I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
2019 was wild, does anyone remember Jo Swinson insisting she would be the next PM
I'm glad they did that, it showed a pugnacious ambition that Lib Dems often lack. Obviously they didn't really believe it, but it was an attempt to jolt British politics out of its two party rut. A heroic failure.
I had a nice trrixie up at Sandown today, 1st 3 winners. I toyed doing Nicholls to win all 7 races but did not, 5 winners would have been worth a few bob though so cost me.
Still got it on the horses, Malcolm, haven't you? Not such a wasted youth after all.
For sure I put in plenty of practice as a boy. I used to mark the boards in days when it was all done by speaker only. Used to light the coal fire. I was into all sorts then , pitch and toss, cards etc. Much more subdued nowadays, just small bets on the horses nowadays for fun. I love the jumps.
Flat for me. I'm getting back into it this year after a pandemic break.
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
But most of those clubs have probably been in existence for a century or more. The population isn't decreasing. I don't believe football is getting less popular. So what gives?
Money. It costs £lots to compete, and you can't generate enough revenues from the population of Oldham. Or Bury. Or Stockport.
Re: celebrity candidates, here are a random few I did NOT mention previously
> Jimmy Davis (Democrat) served as Gov of Louisiana two non-consecutive terms; first won election based on his stardom as country singer and author of "You are My Sunshine". During his first term, Davis starred in a movie about a country singer who . . . wait for it . . . get himself elected Governor of Louisiana.
> Helen Gahagan Douglas (Democrat) opera singer and actor on stage & screen, elected to US House, subsequently defeated for US Senate by . . . wait for it . . . Richard Nixon.
> Sonny Bono (Republican) star singer, half of Sonny & Cher, elected mayor of Palm Springs, CA and subsequently to US House from CA.
> Fred Gandy (Republican) actor best know for role of Gopher on "The Love Boat" elected to US House from Iowa
> Jack Kemp (Republican) was star for Occidental College [Los Angeles] and in NFL for Buffalo Bills; elected to US House from Buffalo [New York] and was Bob Dole's 1996 running mate for Vice President.
> Steve Largent (Republican) a star quarterback for University of Tulsa [Oklahoma] and in NFL for Seattle Seahawks, elected to US House from Tulsa
The movie “Predator” starred two future state governors.
And yet people still DOUBT the aliens are here and taking over!!!
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
Personally, I doubt it.
Always be suspicious of anyone who newly converts with much zeal.
When former Democrat Wendell Wilkie was running for Republican nomination in 1940, one old-line GOP senator commented (I paraphrase) that it he was reminded of how the leading prostitute in his home town suddenly saw the light and joined the church.
She was welcomed into the church, of course - but nobody thought of making her head of the choir.
Re: caliber of GOP senatorial hopefuls this cycle, the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo is a factor all right, but another is the growing amount & impact of superPACs and other forms of unlimited campaign contributions from - in many cases - who knows?
AND note that celebrity candidacies are hardly unknown in US politics. For example, John C Fremont (Pathfinder), Teddy Roosevelt (Rough Rider), Ronald Reagan ("Win One for the Gipper"), Shirley Temple Black ("On the Good Ship Lollipop") and Arnold Schwarzenegger (the Terminator) to name a few.
Celebrity Democrats have included Henry Ford ("Fix or Repair Daily"), W Lee O'Daniel ("Pass the Biscuits Pappy), John Glenn ("We See Strange Things Out There") and (uck) Al Franken ("It's My Right as an Entertainer")
Lots of other examples of elected or would-be American politicos who used their fame and (in some cases) fortune to jump start their candidacies.
Some went on to accumulate significant political & governmental assistance. Some not. But name recognition combined with popular appeal gave them huge boost.
In the category of fames Americans who tried to make it in politics, should be a special place for General Westmorland, of Vietnam War fame. Where if memory serves me correctly contested the George Governor republican primary, one story I have heard was that he mishandled the whole campaign but was non the less convinced he would win, right up till the results where announced, when he lost by some very wide margin.
Strangely appropriate defeat for the General made famous for the American War (as it is known in Vietnam).
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Kyiv on Sunday, Zelensky says. The visit, which will also include US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, will be the first official trip by US government officials since Russia began its invasion in February.
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
I had a nice trrixie up at Sandown today, 1st 3 winners. I toyed doing Nicholls to win all 7 races but did not, 5 winners would have been worth a few bob though so cost me.
Still got it on the horses, Malcolm, haven't you? Not such a wasted youth after all.
For sure I put in plenty of practice as a boy. I used to mark the boards in days when it was all done by speaker only. Used to light the coal fire. I was into all sorts then , pitch and toss, cards etc. Much more subdued nowadays, just small bets on the horses nowadays for fun. I love the jumps.
Flat for me. I'm getting back into it this year after a pandemic break.
I usually stick to the long distance races on flat , 1M 2F minimum. Good luck for the season.
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
Not just GM - Lancashire (by which I mean, here, post 1974 Lancashire) has, now, 7 league clubs. But I don't see too much wrong with this, to be honest. Should be perfectly possible to run a professional team with average gates of 4,000 or so as long as you cut your cloth accordingly. Problems only arise when you get situations like that of Bury where assets get stripped. Football defies economics. It's about identity. (It's certainly not, most of the time, about entertainment.) You can't simply move consumers around like economic units.
The Labour party is also thought to be holding talks with a number of “wavering Tories” about defecting. Conservative whips are particularly concerned about Dehenna Davison, the MP for the red wall seat Bishop Auckland. Another seven Tory MPs are also believed to have held talks with Labour in recent months.
2019 was wild, does anyone remember Jo Swinson insisting she would be the next PM
As a member at the time I thought it about the only positive thing about her campaign. What else was she going to say? “I’m running to prop up Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn”. No point I’m running nationally if you don’t at least make a pretence of ambition.
She sounded like an idiot. Not me - the feedback on the doorsteps. I was really surprised at the vehemence.
Yes, but she increased the Lib Dem vote 60%. The lesson of the last few years is very, very clear: attention trumps everything. "Bollocks to Brexit" and "next PM" were pugnacious messages that got attention. And that means exciting some people and revolting others. I'm far from surprised people were wound up by her. But that's the ecosystem we live in.
She lost her seat. If there isn't a better indicator for a shit campaign....
That definitely needs to be taken in as evidence, but you can't dismiss the evidence I gave. Up from 4 seats to 11, and a big spike in the number of voters in the plus column, and losing her own seat in the minus column.
Eh?
They went from 12 seats to 11.
Albeit with far more votes than in 2017.
Apologies, I made a mistake. I saw "4" in the previous election's page but that was how many seats Wet Lettuce Farron gained, not how many he won overall.
I thought the -1 in 2019 was because of the defections, which is unfair to count as losses. But I was wrong.
Man, FPTP is bafflingly rubbish.
The LDs seats are remarkably uncorrelated with moves in vote share.
In 1997, they went from 17.8% to 16.8%, and almost trebled their number of seats.
In 2010, they increased their vote share from 22% to 23% and were rewarded by the loss of a tenth of their seats.
In 2017, their vote dropped by a tenth, and they increased their number of seats by 50%... and then in 2019, they saw their vote leap, and saw a decline.
Perhaps they should try and get as few people to vote for them as possible.
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
The contrast between the French right & British right is really quite striking.
How the hell did the tories end up heavily taxing young workers in order to shovel cash to their client vote?
I suspect it is only after a period of opposition that the tories will see sense and make a coherent and generous policy offer to the young.
The contrast between the British Conservatives and the French Conservatives is the British Conservatives got 43.6% at the 2019 UK general election and won a landslide majority. While the French Conservative candidate Pecresse got just 5% in the first round of the Presidential election earlier this month and was knocked out
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
“Germany received far more and clearer warning about its feckless reliance on Russian gas than Greece ever did about its pre-crisis borrowing. Yet it seems as if Germany’s eagerness to treat economic policy as a morality play applies only to other countries”
Boris got 4k of parking tickets whilst GQ's motoring correspondent. On many occasions, he managed to review cars without the mileometer changing during the time he had the car.
Basically, the sort of stuff that you can charm your way out of... Until you can't any more.
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
A whistleblower working on Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme has revealed that he and his colleagues “don’t know what we’re doing”, and claims the scheme has been “designed to fail” in order to limit numbers entering the UK.
Amid criticism over the numbers of Ukrainians so far allowed to come to the UK, the insider revealed that confusion, poor morale and lack of guidance meant staff contracted to the scheme frequently resorted to “making up” their response to cases.
Staff working on the helpline for the scheme – introduced after widespread fury over the UK government’s initial response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis – revealed that they received only three hours of training with no follow-up help, and said any complaint or suggestion to improve the system was met with silence.
I had a nice trrixie up at Sandown today, 1st 3 winners. I toyed doing Nicholls to win all 7 races but did not, 5 winners would have been worth a few bob though so cost me.
Still got it on the horses, Malcolm, haven't you? Not such a wasted youth after all.
For sure I put in plenty of practice as a boy. I used to mark the boards in days when it was all done by speaker only. Used to light the coal fire. I was into all sorts then , pitch and toss, cards etc. Much more subdued nowadays, just small bets on the horses nowadays for fun. I love the jumps.
So I was doing the runners & riders board at my local point to point, chalking it up cos we are the last meeting in the country without an electronic leader board, and in an otherwise well supported day there was 1 two horse race because Olive Nicholls was in it and scared off the opposition. And won despite giving away 5 lb.
The contrast between the French right & British right is really quite striking.
How the hell did the tories end up heavily taxing young workers in order to shovel cash to their client vote?
I suspect it is only after a period of opposition that the tories will see sense and make a coherent and generous policy offer to the young.
The contrast between the British Conservatives and the French Conservatives is the British Conservatives got 43.6% at the 2019 UK general election and won a landslide majority. While the French Conservative candidate Pecresse got just 5% in the first round of the Presidential election earlier this month and was knocked out
A portent of things to come, perhaps?
Your voters are dying and they’re not being replaced.
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
Not just GM - Lancashire (by which I mean, here, post 1974 Lancashire) has, now, 7 league clubs. But I don't see too much wrong with this, to be honest. Should be perfectly possible to run a professional team with average gates of 4,000 or so as long as you cut your cloth accordingly. Problems only arise when you get situations like that of Bury where assets get stripped. Football defies economics. It's about identity. (It's certainly not, most of the time, about entertainment.) You can't simply move consumers around like economic units.
Where do you put Milton Keynes Dons? Moved best part of 100 miles North, picked up new supporters.
.@BorisJohnson’s after ratings have suffered after renewed Partygate headlines. >59% disapprove of how he is doing his job, up from 53% a fortnight ago >26% approve, a small drop from 27% in our last poll
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
So does the Tory Party, the point is that in Labour these voices are now irrelevant
Are they? Certainly starmer has helped to restrain the worst excesses of the left, but Raynor is still there.
Rayner is irrelevant.
The deputy leader of the party is irrelevant? It’s a view I suppose.
She has no power to do anything, the NEC is run by Starmer supporters. All Rayner can do is shout from the sidelines.
And yet when he tried to sack her, he failed.
Rayner is basically Starmer's female John Prescott
FWIW Andrew Neil rates Yvette. Glad to see I am not entirely alone:
"Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, is head and shoulders above most of her colleagues."
.@Keir_Starmer’s ratings have continued to drift into negative territory in the last fortnight. >35% disapprove of the Labour leader’s job performance, up from 34% in the last poll >However, 29% now approve, up from 27%
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
But most of those clubs have probably been in existence for a century or more. The population isn't decreasing. I don't believe football is getting less popular. So what gives?
Money. It costs £lots to compete, and you can't generate enough revenues from the population of Oldham. Or Bury. Or Stockport.
Oldham, Stockport and Bury are quite sizable settlements. If Southampton and Norwich are able to field a team there's no reason why Stockport, Oldham and Bury cannot. Obviously Man U and Man C draw a lot of fans from those towns. But there's nothing inevitable about that - it's largely a function of relative league standing. Back in the 90s when Stockport were in the second tier (a tier above Man City) they were getting gates of 10,000 plus. Kids in South Eastern GM were choosing Stockport over City. Then Carlton Palmer came along... (Actually, I don't wholly blame Carlton - Stockport were disproportionately hit by the collapse of ITV digital.)
Two more Russian generals down, another wounded. Brings the KIA to 9. I’ve seen it said that Russia have a top heavy military structure and so sent an estimated 20 generals to Ukraine. If that’s right, then we’re surely getting to the point of highly meaningful degradation of Russia’s military capabilities.
The contrast between the French right & British right is really quite striking.
How the hell did the tories end up heavily taxing young workers in order to shovel cash to their client vote?
I suspect it is only after a period of opposition that the tories will see sense and make a coherent and generous policy offer to the young.
The contrast between the British Conservatives and the French Conservatives is the British Conservatives got 43.6% at the 2019 UK general election and won a landslide majority. While the French Conservative candidate Pecresse got just 5% in the first round of the Presidential election earlier this month and was knocked out
A portent of things to come, perhaps?
Your voters are dying and they’re not being replaced.
Far from it. If Macron wins again tomorrow it will be largely due to pensioners.
All the first round exit polls show Macron won pensioners and over 65s by a big margin, many of whom were conservative Les Republicains voters before 2017. Middle aged voters went for Le Pen and the youngest voters went for Melenchon.
So if Macron is narrowly re elected tomorrow as is likely he will have pensioners and elderly voters to thank for it.
It is French conservatives losing the pensioner vote unlike UK Tories that has doomed them, nothing at all to do with their pensioner vote dying off, it has just largely switched to Macron
"Yes, but she [ Jo Swinson] increased the Lib Dem vote 60%."
She didn't. The Lib Dem vote in 2019 was 4.2% up on GE 2017.
In my view, she'd have done better to state the truth: that she wouldn't win, but that in many seats, voting LibDem was the ONLY option for keeping the two worst candidates for PM in living memory out of power. That forcing Johnson's, Corbyn's (and her own) tribalist supporters to confront reality could ensure a Hunt or Starmer-led Alliance that'd keep Brexit Britain in the Single Market.
But it wasn't just Labour and the Tories that would have none of this: the LibDem 2019 Conference was almost messianic in its determination to vote itself out of any real ability to win any more seats.
The question now is whether the Lib Dems' extraordinary success in leading sensible, Johnsonism-thrashing, alliances in Oxfordshire, Cambridge and Cumbria can be extended elsewhere this May. And then whether that model can help restore grown up government to the country as a whole in 2023/2024.
The LibDem strategy of unrestricted immigration and ultra nimbyism has limited appeal outside the Waitrose belt.
I had a nice trrixie up at Sandown today, 1st 3 winners. I toyed doing Nicholls to win all 7 races but did not, 5 winners would have been worth a few bob though so cost me.
Still got it on the horses, Malcolm, haven't you? Not such a wasted youth after all.
For sure I put in plenty of practice as a boy. I used to mark the boards in days when it was all done by speaker only. Used to light the coal fire. I was into all sorts then , pitch and toss, cards etc. Much more subdued nowadays, just small bets on the horses nowadays for fun. I love the jumps.
So I was doing the runners & riders board at my local point to point, chalking it up cos we are the last meeting in the country without an electronic leader board, and in an otherwise well supported day there was 1 two horse race because Olive Nicholls was in it and scared off the opposition. And won despite giving away 5 lb.
Excellent , I used to love it , was really difficult when you had lots of meetings on, then a few refreshments. Happy days.
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
I've no idea if it applies to you, but it really annoys me how unregarding restaurants are to single diners. It's quite tough to win.
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
But most of those clubs have probably been in existence for a century or more. The population isn't decreasing. I don't believe football is getting less popular. So what gives?
Money. It costs £lots to compete, and you can't generate enough revenues from the population of Oldham. Or Bury. Or Stockport.
Oldham, Stockport and Bury are quite sizable settlements. If Southampton and Norwich are able to field a team there's no reason why Stockport, Oldham and Bury cannot. Obviously Man U and Man C draw a lot of fans from those towns. But there's nothing inevitable about that - it's largely a function of relative league standing. Back in the 90s when Stockport were in the second tier (a tier above Man City) they were getting gates of 10,000 plus. Kids in South Eastern GM were choosing Stockport over City. Then Carlton Palmer came along... (Actually, I don't wholly blame Carlton - Stockport were disproportionately hit by the collapse of ITV digital.)
Norwich will have fans throughout Norfolk and Southampton from much of Hampshire.
I suspect Manchester and Liverpool have greater prominence in Lancashire than Leeds and Sheffield do in Yorkshire.
"Yes, but she [ Jo Swinson] increased the Lib Dem vote 60%."
She didn't. The Lib Dem vote in 2019 was 4.2% up on GE 2017.
In my view, she'd have done better to state the truth: that she wouldn't win, but that in many seats, voting LibDem was the ONLY option for keeping the two worst candidates for PM in living memory out of power. That forcing Johnson's, Corbyn's (and her own) tribalist supporters to confront reality could ensure a Hunt or Starmer-led Alliance that'd keep Brexit Britain in the Single Market.
But it wasn't just Labour and the Tories that would have none of this: the LibDem 2019 Conference was almost messianic in its determination to vote itself out of any real ability to win any more seats.
The question now is whether the Lib Dems' extraordinary success in leading sensible, Johnsonism-thrashing, alliances in Oxfordshire, Cambridge and Cumbria can be extended elsewhere this May. And then whether that model can help restore grown up government to the country as a whole in 2023/2024.
The LibDem strategy of unrestricted immigration and ultra nimbyism has limited appeal outside the Waitrose belt.
Indeed, the LDs heartland is now Oxfordshire, Surrey and SW London, not the West Country and rural Wales
The Labour party has been lambasted by the ICO and is facing bankruptcy with fines of up to £17.5m for failing to respond appropriately to the thousands of current and former members who's personal data was hacked.
I have been contacted to join a class action case but have not yet agreed
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
I've no idea if it applies to you, but it really annoys me how unregarding restaurants are to single diners. It's quite tough to win.
A few places have turned me away over the last three weeks, hopefully for that reason! But generally I’ve been looked after fine alone.
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
But most of those clubs have probably been in existence for a century or more. The population isn't decreasing. I don't believe football is getting less popular. So what gives?
Money. It costs £lots to compete, and you can't generate enough revenues from the population of Oldham. Or Bury. Or Stockport.
Oldham, Stockport and Bury are quite sizable settlements. If Southampton and Norwich are able to field a team there's no reason why Stockport, Oldham and Bury cannot. Obviously Man U and Man C draw a lot of fans from those towns. But there's nothing inevitable about that - it's largely a function of relative league standing. Back in the 90s when Stockport were in the second tier (a tier above Man City) they were getting gates of 10,000 plus. Kids in South Eastern GM were choosing Stockport over City. Then Carlton Palmer came along... (Actually, I don't wholly blame Carlton - Stockport were disproportionately hit by the collapse of ITV digital.)
Norwich has quite a large area it can draw fans from, with no local competing clubs. Can't say the same with Stockport
A whistleblower working on Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme has revealed that he and his colleagues “don’t know what we’re doing”, and claims the scheme has been “designed to fail” in order to limit numbers entering the UK.
Amid criticism over the numbers of Ukrainians so far allowed to come to the UK, the insider revealed that confusion, poor morale and lack of guidance meant staff contracted to the scheme frequently resorted to “making up” their response to cases.
Staff working on the helpline for the scheme – introduced after widespread fury over the UK government’s initial response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis – revealed that they received only three hours of training with no follow-up help, and said any complaint or suggestion to improve the system was met with silence.
I suspect the poor morale results from Home Office civil servants being expected to let people into the UK, which does not compute. Meanwhile, at the DWP we are doing everything we can to ensure Ukrainians can claim benefits on the same basis as if they were British.
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
I've no idea if it applies to you, but it really annoys me how unregarding restaurants are to single diners. It's quite tough to win.
A few places have turned me away over the last three weeks, hopefully for that reason! But generally I’ve been looked after fine alone.
There should be precisely no places that turn away a PBer,
I've always wondered if the 2019 "Tories" are really Tories at all, I wonder if in years gone by they would have been in New Labour
An awful lot of voters are neither Tory or labour, or indeed any party. They pick and choose. I’m certain that many voters who voted Tory in 2019 in the past voted for Tony Blair’s labour. That’s the nature of things. It’s why I despair of some of the lefts attitude to conservatives (scum, never kissed a Tory etc). You need those voters to get you into power so you can actually change the country.
Not my Labour Party
Your Labour Party contains those elements. Angela Raynor really believes Tories are scum.
I agree with her, and I was a tory all the way from 1979 to 2020.
I sense some of that agreement exists on the idea of Angela telling you so on an intimate, one-to-one basis.
@SamRamani2 Gerhard Schröder sticks to the party line:
"A country like Russia cannot be isolated in the long term, either politically or economically. German industry needs the raw materials that Russia has"
@SamRamani2 Gerhard Schröder sticks to the party line:
"A country like Russia cannot be isolated in the long term, either politically or economically. German industry needs the raw materials that Russia has"
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
I've no idea if it applies to you, but it really annoys me how unregarding restaurants are to single diners. It's quite tough to win.
A few places have turned me away over the last three weeks, hopefully for that reason! But generally I’ve been looked after fine alone.
There should be precisely no places that turn away a PBer,
I had no problems eating on my own during my trip round Albania, apart from one place in Berat which was (I think genuinely) fully-booked. Having said that, it was off-season.
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
Just back home from an Orthodox Ukranian Easter service, held in the local Catholic Church hall, in a Muslim country.
More than a thousand people showed up, after the Catholic Church offered the Ukranians their hall because the local Orthodox Church is a little bit too Russian.
An evening of restored faith in humanity. Happy (Orthodox) Easter everyone!
I am beginning to wonder if the opposition , Starmer and the journalists who have attacked partygate 24/7 are alienating the public for whom the cost of living crisis is real, happening now, and of course Ukraine remains a serious issue with Boris polling on Ukraine positive
The conservative share for weeks has been stable around 34/35% which is astonishing
Labour should be miles ahead, and it certainly makes May's elections interesting where I expect the lib dems to do spectacularly well
@SamRamani2 Gerhard Schröder sticks to the party line:
"A country like Russia cannot be isolated in the long term, either politically or economically. German industry needs the raw materials that Russia has"
With the appropriate level of respect, Schröder is more fairly viewed as an employee of the Russian state than he is as a Western leader.
If he had any sense he would just keep his mouth shut given he is as responsible as anyone for Germany being utterly reliant economically on a murderous dictatorship.
The Labour party is also thought to be holding talks with a number of “wavering Tories” about defecting. Conservative whips are particularly concerned about Dehenna Davison, the MP for the red wall seat Bishop Auckland. Another seven Tory MPs are also believed to have held talks with Labour in recent months.
2019 was wild, does anyone remember Jo Swinson insisting she would be the next PM
As a member at the time I thought it about the only positive thing about her campaign. What else was she going to say? “I’m running to prop up Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn”. No point I’m running nationally if you don’t at least make a pretence of ambition.
It's a delicate balance. Be ambitious but not ridiculous.
The 2017 LD manifesto was interesting, for trying to be more realistic. It was definitely pitching to be the main opposition, rather than pretend a win was possible (though IIRC from my write up of it, parts of it did not get the message, talking about what a LD government would do).
To be clear, Theresa May’s Conservative Party is on course to win this election.
Unless we make a stand, they will walk away with a landslide. We risk the arrogance and heartlessness with which she has governed for the last 10 months being reinforced by a majority that no government has had for 20 years.
The reason? There is a complete absence of real opposition from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party
"Why do we know more about Mars than we do the vagina? A new book asks why an everyday body part is still largely a mystery to medical science Rosamund Urwin"
I am beginning to wonder if the opposition , Starmer and the journalists who have attacked partygate 24/7 are alienating the public for whom the cost of living crisis is real, happening now, and of course Ukraine remains a serious issue with Boris polling on Ukraine positive
The conservative share for weeks has been stable around 34/35% which is astonishing
Labour should be miles ahead, and it certainly makes May's elections interesting where I expect the lib dems to do spectacularly well
Labour will make gains in London but elsewhere make little progress (they already hold the big Northern city councils and most Welsh councils which are up anyway).
If there is a protest vote in the South yes it will likely go to the LDs or the Greens and Independent Residents' groups. The Conservative vote is holding up still in the Midlands
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
I've no idea if it applies to you, but it really annoys me how unregarding restaurants are to single diners. It's quite tough to win.
A few places have turned me away over the last three weeks, hopefully for that reason! But generally I’ve been looked after fine alone.
There should be precisely no places that turn away a PBer,
'As the Roman, in days of old, could say 'Civis Romanus Sum', so the PB member, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye of OGH, and the strong arm of TSE, will protect him against indignity and wrong.'
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
It's the problem Scotland has, 40 professional clubs for a population of just over 5 million.
England has a population of around 10 times that but only double the number of professional clubs.
A friend of mine around 15 years ago did a report on the future of Scottish football and he suggested reducing the number of professional clubs, so just one Dundee team, one Edinburgh team, and logically one Glasgow team.
Rangers and Celtic merging, rivers of blood would be the most optimistic scenario in that situation.
The Labour party is also thought to be holding talks with a number of “wavering Tories” about defecting. Conservative whips are particularly concerned about Dehenna Davison, the MP for the red wall seat Bishop Auckland. Another seven Tory MPs are also believed to have held talks with Labour in recent months.
Why would Keir Starmer want an idiot like Dehenna Davison in his ranks?
Nobody minds having idiots in their ranks, it's all about the sheer numbers baby.
The Tories should be concerned about the Red Wall - areas there have been moving Tory for some time, and though some might naturally tilt back they had a good chance of securing a good number of them and thus building a buffer even if Labour gained ground generally.
I got up to Barcelona station and realised that St Jordi’s day was just like Easter Monday; ie a Sunday that the timetables didn’t recognise. I was expecting to get a 46 minute direct train to Girona, but I had to catch a train to somewhere completely different, and then change at a station that had virtually the same name as the station before it and after it, then walk to another station half a mile away with an even more similar name to get on the train to Girona.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
The importance of defection rumours is not their accuracy - they practically never are, we got lucky in recent years is all - but what the mischief makers spreading the rumours consider will be regarded as plausible.
There’s a range of polls showing closer gap and lower Labour scores, yougovs, Kantor and now this opinonion that are not poor for Labour but fools gold for Tories, because they have greens on unrealistic 7s and 8s. I’m sorry Big G but you don’t know how to read the polls across the companies in the bigger picture at the moment. But it’s simple really, let me teach you. You do two things. Firstly, if Greens 7 take off 3 give to labour if they 8 take off 4 give to Labour and BINGO - it now looks just like polls from the other companies. Secondly total lab, Libdem and green together to come to 54 or 55, and you find 9 point labour leads produce that same 54 or 55 total as the 3 and 2 leads from other pollsters.
At first glance it looks like all the polling companies can’t be right because the lab to Tory gap is so different, but in their defence I suggest this theory, Libdem and green hard to poll correctly because their pockets of support are not uniform national swing changes. So when the green and Libdem figures are higher than other pollsters it’s invariably at expense of Labours lead.
@SamRamani2 Gerhard Schröder sticks to the party line:
"A country like Russia cannot be isolated in the long term, either politically or economically. German industry needs the raw materials that Russia has"
With the appropriate level of respect, Schröder is more fairly viewed as an employee of the Russian state than he is as a Western leader.
If he had any sense he would just keep his mouth shut given he is as responsible as anyone for Germany being utterly reliant economically on a murderous dictatorship.
He would say he was a German leader looking after German interests, and he doesn't seem to be alone in taking that view.
Rwanda policy also leads 38 to 32 approval which is again unexpected
I'm not surprised. A majority or at least plurality will support most proposals to try and deal with matters relating to immigration and/or boats landing on the beaches I expect. That's why the likely effectiveness, or not, and morality of any proposal is more relevant to me.
It would be fair comment if we knew who these top Tory's are
Time to make their stance publicly
Clearly not Ministers from the description. Also nobody established or it would have said 'senior' MPs or 'grandees'. Just the usual Ellwoods and Tugendhats and the Guardian gussying it up as a scoop probably.
The importance of defection rumours is not their accuracy - they practically never are, we got lucky in recent years is all - but what the mischief makers spreading the rumours consider will be regarded as plausible.
Actual party defections almost never leak more than a few minutes in advance.
Just back home from an Orthodox Ukranian Easter service, held in the local Catholic Church hall, in a Muslim country.
More than a thousand people showed up, after the Catholic Church offered the Ukranians their hall because the local Orthodox Church is a little bit too Russian.
An evening of restored faith in humanity. Happy (Orthodox) Easter everyone!
I watched a Christmas carol service in Dubai. All the staff from the Marriott hotel surrounding a Christmas tree and nearly all Muslims I imagine. Quite moving.
There’s a range of polls showing closer gap and lower Labour scores, yougovs, Kantor and now this opinonion that are not poor for Labour but fools gold for Tories, because they have greens on unrealistic 7s and 8s. I’m sorry Big G but you don’t know how to read the polls across the companies in the bigger picture at the moment. But it’s simple really, let me teach you. You do two things. Firstly, if Greens 7 take off 3 give to labour if they 8 take off 4 give to Labour and BINGO - it now looks just like polls from the other companies. Secondly total lab, Libdem and green together to come to 54 or 55, and you find 9 point labour leads produce that same 54 or 55 total as the 3 and 2 leads from other pollsters.
At first glance it looks like all the polling companies can’t be right because the lab to Tory gap is so different, but in their defence I suggest this theory, Libdem and green hard to poll correctly because their pockets of support are not uniform national swing changes. So when the green and Libdem figures are higher than other pollsters it’s invariably at expense of Labours lead.
Hope this helps. 🙂
Your thesis only works if tactical voting occurs
By any definition tonight's poll is poor for labour when some were forecasting 20% leads nailed on
This week’s @OpiniumResearch @ObserverUK poll shows Labour’s lead actually dropping back from 4 points to 2.
Con 34% (n/c) Lab 36% (-2) Lib Dem 10% (n/c) Green 8% (+1)
As I said earlier today, Johnson is not going anywhere...
I think the problem is that wavering Tory MPs want a clear sign from the public that they have to act, as they are too gutless to act with an initiative. So being behind in the polls is not great, but rightly noted as not itself disastrous, not at that level. And they wait for election results, but that too can be argued away.
The public don't make choices like this easy. The Tories are down from where they were, definitely now behind, but any Tory MP waiting for them to go sub 30 to jusify acting is looking for an excuse.
As a reminder, Theresa May faced a vote of no confidence as party leader, and was completely unable to act on her signature policy, leading to government paralysis, and the Tories still managed polling leads.
So Oldham Athletic become the first Premier League club to be relegated all the way out of the league. Credit to their fans for the huge on pitch process against the owner which stopped the game for an hour.
The harsh reality - and its been like this for a while - is there are too many league clubs in Greater Manchester to be viable. When the city of Manchester has two global giants, the neighbouring city of Salford has a club and every surrounding town has a club, there's just not enough fans.
It's the problem Scotland has, 40 professional clubs for a population of just over 5 million.
England has a population of around 10 times that but only double the number of professional clubs.
A friend of mine around 15 years ago did a report on the future of Scottish football and he suggested reducing the number of professional clubs, so just one Dundee team, one Edinburgh team, and logically one Glasgow team.
Rangers and Celtic merging, rivers of blood would be the most optimistic scenario in that situation.
THat would leave Partick Thistle ...
Depends on what you mean by ‘professional’. Clubs pay players quite a long way down the leagues, not just the National leagues. Might not always pay a ‘living wage’, but it’s more than the old idea of ‘broken time’.
Rwanda policy also leads 38 to 32 approval which is again unexpected
I'm not surprised. A majority or at least plurality will support most proposals to try and deal with matters relating to immigration and/or boats landing on the beaches I expect. That's why the likely effectiveness, or not, and morality of any proposal is more relevant to me.
Sky reported yesterday that asylum seekers in Calais are seriously worried and reconsidering their plans
@CorrectHorseBattery - Starmer is boring and unappealing. We are heading for 1992 rather than 2010 in reverse. The Tories will just about get to 310 maybe as high as 325-326 in 2024. The first clue will be in two weeks time when voters will come out motivated by a dislike of the main stream media to vote and will stick with Boris as a Two figured gesture to the media and their poster boy Sir Keir.
@CorrectHorseBattery - Starmer is boring and unappealing. We are heading for 1992 rather than 2010 in reverse. The Tories will just about get to 310 maybe as high as 325-326 in 2024. The first clue will be in two weeks time when voters will come out motivated by a dislike of the main stream media to vote and will stick with Boris as a Two figured gesture to the media and their poster boy Sir Keir.
Rwanda policy also leads 38 to 32 approval which is again unexpected
I'm not surprised. A majority or at least plurality will support most proposals to try and deal with matters relating to immigration and/or boats landing on the beaches I expect. That's why the likely effectiveness, or not, and morality of any proposal is more relevant to me.
Sky reported yesterday that asylum seekers in Calais are seriously worried and reconsidering their plans
If they are asylum seekers why don't they seek asylum in France?
Here! Cherry pick this one poll! Starmer must resign! Vote Tory!
I think the appropriate response is 'calm down dear' - you're just showing your lack of confidence in your party. You're also inventing posts to argue against! Not a good look.
It would be fair comment if we knew who these top Tory's are
Time to make their stance publicly
Clearly not Ministers from the description. Also nobody established or it would have said 'senior' MPs or 'grandees'. Just the usual Ellwoods and Tugendhats and the Guardian gussying it up as a scoop probably.
I simply believe it helps their cause if they make their critic public and not hide behind anonymous headline
Comments
I think it would work something like this.
'I'm delighted I was out when you called. I hope you are out of office permanently very soon.'
Do you think he'd get the message?
https://twitter.com/BBCYaldaHakim/status/1517931542663901184
How the hell did the tories end up heavily taxing young workers in order to shovel cash to their client vote?
I suspect it is only after a period of opposition that the tories will see sense and make a coherent and generous policy offer to the young.
Football defies economics. It's about identity. (It's certainly not, most of the time, about entertainment.) You can't simply move consumers around like economic units.
“Germany received far more and clearer warning about its feckless reliance on Russian gas than Greece ever did about its pre-crisis borrowing. Yet it seems as if Germany’s eagerness to treat economic policy as a morality play applies only to other countries”
https://twitter.com/RikeFranke/status/1517788043939356672?cxt=HHwWgIC5teaLopAqAAAA
Boris got 4k of parking tickets whilst GQ's motoring correspondent.
On many occasions, he managed to review cars without the mileometer changing during the time he had the car.
Basically, the sort of stuff that you can charm your way out of... Until you can't any more.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cdb9034e-c276-11ec-8e50-d692b1fbef48?shareToken=9f6ec9efa815eccc9cacbb61e5b3f6ef
https://twitter.com/DehennaDavison/status/1517939116675145729
Amid criticism over the numbers of Ukrainians so far allowed to come to the UK, the insider revealed that confusion, poor morale and lack of guidance meant staff contracted to the scheme frequently resorted to “making up” their response to cases.
Staff working on the helpline for the scheme – introduced after widespread fury over the UK government’s initial response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis – revealed that they received only three hours of training with no follow-up help, and said any complaint or suggestion to improve the system was met with silence.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/23/homes-for-ukraine-whistleblower-says-uk-refugee-scheme-is-designed-to-fail?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Your voters are dying and they’re not being replaced.
I had looked at other places to stay and explore, but everywhere else was so expensive. I think I got lucky with the room I found here for the last two nights - it’s nearly as busy here now as it was in Barcelona! Certainly at least twice as busy as when I arrived three weeks ago.
I’ve come out to a steak restaurant for dinner. I had their pickled veal tongue to start, and now trying my best to eat through the huge rib steak. I might need carrying back to my hotel!
@ObserverUK poll shows Labour’s lead actually dropping back from 4 points to 2.
Con 34% (n/c)
Lab 36% (-2)
Lib Dem 10% (n/c)
Green 8% (+1)
>59% disapprove of how he is doing his job, up from 53% a fortnight ago
>26% approve, a small drop from 27% in our last poll
They were spin-doctorery and mildy aggressive, so didn't interest me.
>35% disapprove of the Labour leader’s job performance, up from 34% in the last poll
>However, 29% now approve, up from 27%
Obviously Man U and Man C draw a lot of fans from those towns. But there's nothing inevitable about that - it's largely a function of relative league standing. Back in the 90s when Stockport were in the second tier (a tier above Man City) they were getting gates of 10,000 plus. Kids in South Eastern GM were choosing Stockport over City. Then Carlton Palmer came along...
(Actually, I don't wholly blame Carlton - Stockport were disproportionately hit by the collapse of ITV digital.)
All the first round exit polls show Macron won pensioners and over 65s by a big margin, many of whom were conservative Les Republicains voters before 2017. Middle aged voters went for Le Pen and the youngest voters went for Melenchon.
So if Macron is narrowly re elected tomorrow as is likely he will have pensioners and elderly voters to thank for it.
It is French conservatives losing the pensioner vote unlike UK Tories that has doomed them, nothing at all to do with their pensioner vote dying off, it has just largely switched to Macron
I suspect Manchester and Liverpool have greater prominence in Lancashire than Leeds and Sheffield do in Yorkshire.
I have been contacted to join a class action case but have not yet agreed
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=34&LAB=36&LIB=10&Reform=2&Green=8&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=18.3&SCOTLAB=20.2&SCOTLIB=6.6&SCOTReform=0.9&SCOTGreen=3&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=48&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
Amazing after everything that's happened over the last few weeks and the big fall in living standards that's happening.
I wonder what Boris would have to do for Labour to open up a convincing lead?
Murder the Queen and be rude to some Ukrainian nurses perhaps?
To drop 2% in this climate is astonishing
That's reflected in the polling.
Tories light up even though Starmer is going up whilst Rishi and Johnson go down down down
Gerhard Schröder sticks to the party line:
"A country like Russia cannot be isolated in the long term, either politically or economically. German industry needs the raw materials that Russia has"
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1517921197752733696
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1517942632609030144?s=20&t=VWgXCV1dVKcqcFxYq5mrtQ
More than a thousand people showed up, after the Catholic Church offered the Ukranians their hall because the local Orthodox Church is a little bit too Russian.
An evening of restored faith in humanity. Happy (Orthodox) Easter everyone!
The conservative share for weeks has been stable around 34/35% which is astonishing
Labour should be miles ahead, and it certainly makes May's elections interesting where I expect the lib dems to do spectacularly well
If he had any sense he would just keep his mouth shut given he is as responsible as anyone for Germany being utterly reliant economically on a murderous dictatorship.
I was going to ask 'why would you want to?'
The 2017 LD manifesto was interesting, for trying to be more realistic. It was definitely pitching to be the main opposition, rather than pretend a win was possible (though IIRC from my write up of it, parts of it did not get the message, talking about what a LD government would do).
To be clear, Theresa May’s Conservative Party is on course to win this election.
Unless we make a stand, they will walk away with a landslide. We risk the arrogance and heartlessness with which she has governed for the last 10 months being reinforced by a majority that no government has had for 20 years.
The reason? There is a complete absence of real opposition from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/1811/attachments/original/1515517284/2017_Manifesto.pdf?1515517284
If there is a protest vote in the South yes it will likely go to the LDs or the Greens and Independent Residents' groups. The Conservative vote is holding up still in the Midlands
The Tories should be concerned about the Red Wall - areas there have been moving Tory for some time, and though some might naturally tilt back they had a good chance of securing a good number of them and thus building a buffer even if Labour gained ground generally.
Time to make their stance publicly
There’s a range of polls showing closer gap and lower Labour scores, yougovs, Kantor and now this opinonion that are not poor for Labour but fools gold for Tories, because they have greens on unrealistic 7s and 8s. I’m sorry Big G but you don’t know how to read the polls across the companies in the bigger picture at the moment. But it’s simple really, let me teach you. You do two things. Firstly, if Greens 7 take off 3 give to labour if they 8 take off 4 give to Labour and BINGO - it now looks just like polls from the other companies. Secondly total lab, Libdem and green together to come to 54 or 55, and you find 9 point labour leads produce that same 54 or 55 total as the 3 and 2 leads from other pollsters.
At first glance it looks like all the polling companies can’t be right because the lab to Tory gap is so different, but in their defence I suggest this theory, Libdem and green hard to poll correctly because their pockets of support are not uniform national swing changes. So when the green and Libdem figures are higher than other pollsters it’s invariably at expense of Labours lead.
Hope this helps. 🙂
By any definition tonight's poll is poor for labour when some were forecasting 20% leads nailed on
The public don't make choices like this easy. The Tories are down from where they were, definitely now behind, but any Tory MP waiting for them to go sub 30 to jusify acting is looking for an excuse.
As a reminder, Theresa May faced a vote of no confidence as party leader, and was completely unable to act on her signature policy, leading to government paralysis, and the Tories still managed polling leads.
Labour already had a 20 point lead, in London voting intention from the same pollster