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Who’ll come out of May 5th best – Johnson or Starmer? – politicalbetting.com
Who’ll come out of May 5th best – Johnson or Starmer? – politicalbetting.com
This lunchtime the Tory campaigning expert, Lord Hayward, held his annual local elections briefing ahead of the May 5th elections.
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My suspicion is that no party will do significantly different from 2018..
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"If we had the Brexit vote again, I would vote much more emphatically to LEAVE, and with none of the havering and 50/50 quavering of last time. I might even do it with "delight"
I'm afraid we exist. The Leavers who feel vindicated."
Except you haven't been (vindicated) and that is why you bang on about it ad nauseum. You know it is shit and pointless, and you keep coming on here in the hope you might convince yourself. You are suffering from sub conscious "repetition compulsion" in a desire to gain "illusory truth effect".
Leon, it doesn't matter how many times you repeat it, you still know in your heart of hearts it was fucking pointless.
Looking at Westminster - on the previous boundaries it is a much much tougher nut to crack due to the vote distribution (VERY) heavily favouring the Tories.
These are the easiest 11 on prev boundaries.
Tachbrook 1 52.1 38.9 13.2
Vincent square 3 47.9 34.8 13.1
Vincent square 1 50.9 38.3 12.6
Lancaster gate 1 50.4 40.1 10.3
Lancaster gate 2 48.5 39.1 9.4
Lancaster gate 3 46.1 38.4 7.7
Bayswater 1 39.4 35.7 3.7
Bayswater 2 36.5 33.1 3.4
West End 2 42.5 40.4 2.1
West End 1 43.2 41.3 1.9
Churchill 1 42.6 42.2 0.4
That'd be something like Lab 48 vs Con 37
I don't know how the new boundaries affect vote skew though.
There's not much more I can do than be honest. I would vote LEAVE again, and with much greater enthusiasm
Why?
Because last time I was genuinely very doubtful; I was worried about the impact on the UK economy; I was personally worried about the impact on London property prices (my main asset)
Any economic impact has been utterly dwarfed by the pandemic, making me much more relaxed about the comparatively trivial GDP hit of Brexit; London property has since had to weather a much fiercer storm - again, the pandemic - but seems to be doing fine now. Indeed London has a buzz at the moment (of course war and inflationary armageddon might ruin that, but that ain't Brexit)
Meanwhile the grotesque behaviour of the EU, the Commission etc over our exit and then other stuff like the vaccines, literally trying to smear UK vaccines out of spite because Brexit, and the general behaviour of Remoaners in the UK (trying to cancel democracy) and the eurocrats in Brussels (trying to thwart our departure) tells me that Leave is on the side of the angels, and that no sane country able to fend for itself would want to be in the non-democratic EU
And the war shows me that democracy really is the best bulwark against autocracy
So that's why I would vote Leave with a confident smile, rather than a nervous gulp
The one big thing I regret is loss of Freedom of Movement. I hope one day we can find a new accommodation which restores it in some qualified form, for the benefit of all Brits AND Europeans
There. Now you can believe me or not, but that is what I think
Is there any single council that has any claim to be a bellwether for the country as a whole, given the current political divisions?
A bit northern, a bit leavy, not a city?
Maybe I'll go have a look...
Brexiteers, wrong then, wronger now...
Lovely girl, mainly muscle.
I am confident Labour will take it but not enough to make a bet at this stage.
Why?
Firstly, the reason I voted to stay in was:
1) Altruistic. I felt UK was a good influence on the EU. Helped to restrain it from its worst instincts, and was a bridge to US.
2) I know folk who work in manufacturing. They were very worried that UK would lose a lot of investment if out of EU market, and supply-chains would become problematic. That influenced me.
Why reluctant to vote remain? Because the EU is an integrationist project and is, at the end of day, undemocratic. It's not a polity. The decision-makers are far too remote.
I've come to the conclusion that my reservations about the EU should, really, have outweighed my caution about leaving. The democratic arguments are unanswerable and the economic/influence hit is not sufficiently great on the other side.
I think UK will do fine out. In fact, is doing fine despite everything.
OGH: "Most of the English council seats up were last bought in 2018. This is what happened.......:"
Have the Tories ever recognised this openly?
I said "able to fend for itself". Ukraine is pretty bloody obviously NOT in that position. It is a poor country being attacked by a massive ugly fascist neighbour
If I were Ukrainian I'd vote tomorrow to join the EU (if the EU agreed: very doubtful). It's the best way to get protection (other than joining NATO, but that's not happening), and EU funds might help to rebuild my shattered country, and rid it of corruption
The UK is a big strong economy, being menaced by no one, we have nukes, so no one will invade us, we are not Ukraine
I notice that Switzerland and Norway are not clamouring to join the EU either. Indeed polls show seriously high levels of opposition to the idea
The Dutch have been a deeply interconnected European trading power for all of their history.
There are things that are favourable to the Greens here - a very concentrated student population and some growth in town centre new flat dwellers, but beyond that it's not a naturally middle class seat and was considerably less so when their hegemony started around 25 years ago.
The secret here is quintessential old school Lib Dem style council tactics, highly active year round campaigning councillors, hundreds of votes in the bag from helping on specific issues over the years, solid organisation at election time. I sense the Greens nationally don't run things anywhere near as tightly, but the old lessons of building a base are there to be learned.
Im no expert in these matter but I think there is sometime a difference,
Chorizo in paella - are the Spanish wrong?
As for that other stuff, nuff said.
I wish them well but hae ma doots.
Slovakia, lit looks like will be transferring its S300 air defence system (anti aircraft and missile) to Ukraine, and in the short term hosting US/NATO patriot air defence system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8ObfeVD3Mk
it looks like 3 reasons
Short term, it helps Ukraine
Medium term it wants a better system
Long term it does not what to be dependant on Russia for spare parts ect.
Ukraine has long operated the S300 system, so will have people trained to operate it, however they presumably have lost a lot of equipment (radar and control units) to Russian attack, and are probably now running out of missiles to fire.
Russia is not happy, but I don't know how effective the system is? Maybe it depends on which version of the system you have, it looks like an old system that have been issued in lots of updated versions. but if anybody has good knowledge please share.
I heard the Mayor of Bologna the other day saying you can call anything you like a Bolognese sauce if it has the key ingredients, full fat milk and white wine. So the Italians certainly don't know much.
https://twitter.com/JamesAALongman/status/1505839536944910339
The only Spanish person who I've met who upset about it, turned out not to be able to cook or have much idea about food.
A number of Spanish friends have mentioned that they remember having chorizo and all kinds of thing in paella when they were young. It's a dish of the poor - take anything edible, add it to the rice....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Mosier
There are probably others.
On the plus side for Labour. The SNP administration seems, if social media is to believed, to have presided over the descent of the city into a rat-infested midden. And the SNP leader is, perhaps, less than touchsure with some of her pronouncements.
However I think, as usual, Labour will flatter to deceive. SNP just too strong. Glasgow voted Yes. The Nicola effect. Teflon.
SNP could actually be the biggest loser expectation management wise if Labour becomes largest party in Glasgow and Scottish Tories actually gain seats overall (offsetting losses in Edinburgh) which would be good for both Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar.
Lib Dems will also be in trouble if they don't have at least one major council gain such as Somerset.
And yes, I'd like Brexit to work better. But let's not kid ourselves that membership worked perfectly either.
Trades Union Congress
@The_TUC
BREAKING 🚨: P&O ferry crews at Dover have been replaced by seafarers paid just £1.80 an hour.
In significant escalation of the investigation, Met says "key witnesses" have been questioned by officers.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1505940174030741506
But thinking about it, does Russia insist on on sale agreements in its contracts? maybe, but I thought they where mostly just interested in the cash, in this cases the system came form the former Czechoslovakia, not bought direct, but I think has been updated and improved since, so perhaps it would only be applicable if the Russians had inserted it in the upgrade work?
I’d vote leave if asked again because it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Another issue of course is how many "Labour" candidates will suddenly turn out to be Tories once elected, ditto "independent" candidates. Either de facto or de jure. It gets quite complicaterd sometimes.
Has the Aberdeen midden been sorted out, btw? No, on checking it's only getting worse.
And of course Mr Sarwar doesn't think a small matter like joining the Tories in coalition disqualifies them, oh no siree.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-56238614
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/labour-rules-suspended-aberdeen-councillors-can-stand-for-re-selection-3379750
Mind you, it's just a symptom of the state of international shipping, so I'm unsurprised.
I once said I would clean with my tongue the shoes of every Leaver on the site if it were a success and as a benchmark I referred to the Euro/£ exchange rate and our international credit rating. Both dropped, as predicted, although the exchange rate has made a small recovery in the past few months. Neither amounts to the end of civilised life in the UK but they are not exactly success stories either.
The precise terms of our departure are of course still being worked out so you'd have to accept that it will be some time before a definitive view of Brexit can be sensibly taken. My guess is that at the end of the day we'll have made it work, although it was a pretty dumb idea to start of with.
In the same way I can see why lots of Scots want independence (though I personally would be sad to see them go) even if it cost them a significant economic hit.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/21/david-amess-murder-trial-live-news-ali-harbi-ali-jury/
What’s his defence???!
A central question not asked SFAICS is this. The unions have made lots of noise quite rightly about illegality and all that. Why are they not already in court getting interlocutory injunctions and taking legal action to put this into reverse?
I’m not sure how easy that would have been to sell to the public.