down
I suspect the Tories are looking to 2017 as the core and holding onto those seats while retaining a few won in 2019. As the likes of HYUFD made quite clear. They do not see the red wall as Tories merely people who lent their vote to get Brexit done.
@btwodo for a great campaign that didn't get the reward it so deserved - onwards and upwards when people realize the #FibDems are just yellow Tories.."
There's nothing wrong with congratulating a hard working candidate and stating that he deserved better.
And it's perfectly reasonable for Labour to continue to remind people that 5 years of very recent Conservative austerity was facilitated by the Lib Dems. When I read Telegraph commentators and the likes of John Redwood this week bemoaning the looser fiscal policies of Johnson compared to the hard line gruel that Osborne and Cameron served up, it only confirms that the 2010 to 2015 years really were true blue ones.
Lib Dem hopes at the next GE will be focused entirely on picking up mainly Conservative votes in Conservative held seats. The reminder of their recent past probably helped the Lib Dems in N Shropshire and will help them in similar seats elsewhere.