It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
BIB: This is, of course, literally the definition of the Red Wall - seats that demographically should have turned Tory but were for cutural and historical reasons still Labour.
However. It is not how it is commonly used. There are dozens more which didn't go Tory in 2019 so could by this definition. In more common usage, however, there are plenty of "Red Wall" seats which are actually just marginals. They simply went Tory because they won an 80 seat majority.
Marginals will go with the majority yes, but the Red Wall in its truest sense of the term is not the same.
While some people object to FPTP because of "safe seats" it is worth noting that no seat is guaranteed to remain safe, and equally marginal seats can become safe. All safe seats are, are seats where the public currently has made up its mind, but they can always change it.
To highlight three seats:
Warrington South, Cheshire, was Labour from 1992 to 2010, regained by Labour in 2017 and regained by the Tories in 2019. Its been a marginal high up the target list for whichever party hasn't held it almost consistently. Indeed I campaigned for Mowat in this seat in 2015 and was chuffed when he was re-elected, I expected him to sadly lose the seat and the BBC exit poll (wrongly) projected he would even when it was predicting a good night for the Tories. I expect if the Tories lose the next election, this will go back to Labour again.
South Ribble, Lancashire, was Labour 1997 to 2010 but the majority has only widened at every election since (even 2017) and now has an outright majority of votes cast for the Tories and a nearly 21% majority. Be a shock if this went back to Labour even if they won a majority now.
Esher and Walton, Surrey, was Tory from 1997 to date and had an over 50% majority in 2015 but is now a marginal with a majority down to 4.4% and will probably be lost by the Tories at the next election whether they win or lose a majority.
The next election could see Tories losing seats in Surrey while holding seats in the North. That may not be a bad thing for the party or the country.
There was some pressure group that came up with a metric that 'your vote is worth 1/BLAH BLAH BLAH of others" by looking at the raw vote totals. Absolute dog dirt level analysis.
Finally, a reminder - the Red Wall was originally a set of seats that had demographically and socially shifted blue but had not yet voted conservative.
Places change. People change. There may be some inertia.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. Wedge issues like the Windfall Tax make the Tories look like bosses vs the plebs to show up how out of touch with Your Life they are, and then when they u-turn and implement a Windfall Tax Starmer jujst points and says - "we stand up for you against that lot".
Blair won a massive landslide due to the massive tactical ABC vote but Smith would also have won on a smaller scale because the Tories had broken themselves that badly in 92.
The fact that the one policy that SKS has is a completely fucking terrible idea (as a policy rather than as party politics) really doesn't bode well.
Was it a completely fucking terrible idea when the Thatcher government did it over a period of years? Didn't Ed Balls rip the "its ideologically unconservative" argument apart by pointing to its creation and implimentation under Thatcher by Lawson?
"over a period of years" is not a one-off "windfall" which ignores the losses of the previous year.
I don't do any of the clever stuff on PB and once shown how to do it I tend to forget because I don't want to do it again for a long time but I decided I wanted to post a short video. I can see how to upload a picture, but it won't let me upload a video. Many moons ago I did upload a video of fox cubs feeding from their mother so I know I used to be able to do it (at least I think I remember doing it)
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1528650438714662912 Due to the high losses of armored vehicles during the fighting, the command of the Russian army was forced to opt for obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to staff and form reserve battalion tactical groups to be deployed to Ukraine, @GeneralStaffUA reported in its May 23 update.
T-62 is a souped up T-55 - it was made obsolete by Chieftain & M60!
This is like the British Army raiding Bovington and using the Centurions and Conqueror from the exhibit.
One does eventually start to feel for the poor reserves being mobilised, if they’re being sent out to face modern weapons in such obsolete equipment. They don’t have a hope in Hell.
The Ukranians reckon they’re about 40% through the Russian tank supply. If most of the remaining stocks are such relics, that bodes well for the defenders.
Just for fun, does the UK have any old tanks in storage?
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
Not correct that Labour isn't making progress in the South - cf. Worthing (from 0 councillors to majority control in a few years), Southampton, Portsmouth. A lot of that is demographic change. A colleague and I are the first Labour councillors in SW Surrey for 17 years, and while that's partly due to tactical voting it's also partly ex-Londoners who don't see anything outlandish in voting Labour, as some of the Blue Wall voters traditionally do. The reverse has happening in the Red Wall - if you're not too fussy about living in the south, you can buy a large house in the north for comparatively modest sums, and I'd guess quite a few habitual Tories have taken advantage of that. Insofar as the Red Wall is shifting back to Labour, I suspect it's despite that demographic shift - more that traditional Labour voters have now sampled the Tory beer and don't think much of it.
Nationally, voting is now predominantly about age rather than class or income, which means that the political balance is evening out across the whole country. Perhaps that's a good thing for national cohesion. People like Rees-Mogg at one end and the Communist Party website that I was looking at in the RMT context both feel as though they're from a bygone age, when it was all about the landed classes vs the proletariat.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
You need more than that benefits need to go to a contributory qualifying period. However the left will squeal if anyone proposed that.
Despite my constant mutterings to the contrary the markets are *still* overestimating the chances of Johnson somehow going before the GE. Solid value is therefore still available on bets like "Starmer Next PM" and the various BJ exit dates.
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
You need more than that benefits need to go to a contributory qualifying period. However the left will squeal if anyone proposed that.
They already are for JSA, just not universal credit
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. .
His range of action is fairly limited when it comes to policies because if they become too popular Johnson will nick them and if it costs any money the tories will say we can't afford it. (But can afford a national flegship, etc)
Legalising cannabis would be a good policy for Labour because it'd be young voter turnout machine, doesn't cost anything and Johnson couldn't co-opt it as he couldn't take the gammon wing of the MPs with him on it.
It is absolutely remarkable that no major party has adopted a sensible liberal position on legalising and taxing cannabis.
Go from spending money failing to fight a war on drugs, clogging up Police, Courts and Prisons with consensual behaviour - and instead get a revenue stream of taxes that can be spent on SchoolsNHospitals or whatever else your priority is.
Its an absolute economic no-brainer to be liberal there. And gives you a source of revenue you can use to fund your other priorities.
LDs not a 'major' party? And Scottish Greens in Scotland are more significant than LDs.
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
Barnsley Central and East look very interesting too.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
You need more than that benefits need to go to a contributory qualifying period. However the left will squeal if anyone proposed that.
Yes, although I’d count full time education after the age of 16 as a contribution
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
You don't get good leaders in a democracy Boris is the end result of this
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
You need more than that benefits need to go to a contributory qualifying period. However the left will squeal if anyone proposed that.
They already are for JSA, just not universal credit
Semantics if you aren't eligble for jsa you claim universal credit. On JSA you get 77 a week....oh look on universal credit you get 77 a week so JSA actually does bugger all but change the name they give you the money under
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
OT, a day late but with just a smidgeon of political content to keep the mods at bay.
It is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Margaret Rutherford. Her father murdered her grandfather, a clergyman, with a chamber pot, she was the last woman born in the 19th C to win an Oscar, and her cousin was Tony Benn.
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1528650438714662912 Due to the high losses of armored vehicles during the fighting, the command of the Russian army was forced to opt for obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to staff and form reserve battalion tactical groups to be deployed to Ukraine, @GeneralStaffUA reported in its May 23 update.
T-62 is a souped up T-55 - it was made obsolete by Chieftain & M60!
This is like the British Army raiding Bovington and using the Centurions and Conqueror from the exhibit.
One does eventually start to feel for the poor reserves being mobilised, if they’re being sent out to face modern weapons in such obsolete equipment. They don’t have a hope in Hell.
The Ukranians reckon they’re about 40% through the Russian tank supply. If most of the remaining stocks are such relics, that bodes well for the defenders.
Just for fun, does the UK have any old tanks in storage?
If we ignore modern stuff that isn't being used cos of squaddy shortages, MoD blowing the usual fuses, etc., then I believe that Centurion, Chieftain and Challenger 1 went to scrap, ranges as hard targets, or sale (esp. almost all CR1 to Jordan).
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1528650438714662912 Due to the high losses of armored vehicles during the fighting, the command of the Russian army was forced to opt for obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to staff and form reserve battalion tactical groups to be deployed to Ukraine, @GeneralStaffUA reported in its May 23 update.
T-62 is a souped up T-55 - it was made obsolete by Chieftain & M60!
This is like the British Army raiding Bovington and using the Centurions and Conqueror from the exhibit.
One does eventually start to feel for the poor reserves being mobilised, if they’re being sent out to face modern weapons in such obsolete equipment. They don’t have a hope in Hell.
The Ukranians reckon they’re about 40% through the Russian tank supply. If most of the remaining stocks are such relics, that bodes well for the defenders.
Just for fun, does the UK have any old tanks in storage?
Now that’s a good question.
There’s a tank museum in Bovington https://tankmuseum.org/ with a few old relics they keep running, but not sure the British Army keeps stocks of old tanks ‘just in case’, as the Russians do.
One advantage of NATO, is that any defensive land war that the UK might realistically be involved with, would involve pooling resources from many nations including the USA.
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
You don't get good leaders in a democracy Boris is the end result of this
Wow talk about outing himself....shakes head and points to moscow....don't like democracy do like fascist autocrats go live there
Despite my constant mutterings to the contrary the markets are *still* overestimating the chances of Johnson somehow going before the GE. Solid value is therefore still available on bets like "Starmer Next PM" and the various BJ exit dates.
Betting hat continued. Lord Hennessy, asked in the FT today if Boris will be PM in a year's time answers: "No". I'm not tipping this, but he is often right.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. .
His range of action is fairly limited when it comes to policies because if they become too popular Johnson will nick them and if it costs any money the tories will say we can't afford it. (But can afford a national flegship, etc)
Legalising cannabis would be a good policy for Labour because it'd be young voter turnout machine, doesn't cost anything and Johnson couldn't co-opt it as he couldn't take the gammon wing of the MPs with him on it.
It is absolutely remarkable that no major party has adopted a sensible liberal position on legalising and taxing cannabis.
Go from spending money failing to fight a war on drugs, clogging up Police, Courts and Prisons with consensual behaviour - and instead get a revenue stream of taxes that can be spent on SchoolsNHospitals or whatever else your priority is.
Its an absolute economic no-brainer to be liberal there. And gives you a source of revenue you can use to fund your other priorities.
It's also clearly the direction of travel globally. I mean, you can legally smoke weed in Virginia. Drugs policy in this country is just one area where the dead hand of the tabloids and older voters' conservatism is preventing sensible reform. It is way past due.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
Not correct that Labour isn't making progress in the South - cf. Worthing (from 0 councillors to majority control in a few years), Southampton, Portsmouth. A lot of that is demographic change. A colleague and I are the first Labour councillors in SW Surrey for 17 years, and while that's partly due to tactical voting it's also partly ex-Londoners who don't see anything outlandish in voting Labour, as some of the Blue Wall voters traditionally do. The reverse has happening in the Red Wall - if you're not too fussy about living in the south, you can buy a large house in the north for comparatively modest sums, and I'd guess quite a few habitual Tories have taken advantage of that. Insofar as the Red Wall is shifting back to Labour, I suspect it's despite that demographic shift - more that traditional Labour voters have now sampled the Tory beer and don't think much of it.
Nationally, voting is now predominantly about age rather than class or income, which means that the political balance is evening out across the whole country. Perhaps that's a good thing for national cohesion. People like Rees-Mogg at one end and the Communist Party website that I was looking at in the RMT context both feel as though they're from a bygone age, when it was all about the landed classes vs the proletariat.
There are a handful of Labour target seats in the South in cities like Southampton and Portsmouth and large towns like Worthing and of course Southampton and Portsmouth were Labour in the Blair years. However the vast majority of Labour target seats are in London, Scotland and Wales, the North and Midlands. The vast majority of LD target seats are in the South. As the local elections and Chesham and Amersham by election proved it is the Liberal Democrats still the Tories mainly need to worry about in the South, not Labour.
In fact the South East still has the 3rd highest home ownership rate in England after the Midlands and the Midlands unlike the North is becoming increasingly Conservative I agree due to its high leave vote and home ownership rate.
The lowest rate of home ownership however is in London which is where new affordable housing needs to be focused not the southern greenbelt and is now Labour's safest region
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
Barnsley Central and East look very interesting too.
Im not so sure about Barnsley, i dont get the sense BXP was a gateway drug to Tory the way it has been in parts of the NE. The Tory vote has flatlined here. Refom UK GAIN more likely if Labour implode but expect Lab holds
It goes back to David Cameron who should have nailed down Brexit before calling the referendum.
How, exactly?
He told the public what would happen.
They cried "Project fear"
He could have done a Thatcher and negotiated an amended deal. She got a rebate, he could have got an end to freedom of movement
He tried, officially at least.
But that's not the point John was making - the terms of Brexit should have been negotiated before the referendum(*) so that people knew what they were voting on. The reason they weren't, of course, is that Cameron was trying to win a referendum to stay in the EU and knew he'd need to use Project Fear to do so. Nearly worked, too.
(*) Or, at the very least, EEA/EFTA should have been on the ballot paper.
Apart from the EU would have refused to negotiate so even if he had wanted to Cameron could not of put a brexit on the table and said that it what you will get as when the time came who knew what the EU would agree to or not.
The UK never used the tools available to it. State aid? Officially banned yet various other countries would do it with gay abandon and worry about a slap on the wrists once the steel works was safe. Freedom of Movement? Simply implement a national ID card and require everyone to register them with their employers. The rules allowed countries to deport freeloaders after 90 days, so we could have done as the likes of Belgium were doing.
Incidentally, I have to talk up the government's success in the latter area. The UK workforce has shrunk by 600k since 2019/20, a triumph for all those employers who have unfillable vacancies which now threatens their ability to remain functional. Huzzah!
Have I ever claimed we did use all the tools and even when we were in the eu the euphiles did plenty of moaning if we broke the rules. As to the uk work force shrinking well I am not going to cry if firms go bust that were using all that unlimited labour pool to pay wages you yourself have said weren't enough to live on.
Good employers that pay well will survive. Marginal business's that could only survive my squeezing employee wages down to the bare minimum and that only because taxpayers were providing top ups to the employees I really can't be moved to shed a tear for. Tough luck on them. The employees of those companies will soon find new opportunities given the employment market and probably with better pay and conditions.
Seems to me the employees are gaining wealth and the employers that are silas marners are going to find themselves going out of business
I don't have much sympathy for non-viable businesses where only by paying slave wages can they function. But I'm not concerned about them - its all the sectors where they can't get labour at any price that are in trouble. Hospitality being a prime example. Locals don't want to work in the sector despite very healthy wages and besides there is local high levels of employment.
I've debated this with BR before who said people in Widnes should just uproot to take factory jobs in Wisbech. Amazingly enough there aren't any takers for such things. Which is why we both have large pockets of unemployment and underemployment and pockets of industries in deep shit because of a lack of workers.
I never said people in Widnes should take factory jobs in Wisbech, though there's nothing wrong with an on your bike attitude.
But if there's availability for workers in Widnes, but not Wisbech, then maybe the factory should be located in Widnes instead? Maybe that should encourage investment in Widnes instead?
We could possibly call that 'levelling up'.
If there's no workers available in Wisbech for the factory, perhaps the factory should close down. Or if the factory doesn't want to close down, it can pay attractive wages that attract workers. That's free market economics working.
That's a more sensible attitude to telling people to move - as you did.
But in reality there is a good reason the food industry places factories close to the food sources they are there to process. It makes no sense to relocate them from Anglia to Cheshire, and we both know the government isn't about to make efforts to make that happen. Not even creating a freeport would help!
As for the wages point, you miss the reality. Its not about wages, its about a lack of bodies. "Just pay more" would need to be huuuuge amounts more to entice people either to do long commutes or move.
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
You don't get good leaders in a democracy Boris is the end result of this
I'm not sure you get better leaders under other forms of government. Much as I despise Johnson, I would certainly rather have him as leader than Putin or Xi.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
BIB: This is, of course, literally the definition of the Red Wall - seats that demographically should have turned Tory but were for cutural and historical reasons still Labour.
However. It is not how it is commonly used. There are dozens more which didn't go Tory in 2019 so could by this definition. In more common usage, however, there are plenty of "Red Wall" seats which are actually just marginals. They simply went Tory because they won an 80 seat majority.
Marginals will go with the majority yes, but the Red Wall in its truest sense of the term is not the same.
While some people object to FPTP because of "safe seats" it is worth noting that no seat is guaranteed to remain safe, and equally marginal seats can become safe. All safe seats are, are seats where the public currently has made up its mind, but they can always change it.
To highlight three seats:
Warrington South, Cheshire, was Labour from 1992 to 2010, regained by Labour in 2017 and regained by the Tories in 2019. Its been a marginal high up the target list for whichever party hasn't held it almost consistently. Indeed I campaigned for Mowat in this seat in 2015 and was chuffed when he was re-elected, I expected him to sadly lose the seat and the BBC exit poll (wrongly) projected he would even when it was predicting a good night for the Tories. I expect if the Tories lose the next election, this will go back to Labour again.
South Ribble, Lancashire, was Labour 1997 to 2010 but the majority has only widened at every election since (even 2017) and now has an outright majority of votes cast for the Tories and a nearly 21% majority. Be a shock if this went back to Labour even if they won a majority now.
Esher and Walton, Surrey, was Tory from 1997 to date and had an over 50% majority in 2015 but is now a marginal with a majority down to 4.4% and will probably be lost by the Tories at the next election whether they win or lose a majority.
The next election could see Tories losing seats in Surrey while holding seats in the North. That may not be a bad thing for the party or the country.
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
Wansbeck won't exist after boundary reform. The Labour bit, Ashington, is going to Blyth and Ashington. Solid Labour. The Tory bit, Morpeth, is going to Berwick. Solid Tory.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. Wedge issues like the Windfall Tax make the Tories look like bosses vs the plebs to show up how out of touch with Your Life they are, and then when they u-turn and implement a Windfall Tax Starmer jujst points and says - "we stand up for you against that lot".
Blair won a massive landslide due to the massive tactical ABC vote but Smith would also have won on a smaller scale because the Tories had broken themselves that badly in 92.
The fact that the one policy that SKS has is a completely fucking terrible idea (as a policy rather than as party politics) really doesn't bode well.
Was it a completely fucking terrible idea when the Thatcher government did it over a period of years? Didn't Ed Balls rip the "its ideologically unconservative" argument apart by pointing to its creation and implimentation under Thatcher by Lawson?
"over a period of years" is not a one-off "windfall" which ignores the losses of the previous year.
Laughable. Tories are defending mega profits of Shell and BP saying any new tax is out of order.
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
I'm not really in that camp - I don't hate Boris (partly because he's actually been pretty good on animal welfare) and politics is all about policy for me. But it's interesting that the Australian, French and US election results seem to have been decided very much on that "negative partisanship" basis - neither Biden, Macron or Albo have many wild enthusiasts, but enough people just wanted to get rid of Trump and Morrison and stop Le Pen. With the decline of political certainty - how many people really feel that either globalised free markets or state control have proved to be The Answer? - I wonder if negative voting will increasingly be decisive. In which case having boring leaders who are hard to attack convincingly may be the way to win.
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1528650438714662912 Due to the high losses of armored vehicles during the fighting, the command of the Russian army was forced to opt for obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to staff and form reserve battalion tactical groups to be deployed to Ukraine, @GeneralStaffUA reported in its May 23 update.
T-62 is a souped up T-55 - it was made obsolete by Chieftain & M60!
This is like the British Army raiding Bovington and using the Centurions and Conqueror from the exhibit.
One does eventually start to feel for the poor reserves being mobilised, if they’re being sent out to face modern weapons in such obsolete equipment. They don’t have a hope in Hell.
The Ukranians reckon they’re about 40% through the Russian tank supply. If most of the remaining stocks are such relics, that bodes well for the defenders.
Just for fun, does the UK have any old tanks in storage?
Now that’s a good question.
There’s a tank museum in Bovington https://tankmuseum.org/ with a few old relics they keep running, but not sure the British Army keeps stocks of old tanks ‘just in case’, as the Russians do.
One advantage of NATO, is that any defensive land war that the UK might realistically be involved with, would involve pooling resources from many nations including the USA.
One interesting point is that a lot of old kit had to be disabled militarily for the European arms limitation treaties. I'm not sure what the treaty details were when it came to the odd tank in a museum, but itd's possible that gun barrels had inconspicuous holes drilled in them, and so on. One wouldn't get very far with Bovington anyway.
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
Indeed. Your glorious leader VVP needs to take his army back to his own country. That is the only way the war ends.
Peter hitchens expresses similar views to myself Is he a Russian asset too
Wow I sometimes express the same views as macron, it doesn't make me french. Regardless he is wrong because he is an idiot. You are in my opinion a russian troll bot
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
Vladimir needs to order his army back to Russia, before their WWII tanks full of reservists get used as target practice by 21st century NLAWs. That’s the realpolitik in play.
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
There is a possibility that his mps will take action post the Gray report and/or the by elections, but if they decide to leave him in post then they may well have to suffer the consequences
If the Gray report is published this week there will be a immediate 'furore' but then Parliament goes into recess on Thursday until after the platinum celebrations, by which time Boris will no doubt be hoping the country is in a better mood, and will announce a package of measures that may well see him in place to GE24
I have no idea what will happen, but as much as anyone 'frets' about Boris there is only one group of people who can do anything about it, and they know who they are
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. .
His range of action is fairly limited when it comes to policies because if they become too popular Johnson will nick them and if it costs any money the tories will say we can't afford it. (But can afford a national flegship, etc)
Legalising cannabis would be a good policy for Labour because it'd be young voter turnout machine, doesn't cost anything and Johnson couldn't co-opt it as he couldn't take the gammon wing of the MPs with him on it.
It is absolutely remarkable that no major party has adopted a sensible liberal position on legalising and taxing cannabis.
Go from spending money failing to fight a war on drugs, clogging up Police, Courts and Prisons with consensual behaviour - and instead get a revenue stream of taxes that can be spent on SchoolsNHospitals or whatever else your priority is.
Its an absolute economic no-brainer to be liberal there. And gives you a source of revenue you can use to fund your other priorities.
It's also clearly the direction of travel globally. I mean, you can legally smoke weed in Virginia. Drugs policy in this country is just one area where the dead hand of the tabloids and older voters' conservatism is preventing sensible reform. It is way past due.
Maybe but cocaine is very harmful to society and legalising cannabis is a slippery slope to legalising cocaine I prefer the Singapore model myself
It goes back to David Cameron who should have nailed down Brexit before calling the referendum.
How, exactly?
He told the public what would happen.
They cried "Project fear"
He could have done a Thatcher and negotiated an amended deal. She got a rebate, he could have got an end to freedom of movement
He tried, officially at least.
But that's not the point John was making - the terms of Brexit should have been negotiated before the referendum(*) so that people knew what they were voting on. The reason they weren't, of course, is that Cameron was trying to win a referendum to stay in the EU and knew he'd need to use Project Fear to do so. Nearly worked, too.
(*) Or, at the very least, EEA/EFTA should have been on the ballot paper.
Apart from the EU would have refused to negotiate so even if he had wanted to Cameron could not of put a brexit on the table and said that it what you will get as when the time came who knew what the EU would agree to or not.
The UK never used the tools available to it. State aid? Officially banned yet various other countries would do it with gay abandon and worry about a slap on the wrists once the steel works was safe. Freedom of Movement? Simply implement a national ID card and require everyone to register them with their employers. The rules allowed countries to deport freeloaders after 90 days, so we could have done as the likes of Belgium were doing.
Incidentally, I have to talk up the government's success in the latter area. The UK workforce has shrunk by 600k since 2019/20, a triumph for all those employers who have unfillable vacancies which now threatens their ability to remain functional. Huzzah!
Have I ever claimed we did use all the tools and even when we were in the eu the euphiles did plenty of moaning if we broke the rules. As to the uk work force shrinking well I am not going to cry if firms go bust that were using all that unlimited labour pool to pay wages you yourself have said weren't enough to live on.
Good employers that pay well will survive. Marginal business's that could only survive my squeezing employee wages down to the bare minimum and that only because taxpayers were providing top ups to the employees I really can't be moved to shed a tear for. Tough luck on them. The employees of those companies will soon find new opportunities given the employment market and probably with better pay and conditions.
Seems to me the employees are gaining wealth and the employers that are silas marners are going to find themselves going out of business
I don't have much sympathy for non-viable businesses where only by paying slave wages can they function. But I'm not concerned about them - its all the sectors where they can't get labour at any price that are in trouble. Hospitality being a prime example. Locals don't want to work in the sector despite very healthy wages and besides there is local high levels of employment.
I've debated this with BR before who said people in Widnes should just uproot to take factory jobs in Wisbech. Amazingly enough there aren't any takers for such things. Which is why we both have large pockets of unemployment and underemployment and pockets of industries in deep shit because of a lack of workers.
I never said people in Widnes should take factory jobs in Wisbech, though there's nothing wrong with an on your bike attitude.
But if there's availability for workers in Widnes, but not Wisbech, then maybe the factory should be located in Widnes instead? Maybe that should encourage investment in Widnes instead?
We could possibly call that 'levelling up'.
If there's no workers available in Wisbech for the factory, perhaps the factory should close down. Or if the factory doesn't want to close down, it can pay attractive wages that attract workers. That's free market economics working.
That's a more sensible attitude to telling people to move - as you did.
But in reality there is a good reason the food industry places factories close to the food sources they are there to process. It makes no sense to relocate them from Anglia to Cheshire, and we both know the government isn't about to make efforts to make that happen. Not even creating a freeport would help!
As for the wages point, you miss the reality. Its not about wages, its about a lack of bodies. "Just pay more" would need to be huuuuge amounts more to entice people either to do long commutes or move.
If you want bodies you need to pay enough to attract those bodies to move.
If it costs a huuuuge amount more, then pay it, or invest in automation so you don't need the bodies, or find another solution, or go out of business. That's a free market.
No business has a divine right to cheap plebs to run itself with.
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly...
No, it isn't.
True, as with Vietnam, but to far greater extent, the population are united in wanting to throw out the imperialist invader. But unlike the US in Vietnam, Russia does not have the resources to sustain the effort.
You missed your opportunity when Trump was president. 'Sadly'.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
BIB: This is, of course, literally the definition of the Red Wall - seats that demographically should have turned Tory but were for cutural and historical reasons still Labour.
However. It is not how it is commonly used. There are dozens more which didn't go Tory in 2019 so could by this definition. In more common usage, however, there are plenty of "Red Wall" seats which are actually just marginals. They simply went Tory because they won an 80 seat majority.
Marginals will go with the majority yes, but the Red Wall in its truest sense of the term is not the same.
While some people object to FPTP because of "safe seats" it is worth noting that no seat is guaranteed to remain safe, and equally marginal seats can become safe. All safe seats are, are seats where the public currently has made up its mind, but they can always change it.
To highlight three seats:
Warrington South, Cheshire, was Labour from 1992 to 2010, regained by Labour in 2017 and regained by the Tories in 2019. Its been a marginal high up the target list for whichever party hasn't held it almost consistently. Indeed I campaigned for Mowat in this seat in 2015 and was chuffed when he was re-elected, I expected him to sadly lose the seat and the BBC exit poll (wrongly) projected he would even when it was predicting a good night for the Tories. I expect if the Tories lose the next election, this will go back to Labour again.
South Ribble, Lancashire, was Labour 1997 to 2010 but the majority has only widened at every election since (even 2017) and now has an outright majority of votes cast for the Tories and a nearly 21% majority. Be a shock if this went back to Labour even if they won a majority now.
Esher and Walton, Surrey, was Tory from 1997 to date and had an over 50% majority in 2015 but is now a marginal with a majority down to 4.4% and will probably be lost by the Tories at the next election whether they win or lose a majority.
The next election could see Tories losing seats in Surrey while holding seats in the North. That may not be a bad thing for the party or the country.
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
Wansbeck won't exist after boundary reform. The Labour bit, Ashington, is going to Blyth and Ashington. Solid Labour. The Tory bit, Morpeth, is going to Berwick. Solid Tory.
Edit. No clue what happened to block quote there.
True, true, i was scouting the existing stuff. Sunderland Central looks the most likely interesting seat of the 3 former Sunderland seats
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
Indeed. Your glorious leader VVP needs to take his army back to his own country. That is the only way the war ends.
Peter hitchens expresses similar views to myself Is he a Russian asset too
Wow I sometimes express the same views as macron, it doesn't make me french. Regardless he is wrong because he is an idiot. You are in my opinion a russian troll bot
Hitchens is many thing An idiot he is not Read his column you might learn something
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
There are few wars more different to the Ukraine War than Vietnam.
What is happening at the moment is that the Donbas is acting a bit like a car's crumple zone. The Ukrainians are absorbing the energy of the Russian advance while retreating when they have to. Russia is suffering very heavy losses for only marginal gains as a result.
At some point the impetus of the Russian advance will end. Then we will see if Ukraine are able to launch a more effective offensive operation.
If a Ukrainian counteroffensive fails then both sides might be ready for negotiation. The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. Wedge issues like the Windfall Tax make the Tories look like bosses vs the plebs to show up how out of touch with Your Life they are, and then when they u-turn and implement a Windfall Tax Starmer jujst points and says - "we stand up for you against that lot".
Blair won a massive landslide due to the massive tactical ABC vote but Smith would also have won on a smaller scale because the Tories had broken themselves that badly in 92.
The fact that the one policy that SKS has is a completely fucking terrible idea (as a policy rather than as party politics) really doesn't bode well.
Was it a completely fucking terrible idea when the Thatcher government did it over a period of years? Didn't Ed Balls rip the "its ideologically unconservative" argument apart by pointing to its creation and implimentation under Thatcher by Lawson?
"over a period of years" is not a one-off "windfall" which ignores the losses of the previous year.
Laughable. Tories are defending mega profits of Shell and BP saying any new tax is out of order.
"mega profits" mischaracterises the situation, of course, by ignoring that they've essentially booked two years of profits entirely within one year.
It's good politics. It's bad policy. And that's why I expect Boris to implement it.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
The apprentice system started going downhill sharply well before that, under the Conseervatives in the Thatcher/Major era. I don't recall the timing exactly, but I do remember my father - no friend to Labour - being deeply shocked by government policy at the time.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
Indeed. Your glorious leader VVP needs to take his army back to his own country. That is the only way the war ends.
Peter hitchens expresses similar views to myself Is he a Russian asset too
Wow I sometimes express the same views as macron, it doesn't make me french. Regardless he is wrong because he is an idiot. You are in my opinion a russian troll bot
Hitchens is many thing An idiot he is not Read his column you might learn something
On this topic sorry yes he is an idiot. Russian needs to be stamped on and stamped on hard. Sent packing back to its borders with a bloody nose and who cares if Putin has a toddler style tantrum.
Do you get the feeling yet that your attempts to persuade us the west is going to weaken isn't working where pretty much everyone here is telling you the same. Russia must and will be stopped and stopped hard.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Pay decent wages and people will take apprenticeships for training, so it comes back to the same issue.
I think what you mean was "you couldn't get a plumber" for the dirt cheap amount you wanted to pay people. Quite frankly, any time I've wanted a plumber I've always been able to get one, it just maybe cost more than I would have liked.
If you need something enough, you pay for it, and when you have an issue with water or gas it makes sense to pay a professional if that is what is required.
We couldn't clamp down on "benefits tourists" due to the universal nature of benefits in this country that you would call the Tories all sorts of things if they dared to go near.
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
Indeed. Your glorious leader VVP needs to take his army back to his own country. That is the only way the war ends.
Peter hitchens expresses similar views to myself Is he a Russian asset too
Wow I sometimes express the same views as macron, it doesn't make me french. Regardless he is wrong because he is an idiot. You are in my opinion a russian troll bot
Hitchens is many thing An idiot he is not Read his column you might learn something
I think you need to learn how to write a sentence but then we know you are a Russian troll anyway
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. .
His range of action is fairly limited when it comes to policies because if they become too popular Johnson will nick them and if it costs any money the tories will say we can't afford it. (But can afford a national flegship, etc)
Legalising cannabis would be a good policy for Labour because it'd be young voter turnout machine, doesn't cost anything and Johnson couldn't co-opt it as he couldn't take the gammon wing of the MPs with him on it.
It is absolutely remarkable that no major party has adopted a sensible liberal position on legalising and taxing cannabis.
Go from spending money failing to fight a war on drugs, clogging up Police, Courts and Prisons with consensual behaviour - and instead get a revenue stream of taxes that can be spent on SchoolsNHospitals or whatever else your priority is.
Its an absolute economic no-brainer to be liberal there. And gives you a source of revenue you can use to fund your other priorities.
One issue that gets no mention at all with respect to drugs. Using legalisation to *eliminate* the harmful drugs.
Skunk (and similar hyper strains) was invented to reduce volume for illegal traffic. It's like 80% by volume alcohol vs beer. The problem is that the legalisation types don't want to talk about the harm that skunk does.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
You need more than that benefits need to go to a contributory qualifying period. However the left will squeal if anyone proposed that.
They already are for JSA, just not universal credit
Semantics if you aren't eligble for jsa you claim universal credit. On JSA you get 77 a week....oh look on universal credit you get 77 a week so JSA actually does bugger all but change the name they give you the money under
You can get JSA if you have significant savings and have contributed via NI but not universal credit. So it is a difference actually.
Scrap universal credit however and those out of work who have not contributed enough would just be left with foodbanks
It goes back to David Cameron who should have nailed down Brexit before calling the referendum.
How, exactly?
He told the public what would happen.
They cried "Project fear"
He could have done a Thatcher and negotiated an amended deal. She got a rebate, he could have got an end to freedom of movement
He tried, officially at least.
But that's not the point John was making - the terms of Brexit should have been negotiated before the referendum(*) so that people knew what they were voting on. The reason they weren't, of course, is that Cameron was trying to win a referendum to stay in the EU and knew he'd need to use Project Fear to do so. Nearly worked, too.
(*) Or, at the very least, EEA/EFTA should have been on the ballot paper.
Apart from the EU would have refused to negotiate so even if he had wanted to Cameron could not of put a brexit on the table and said that it what you will get as when the time came who knew what the EU would agree to or not.
The UK never used the tools available to it. State aid? Officially banned yet various other countries would do it with gay abandon and worry about a slap on the wrists once the steel works was safe. Freedom of Movement? Simply implement a national ID card and require everyone to register them with their employers. The rules allowed countries to deport freeloaders after 90 days, so we could have done as the likes of Belgium were doing.
Incidentally, I have to talk up the government's success in the latter area. The UK workforce has shrunk by 600k since 2019/20, a triumph for all those employers who have unfillable vacancies which now threatens their ability to remain functional. Huzzah!
Have I ever claimed we did use all the tools and even when we were in the eu the euphiles did plenty of moaning if we broke the rules. As to the uk work force shrinking well I am not going to cry if firms go bust that were using all that unlimited labour pool to pay wages you yourself have said weren't enough to live on.
Good employers that pay well will survive. Marginal business's that could only survive my squeezing employee wages down to the bare minimum and that only because taxpayers were providing top ups to the employees I really can't be moved to shed a tear for. Tough luck on them. The employees of those companies will soon find new opportunities given the employment market and probably with better pay and conditions.
Seems to me the employees are gaining wealth and the employers that are silas marners are going to find themselves going out of business
I don't have much sympathy for non-viable businesses where only by paying slave wages can they function. But I'm not concerned about them - its all the sectors where they can't get labour at any price that are in trouble. Hospitality being a prime example. Locals don't want to work in the sector despite very healthy wages and besides there is local high levels of employment.
I've debated this with BR before who said people in Widnes should just uproot to take factory jobs in Wisbech. Amazingly enough there aren't any takers for such things. Which is why we both have large pockets of unemployment and underemployment and pockets of industries in deep shit because of a lack of workers.
I never said people in Widnes should take factory jobs in Wisbech, though there's nothing wrong with an on your bike attitude.
But if there's availability for workers in Widnes, but not Wisbech, then maybe the factory should be located in Widnes instead? Maybe that should encourage investment in Widnes instead?
We could possibly call that 'levelling up'.
If there's no workers available in Wisbech for the factory, perhaps the factory should close down. Or if the factory doesn't want to close down, it can pay attractive wages that attract workers. That's free market economics working.
That's a more sensible attitude to telling people to move - as you did.
But in reality there is a good reason the food industry places factories close to the food sources they are there to process. It makes no sense to relocate them from Anglia to Cheshire, and we both know the government isn't about to make efforts to make that happen. Not even creating a freeport would help!
As for the wages point, you miss the reality. Its not about wages, its about a lack of bodies. "Just pay more" would need to be huuuuge amounts more to entice people either to do long commutes or move.
If you want bodies you need to pay enough to attract those bodies to move.
If it costs a huuuuge amount more, then pay it, or invest in automation so you don't need the bodies, or find another solution, or go out of business. That's a free market.
No business has a divine right to cheap plebs to run itself with.
Whilst I agree with the principle of that, in practice it is a little more tricky. I know that you are an advocate for scrapping farming and the food industry so you're not bothered, but in the real world its a problem.
Food inflation is now running away and as the commentators keep pointing out the real upward pressure hasn't kicked in yet - it will get a lot worse. "Just pay more" only accelerates the inflation and puts more people in real trouble.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
The apprentice system started going downhill sharply well before that, under the Conseervatives in the Thatcher/Major era. I don't recall the timing exactly, but I do remember my father - no friend to Labour - being deeply shocked by government policy at the time.
Yes but there were still people doing plumbing courses at FE colleges and getting jobs as a plumbers mate to finish off even then though I do agree that more should have been done to keep the apprenticeship schemes going
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
Sure! But the influx I was talking about was in the early Blair years with a shortage created in the Tory years. Neither big party seems to understand that trades are important, and even now where the problems are more acute this government is good at announcing it is doing things for apprentices whilst not actually doing so.
Why this is the telegraph if Ukraine is on the verge of winning
Western resolve set to be tested as key US and EU figures want Ukraine to cede territory
The inevitable outcome may be a compromise, but as the balance shifts there is more fighting to be done before either side will accept one
ByRoland Oliphant, SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT22 May 2022 • 8:03pm
May 23, 2022
In three months of war in Ukraine, Russia is likely to have suffered casualty numbers similar to those experienced by the Soviet Union during a nine-year conflict in Afghanistan, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has claimed.
The MoD has listed a number of failures that have led to Russia experiencing heavy casualties in Ukraine, the numbers of which have continued to rise in its offensive in the east of the country.
In a daily briefing on Twitter on Monday, the MoD said: “In the first three months of its ‘special military operation’, Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine year war in Afghanistan.
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1528650438714662912 Due to the high losses of armored vehicles during the fighting, the command of the Russian army was forced to opt for obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to staff and form reserve battalion tactical groups to be deployed to Ukraine, @GeneralStaffUA reported in its May 23 update.
T-62 is a souped up T-55 - it was made obsolete by Chieftain & M60!
This is like the British Army raiding Bovington and using the Centurions and Conqueror from the exhibit.
One does eventually start to feel for the poor reserves being mobilised, if they’re being sent out to face modern weapons in such obsolete equipment. They don’t have a hope in Hell.
The Ukranians reckon they’re about 40% through the Russian tank supply. If most of the remaining stocks are such relics, that bodes well for the defenders.
Just for fun, does the UK have any old tanks in storage?
Yeah, they're all at the storage facility in Monchengladbach. The UK storage facility was on inconveniently valuable land so the tories sold it.
Our new MRP poll today for @Con_Soc shows that if #Labour, #LibDems and #Greens could agree to co-operate, this would be the result at a general election. Details at: electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_const…
Why would the Greens and the LibDems co-operate as proposed if it gave Labour a 136 seat majority?
What benefit does it give them?
Yes it gets rid of the Conservatives but it replaces them with a larger Labour majority which could be worse.
Absolutely right, Mr Verulamius. I have no wish to see another Conservative government, and I have no wish to see a Labour government either.
Only brain-washed Conservatives and their supporters in the media talk of "a pact". Priorities about where to campaign to win are determined by shortage of resources, unlike the Conservatives who have access to almost unlimited wealth through their closeness to Russian oligarchs, unprincipled bankers, speculative mega construction companies and the like.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
Sure! But the influx I was talking about was in the early Blair years with a shortage created in the Tory years. Neither big party seems to understand that trades are important, and even now where the problems are more acute this government is good at announcing it is doing things for apprentices whilst not actually doing so.
All parties are good at announcing things and not following through with them sadly. Remind me how your party followed through on the announced tuition policys they ran with in the election? As I have said before the main issue we have is we only have so much money and we are trying to spread it too thin. We need a proper conversation as to whats important and stop doing the rest.
Johnson has shown he can beat discredited Labour figures like Livingstone and Corbyn.
Livingstone, for one, is mostly discredited because Boris beat him. Twice.
And in any case, as any sports fan knows, you can only beat what's put in front of you.
Indeed! I don't remember Livingstone being "discredited" in 2008?
He wasn't. Johnson beating him once was considered extraordinary. The Guardian had a melt down.
The second time, was still a surprise. Johnson nuked Ken over personal tax, though Livingstone increased his personal vote. To his highest vote for mayor, incidentally -
I see from @GaryL on the previous thread that we don’t have the power “to force Russia to withdraw” but we can abandon Ukraine to their fate.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
No a Vietnam quagmire is inevitable plus Russian gains in the east sadly, Realpolitik now has to come into play
There are few wars more different to the Ukraine War than Vietnam.
What is happening at the moment is that the Donbas is acting a bit like a car's crumple zone. The Ukrainians are absorbing the energy of the Russian advance while retreating when they have to. Russia is suffering very heavy losses for only marginal gains as a result.
At some point the impetus of the Russian advance will end. Then we will see if Ukraine are able to launch a more effective offensive operation.
If a Ukrainian counteroffensive fails then both sides might be ready for negotiation. The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
Looks increasingly bleak for US democracy and peaceful stability argues Friedman after lunch with Biden:
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
Looks increasingly bleak for US democracy and peaceful stability argues Friedman after lunch with Biden:
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
It goes back to David Cameron who should have nailed down Brexit before calling the referendum.
How, exactly?
He told the public what would happen.
They cried "Project fear"
He could have done a Thatcher and negotiated an amended deal. She got a rebate, he could have got an end to freedom of movement
He tried, officially at least.
But that's not the point John was making - the terms of Brexit should have been negotiated before the referendum(*) so that people knew what they were voting on. The reason they weren't, of course, is that Cameron was trying to win a referendum to stay in the EU and knew he'd need to use Project Fear to do so. Nearly worked, too.
(*) Or, at the very least, EEA/EFTA should have been on the ballot paper.
Apart from the EU would have refused to negotiate so even if he had wanted to Cameron could not of put a brexit on the table and said that it what you will get as when the time came who knew what the EU would agree to or not.
The UK never used the tools available to it. State aid? Officially banned yet various other countries would do it with gay abandon and worry about a slap on the wrists once the steel works was safe. Freedom of Movement? Simply implement a national ID card and require everyone to register them with their employers. The rules allowed countries to deport freeloaders after 90 days, so we could have done as the likes of Belgium were doing.
Incidentally, I have to talk up the government's success in the latter area. The UK workforce has shrunk by 600k since 2019/20, a triumph for all those employers who have unfillable vacancies which now threatens their ability to remain functional. Huzzah!
Have I ever claimed we did use all the tools and even when we were in the eu the euphiles did plenty of moaning if we broke the rules. As to the uk work force shrinking well I am not going to cry if firms go bust that were using all that unlimited labour pool to pay wages you yourself have said weren't enough to live on.
Good employers that pay well will survive. Marginal business's that could only survive my squeezing employee wages down to the bare minimum and that only because taxpayers were providing top ups to the employees I really can't be moved to shed a tear for. Tough luck on them. The employees of those companies will soon find new opportunities given the employment market and probably with better pay and conditions.
Seems to me the employees are gaining wealth and the employers that are silas marners are going to find themselves going out of business
I don't have much sympathy for non-viable businesses where only by paying slave wages can they function. But I'm not concerned about them - its all the sectors where they can't get labour at any price that are in trouble. Hospitality being a prime example. Locals don't want to work in the sector despite very healthy wages and besides there is local high levels of employment.
I've debated this with BR before who said people in Widnes should just uproot to take factory jobs in Wisbech. Amazingly enough there aren't any takers for such things. Which is why we both have large pockets of unemployment and underemployment and pockets of industries in deep shit because of a lack of workers.
I never said people in Widnes should take factory jobs in Wisbech, though there's nothing wrong with an on your bike attitude.
But if there's availability for workers in Widnes, but not Wisbech, then maybe the factory should be located in Widnes instead? Maybe that should encourage investment in Widnes instead?
We could possibly call that 'levelling up'.
If there's no workers available in Wisbech for the factory, perhaps the factory should close down. Or if the factory doesn't want to close down, it can pay attractive wages that attract workers. That's free market economics working.
That's a more sensible attitude to telling people to move - as you did.
But in reality there is a good reason the food industry places factories close to the food sources they are there to process. It makes no sense to relocate them from Anglia to Cheshire, and we both know the government isn't about to make efforts to make that happen. Not even creating a freeport would help!
As for the wages point, you miss the reality. Its not about wages, its about a lack of bodies. "Just pay more" would need to be huuuuge amounts more to entice people either to do long commutes or move.
If you want bodies you need to pay enough to attract those bodies to move.
If it costs a huuuuge amount more, then pay it, or invest in automation so you don't need the bodies, or find another solution, or go out of business. That's a free market.
No business has a divine right to cheap plebs to run itself with.
Whilst I agree with the principle of that, in practice it is a little more tricky. I know that you are an advocate for scrapping farming and the food industry so you're not bothered, but in the real world its a problem.
Food inflation is now running away and as the commentators keep pointing out the real upward pressure hasn't kicked in yet - it will get a lot worse. "Just pay more" only accelerates the inflation and puts more people in real trouble.
I'm not an advocate for scrapping farming and the food industry, I'm an advocate for farming and the food industry standing on its own two feet without the state getting involved. That's very different.
New Zealand abolished tariffs and support to the farming industry and instead of their agricultural sector collapsing as forecast it thrived instead. I see no reason our industry couldn't do the same given the opportunity.
If paying a decent wage causes problems then anyone so inefficient they can't operate without paying a decent wage in a full employment environment should go out of business and they can be replaced by a more productive, more efficient and better ran operation instead.
That's how we get long term economic growth and productivity gains. Creative destruction works, rather than feathering in unproductive businesses with state subsidies that just hold us back.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Is @GaryL now basically admitting that he speaks to us from Smolensk? Interesting
And why not? We have posters who are (permanently) elsewhere in the world and others like your good self who travel a lot. PB needs to find a pro-Kim poster from North Korea as well for the full set.
Looks increasingly bleak for US democracy and peaceful stability argues Friedman after lunch with Biden:
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
And they are more than hinting that in any close election in 2024 — or even ones that aren’t so close — they would be willing to depart from established constitutional rules and norms and award that election to Trump or other Republican candidates who didn’t actually garner the most votes. They are not whispering this platform. They are running for office on it.
The 2024 Presidential Election and its aftermath are going to be world shaking chaos. Can't wait. 🤣
Is @GaryL now basically admitting that he speaks to us from Smolensk? Interesting
And why not? We have posters who are (permanently) elsewhere in the world and others like your good self who travel a lot. PB needs to find a pro-Kim poster from North Korea as well for the full set.
I look fucking awesome in a little fat boy jump suit, id like to apply
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. .
His range of action is fairly limited when it comes to policies because if they become too popular Johnson will nick them and if it costs any money the tories will say we can't afford it. (But can afford a national flegship, etc)
Legalising cannabis would be a good policy for Labour because it'd be young voter turnout machine, doesn't cost anything and Johnson couldn't co-opt it as he couldn't take the gammon wing of the MPs with him on it.
It is absolutely remarkable that no major party has adopted a sensible liberal position on legalising and taxing cannabis.
Go from spending money failing to fight a war on drugs, clogging up Police, Courts and Prisons with consensual behaviour - and instead get a revenue stream of taxes that can be spent on SchoolsNHospitals or whatever else your priority is.
Its an absolute economic no-brainer to be liberal there. And gives you a source of revenue you can use to fund your other priorities.
LDs not a 'major' party? And Scottish Greens in Scotland are more significant than LDs.
Looks increasingly bleak for US democracy and peaceful stability argues Friedman after lunch with Biden:
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
And they are more than hinting that in any close election in 2024 — or even ones that aren’t so close — they would be willing to depart from established constitutional rules and norms and award that election to Trump or other Republican candidates who didn’t actually garner the most votes. They are not whispering this platform. They are running for office on it.
The 2024 Presidential Election and its aftermath are going to be world shaking chaos. Can't wait. 🤣
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
Sure! But the influx I was talking about was in the early Blair years with a shortage created in the Tory years. Neither big party seems to understand that trades are important, and even now where the problems are more acute this government is good at announcing it is doing things for apprentices whilst not actually doing so.
All parties are good at announcing things and not following through with them sadly. Remind me how your party followed through on the announced tuition policys they ran with in the election? As I have said before the main issue we have is we only have so much money and we are trying to spread it too thin. We need a proper conversation as to whats important and stop doing the rest.
I agree - what is politically possible has shrunk and shrunk until the planning horizon is barely the current budget period, never mind the next election. The reason why this country has shit infrastructure and no strategic control of anything is because we have allowed short-termism to win.
And TBH its the same with so many businesses as well. We used to have shares traded in companies where people bought in for the long term. Which allowed them to invest in multi-generational projects which pay out years after the money gets spent. Instead we're fixated on a quick buck and maximising the quarterly profit projections.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Not everyone. But there is a significant International Brigade on here who will call you all the bastards under the sun if you point out that Ukraine taking 1,000 KIA/day and having their entire country wrecked from end to end isn't a shining and inevitable victory.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Some of GaryL's comments are direct copies from other dodgy websites though.
I suppose the distinction is we don't get paid post here. Though, having said that, I wonder if some of our more persuasive posters are trying lines out for CCHQ etc...
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
I'm not really in that camp - I don't hate Boris (partly because he's actually been pretty good on animal welfare) and politics is all about policy for me. But it's interesting that the Australian, French and US election results seem to have been decided very much on that "negative partisanship" basis - neither Biden, Macron or Albo have many wild enthusiasts, but enough people just wanted to get rid of Trump and Morrison and stop Le Pen. With the decline of political certainty - how many people really feel that either globalised free markets or state control have proved to be The Answer? - I wonder if negative voting will increasingly be decisive. In which case having boring leaders who are hard to attack convincingly may be the way to win.
Yes, I'm optimistic we'll follow suit. The Tories have a structural FPTP advantage but the 'anti' vote can prevail if it's distributed efficiently.
On the policies thing, what I mean is it's hard - at least for me - to take it seriously when the PM obviously doesn't. Windfall tax or not. Rwanda. Conversion therapy. NI protocol. Energy subsidies. Ukraine rhetoric. Everything from this government has an air of phoniness and triviality because you know the one and only objective is shoring up Boris Johnson.
OT, a few days ago someone was asking about the candidate in the Oregon race who got a load of money dumped on them by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. I posted what was probably not a very good explanation of the Effective Altruism movement.
What I didn't realize was that SBF's mum is a moral philosophy professor, and SBF has made 20 billion dollars and is using it to promote the application of her ideas. Seems like a good kid.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
BIB: This is, of course, literally the definition of the Red Wall - seats that demographically should have turned Tory but were for cutural and historical reasons still Labour.
However. It is not how it is commonly used. There are dozens more which didn't go Tory in 2019 so could by this definition. In more common usage, however, there are plenty of "Red Wall" seats which are actually just marginals. They simply went Tory because they won an 80 seat majority.
Marginals will go with the majority yes, but the Red Wall in its truest sense of the term is not the same.
While some people object to FPTP because of "safe seats" it is worth noting that no seat is guaranteed to remain safe, and equally marginal seats can become safe. All safe seats are, are seats where the public currently has made up its mind, but they can always change it.
To highlight three seats:
Warrington South, Cheshire, was Labour from 1992 to 2010, regained by Labour in 2017 and regained by the Tories in 2019. Its been a marginal high up the target list for whichever party hasn't held it almost consistently. Indeed I campaigned for Mowat in this seat in 2015 and was chuffed when he was re-elected, I expected him to sadly lose the seat and the BBC exit poll (wrongly) projected he would even when it was predicting a good night for the Tories. I expect if the Tories lose the next election, this will go back to Labour again.
South Ribble, Lancashire, was Labour 1997 to 2010 but the majority has only widened at every election since (even 2017) and now has an outright majority of votes cast for the Tories and a nearly 21% majority. Be a shock if this went back to Labour even if they won a majority now.
Esher and Walton, Surrey, was Tory from 1997 to date and had an over 50% majority in 2015 but is now a marginal with a majority down to 4.4% and will probably be lost by the Tories at the next election whether they win or lose a majority.
The next election could see Tories losing seats in Surrey while holding seats in the North. That may not be a bad thing for the party or the country.
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
Wansbeck won't exist after boundary reform. The Labour bit, Ashington, is going to Blyth and Ashington. Solid Labour. The Tory bit, Morpeth, is going to Berwick. Solid Tory.
Edit. No clue what happened to block quote there.
True, true, i was scouting the existing stuff. Sunderland Central looks the most likely interesting seat of the 3 former Sunderland seats
Dunno much about Sunderland. But two to watch north of the Tyne on new boundaries will be Cramlington and Whitley Bay, a new seat throwing together two places with rapid demographic change, in completely opposite directions. Has the makings of a new bellwether seat. And Hexham. It has had a ward of Newcastle added to it. It's been moving against the NE trend for some time and becomes vulnerable on a decent night for Labour. Nowt else looks competitive north of the river.
Why this is the telegraph if Ukraine is on the verge of winning
Western resolve set to be tested as key US and EU figures want Ukraine to cede territory
The inevitable outcome may be a compromise, but as the balance shifts there is more fighting to be done before either side will accept one
ByRoland Oliphant, SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT22 May 2022 • 8:03pm
May 23, 2022
In three months of war in Ukraine, Russia is likely to have suffered casualty numbers similar to those experienced by the Soviet Union during a nine-year conflict in Afghanistan, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has claimed.
The MoD has listed a number of failures that have led to Russia experiencing heavy casualties in Ukraine, the numbers of which have continued to rise in its offensive in the east of the country.
In a daily briefing on Twitter on Monday, the MoD said: “In the first three months of its ‘special military operation’, Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine year war in Afghanistan.
If you look at the early days of the Vietnam war, the American authorities and military were saying exactly the same about the VC as our leaders are saying about Russia now.
Heavy casualties, no equipment left, technically inferior, last resistance, can't go on much longer.
Johnson has shown he can beat discredited Labour figures like Livingstone and Corbyn.
Livingstone, for one, is mostly discredited because Boris beat him. Twice.
And in any case, as any sports fan knows, you can only beat what's put in front of you.
Indeed! I don't remember Livingstone being "discredited" in 2008?
He wasn't. Johnson beating him once was considered extraordinary. The Guardian had a melt down.
The second time, was still a surprise. Johnson nuked Ken over personal tax, though Livingstone increased his personal vote. To his highest vote for mayor, incidentally -
Looks increasingly bleak for US democracy and peaceful stability argues Friedman after lunch with Biden:
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
And they are more than hinting that in any close election in 2024 — or even ones that aren’t so close — they would be willing to depart from established constitutional rules and norms and award that election to Trump or other Republican candidates who didn’t actually garner the most votes. They are not whispering this platform. They are running for office on it.
The 2024 Presidential Election and its aftermath are going to be world shaking chaos. Can't wait. 🤣
That would only be possible however if the Republicans win both the House and Senate in November and a majority of Republican Senators are also willing to challenge the Presidential election result, which they were not in 2020 even if most Republican House Representatives were
It goes back to David Cameron who should have nailed down Brexit before calling the referendum.
How, exactly?
He told the public what would happen.
They cried "Project fear"
He could have done a Thatcher and negotiated an amended deal. She got a rebate, he could have got an end to freedom of movement
He tried, officially at least.
But that's not the point John was making - the terms of Brexit should have been negotiated before the referendum(*) so that people knew what they were voting on. The reason they weren't, of course, is that Cameron was trying to win a referendum to stay in the EU and knew he'd need to use Project Fear to do so. Nearly worked, too.
(*) Or, at the very least, EEA/EFTA should have been on the ballot paper.
Apart from the EU would have refused to negotiate so even if he had wanted to Cameron could not of put a brexit on the table and said that it what you will get as when the time came who knew what the EU would agree to or not.
The UK never used the tools available to it. State aid? Officially banned yet various other countries would do it with gay abandon and worry about a slap on the wrists once the steel works was safe. Freedom of Movement? Simply implement a national ID card and require everyone to register them with their employers. The rules allowed countries to deport freeloaders after 90 days, so we could have done as the likes of Belgium were doing.
Incidentally, I have to talk up the government's success in the latter area. The UK workforce has shrunk by 600k since 2019/20, a triumph for all those employers who have unfillable vacancies which now threatens their ability to remain functional. Huzzah!
Have I ever claimed we did use all the tools and even when we were in the eu the euphiles did plenty of moaning if we broke the rules. As to the uk work force shrinking well I am not going to cry if firms go bust that were using all that unlimited labour pool to pay wages you yourself have said weren't enough to live on.
Good employers that pay well will survive. Marginal business's that could only survive my squeezing employee wages down to the bare minimum and that only because taxpayers were providing top ups to the employees I really can't be moved to shed a tear for. Tough luck on them. The employees of those companies will soon find new opportunities given the employment market and probably with better pay and conditions.
Seems to me the employees are gaining wealth and the employers that are silas marners are going to find themselves going out of business
I don't have much sympathy for non-viable businesses where only by paying slave wages can they function. But I'm not concerned about them - its all the sectors where they can't get labour at any price that are in trouble. Hospitality being a prime example. Locals don't want to work in the sector despite very healthy wages and besides there is local high levels of employment.
I've debated this with BR before who said people in Widnes should just uproot to take factory jobs in Wisbech. Amazingly enough there aren't any takers for such things. Which is why we both have large pockets of unemployment and underemployment and pockets of industries in deep shit because of a lack of workers.
I never said people in Widnes should take factory jobs in Wisbech, though there's nothing wrong with an on your bike attitude.
But if there's availability for workers in Widnes, but not Wisbech, then maybe the factory should be located in Widnes instead? Maybe that should encourage investment in Widnes instead?
We could possibly call that 'levelling up'.
If there's no workers available in Wisbech for the factory, perhaps the factory should close down. Or if the factory doesn't want to close down, it can pay attractive wages that attract workers. That's free market economics working.
That's a more sensible attitude to telling people to move - as you did.
But in reality there is a good reason the food industry places factories close to the food sources they are there to process. It makes no sense to relocate them from Anglia to Cheshire, and we both know the government isn't about to make efforts to make that happen. Not even creating a freeport would help!
As for the wages point, you miss the reality. Its not about wages, its about a lack of bodies. "Just pay more" would need to be huuuuge amounts more to entice people either to do long commutes or move.
If you want bodies you need to pay enough to attract those bodies to move.
If it costs a huuuuge amount more, then pay it, or invest in automation so you don't need the bodies, or find another solution, or go out of business. That's a free market.
No business has a divine right to cheap plebs to run itself with.
Whilst I agree with the principle of that, in practice it is a little more tricky. I know that you are an advocate for scrapping farming and the food industry so you're not bothered, but in the real world its a problem.
Food inflation is now running away and as the commentators keep pointing out the real upward pressure hasn't kicked in yet - it will get a lot worse. "Just pay more" only accelerates the inflation and puts more people in real trouble.
I'm not an advocate for scrapping farming and the food industry, I'm an advocate for farming and the food industry standing on its own two feet without the state getting involved. That's very different.
New Zealand abolished tariffs and support to the farming industry and instead of their agricultural sector collapsing as forecast it thrived instead. I see no reason our industry couldn't do the same given the opportunity.
If paying a decent wage causes problems then anyone so inefficient they can't operate without paying a decent wage in a full employment environment should go out of business and they can be replaced by a more productive, more efficient and better ran operation instead.
That's how we get long term economic growth and productivity gains. Creative destruction works, rather than feathering in unproductive businesses with state subsidies that just hold us back.
Again, in the real world we're competing against markets where subsidy is everywhere. We lost steel because "stand on its own two feet" meant non-subsidised steel proving to be more expensive than subsidised steel. Which we now import instead of making our own.
We're sat on the edge of our biggest food market (the EU) which notoriously subsidises the shit out of it. So we either subsidise or we lose it, and no we can't just trade elsewhere as fresh food goes off and the other markets are all so much smaller.
Again you talk in absolutes based on textbook theory and utterly ignore the real world. I agree with you that we need to work to transform our currently shit position in so many industries, but creative destruction is just destruction. Haven't we learned that lesson when we lost heavy industry?
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
And while it is certainly true that the situation is not irrecoverable, surely "something must change" for the post-2019 trend to reverse. I don't believe that this deep into a Government, "swingback" is really a thing; we're not in the midterm blues, we're at the fin-de-siecle.
Swingback was a thing in both 1997 and 2010 so why wouldn't it be a thing today?
Even fin-de-siecle swingback still exists.
If the swing is strong enough then swingback won't be sufficient to reverse the damage, that happened in 2010 and 1997, even though there was swingback the swing away had been too much for the government to survive.
1997 was definitely a methodological problem (I think there's plenty of discussion of that). 2010 was very interesting - because while there was a substantial decrease in the Tory lead from the peaks in 2008 (roughly comparable to the time from now to the next election), the "something that changed" (to my point above) was the dramatic increase in the LD vote share from ~15% to ~23%.
It's the "something that changes" that impacts what happens. In this case that could help either Labour or the Tories, and the "swing(back)" could be in either direction.
Swing could be in either direction but swingback occurred both times.
Yes there was a methodological problem in 1997 but that doesn't remove the fact that significant swingback occurred from the midterms to the election day. The swingback wasn't enough since the swing away by the midterms was so catastrophic for the Tories that the decision was already made, but there was still swingback even with the methodological issues.
Again in 2010 there was swingback too. Yes there was an LD surge in the election campaign, but there almost always is and the polls exaggerated it. However from early 2008 to the election day there was a very real swingback to Labour and away from the Tories which was sufficient to deny the Tories an overall majority.
In 2009 the Tories were polling a double-digit poll lead in almost every single poll, most poll leads were in the teens and there were as many 20+ as there were in the high single digits. In 2010 swingback occurred before the Lib Dem surge and the lead was narrowed to single digits long before the first debate and the rise of the Lib Dems.
Not just during the campaign - take a look at the Lib Dem figures from 2008 - 2010 (and ignore the "in campaign filip" right at the end). The climb from a trough of ~15% in 2008 to ~20% at the start of the campaign. The campaign then does them some more good to the tune of doubling their numbers, but they are a significant contribution. Labour and the Tories *both* decline from 2008-2010 (with local minima and maxima so you can pick your date ranges to suit your argument )
I'm not disagreeing with you - but I think I'm talking about the difference between the maths and the physics; the what and the how and the why.
The Lib Dem averages are remarkably flat in the pre-campaign period.
It is swingback to Labour that is far more significant.
That's precisely what I meant by picking your ranges to suit your argument. Drop that range back to early 2008 and it all looks different, with significant local peaks and troughs.
Looks increasingly bleak for US democracy and peaceful stability argues Friedman after lunch with Biden:
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
And they are more than hinting that in any close election in 2024 — or even ones that aren’t so close — they would be willing to depart from established constitutional rules and norms and award that election to Trump or other Republican candidates who didn’t actually garner the most votes. They are not whispering this platform. They are running for office on it.
The 2024 Presidential Election and its aftermath are going to be world shaking chaos. Can't wait. 🤣
On the other side, we can expect Zuckerberg to ramp up his election-buying efforts which were so successful last time.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Not everyone. But there is a significant International Brigade on here who will call you all the bastards under the sun if you point out that Ukraine taking 1,000 KIA/day and having their entire country wrecked from end to end isn't a shining and inevitable victory.
Not inevitable, but it is a shining victory.
The UK suffered 450,900 deaths in WWII and large parts of the country was wrecked too, to the point there were still bombed out buildings getting redeveloped by the 1980s. However most people would consider the defeat of Hitler and the UK winning WWII as a tremendous and shining victory.
The Ukrainians are quite literally fighting to defend their homeland from invasion. Those who give their lives in this fight will no doubt be remembered by generations to come, just as we remember our Fallen from the past, but they are not giving their lives in vain fighting off this invasion.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Some of GaryL's comments are direct copies from other dodgy websites though.
I suppose the distinction is we don't get paid post here.
Like a pro-am competition.
Hadn't realised they were direct copies - or indeed cared: so what imo. You could probably find "Boris is a twat" posted on a fair few websites around if you were looking.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Not everyone. But there is a significant International Brigade on here who will call you all the bastards under the sun if you point out that Ukraine taking 1,000 KIA/day and having their entire country wrecked from end to end isn't a shining and inevitable victory.
Not inevitable, but it is a shining victory.
The UK suffered 450,900 deaths in WWII and large parts of the country was wrecked too, to the point there were still bombed out buildings getting redeveloped by the 1980s. However most people would consider the defeat of Hitler and the UK winning WWII as a tremendous and shining victory.
The Ukrainians are quite literally fighting to defend their homeland from invasion. Those who give their lives in this fight will no doubt be remembered by generations to come, just as we remember our Fallen from the past, but they are not giving their lives in vain fighting off this invasion.
The "realists" , who view Russia as the gendarme of Eastern Europe, are having a very bad war.
Why this is the telegraph if Ukraine is on the verge of winning
Western resolve set to be tested as key US and EU figures want Ukraine to cede territory
The inevitable outcome may be a compromise, but as the balance shifts there is more fighting to be done before either side will accept one
ByRoland Oliphant, SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT22 May 2022 • 8:03pm
May 23, 2022
In three months of war in Ukraine, Russia is likely to have suffered casualty numbers similar to those experienced by the Soviet Union during a nine-year conflict in Afghanistan, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has claimed.
The MoD has listed a number of failures that have led to Russia experiencing heavy casualties in Ukraine, the numbers of which have continued to rise in its offensive in the east of the country.
In a daily briefing on Twitter on Monday, the MoD said: “In the first three months of its ‘special military operation’, Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine year war in Afghanistan.
If you look at the early days of the Vietnam war, the American authorities and military were saying exactly the same about the VC as our leaders are saying about Russia now.
Heavy casualties, no equipment left, technically inferior, last resistance, can't go on much longer.
And yet....
And yet Russia are the USA in this analogy not the Vietcong.
Except its going far worse for Russia than it did for the USA. And the Ukrainians fighting for their homeland are far better supported and aided than the Vietcong were.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
Sure! But the influx I was talking about was in the early Blair years with a shortage created in the Tory years. Neither big party seems to understand that trades are important, and even now where the problems are more acute this government is good at announcing it is doing things for apprentices whilst not actually doing so.
All parties are good at announcing things and not following through with them sadly. Remind me how your party followed through on the announced tuition policys they ran with in the election? As I have said before the main issue we have is we only have so much money and we are trying to spread it too thin. We need a proper conversation as to whats important and stop doing the rest.
I agree - what is politically possible has shrunk and shrunk until the planning horizon is barely the current budget period, never mind the next election. The reason why this country has shit infrastructure and no strategic control of anything is because we have allowed short-termism to win.
And TBH its the same with so many businesses as well. We used to have shares traded in companies where people bought in for the long term. Which allowed them to invest in multi-generational projects which pay out years after the money gets spent. Instead we're fixated on a quick buck and maximising the quarterly profit projections.
I suspect on the company side at least we could improve things easily by paying bonuses only on long term performance rather than yearly. However that is for shareholders to force through. Sadly most investors are looking for short term results so they can parrot "Our fund made x% over the stock market average" in their literature
On the political side the problem I think is largely down as much as anything is down to the media and tribalism where by everything is opposed regardless of whether it might actually be a good idea dependent on which side proposes it. A good example of this for example was May's 2017 dementia tax. Not saying it was the best solution but at least it was a move towards one and it would nice instead of just statements like evil tories trying to steal your inheritance it had been talked about with a bit of nuance and perhaps some of the problems raised and suggestions how to ameliorate them.
All sides do this for the other side that was just a recent example that came to mind. An example the other way would be Sure start centres.
How we reduce hyperbolic shrieking and tribalism though I have no idea.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
Not everyone. But there is a significant International Brigade on here who will call you all the bastards under the sun if you point out that Ukraine taking 1,000 KIA/day and having their entire country wrecked from end to end isn't a shining and inevitable victory.
This “Brigade” only exists in your peculiar, frazzled, pickled-in-Xanax-and-ethanol brain
Thanks to everyone for the interesting discussion. As for whether the ideology comes first or the nastiness, I'd like to mention an anecdote that I've posted before.
When I was 16, I was a volunteer at an organisation. I met and became friends with a farmer who was fifteen or so years older than me. He was a bit 'slow', but a hard grafter and keen. We never talked about politics or anything complex. He was good fun.
After six months, I discovered that ten years earlier he had been a neo-Nazi, and had walked on a march through a local city. I would have disbelieved this if several people had not told me independently. Yet in the years I knew him, he showed zero sign of it - and was courteously polite to my girlfriends, some of whom were foreign.
I reckon he just wanted to belong to a group. In his youth, he had chosen (or been chosen by) an evil ideology. A few years later, he was doing something very different. He was a bit of an outsider, and wanted to belong - if he had an ideology he never mentioned it.
But the thing is this: he was a hard grafter and easily led. He could be told to do something, and he would work hard at it, and do it well. That 'order' might be to feed the animals, fetch some tools, unclog a drain, or perhaps something darker.
I think many people are like this; wanting to find groups to which they 'belong'. And many people take advantage of this.
Broadly speaking that is why I have an optimistic view of individual human nature, eg innate goodness, but pessimistic views of how easy it can be to warp that nature collectively.
Comments
Finally, a reminder - the Red Wall was originally a set of seats that had demographically and socially shifted blue but had not yet voted conservative.
Places change.
People change.
There may be some inertia.
I'm off for a drive in my gold-plated quitewagon.
Help please?
Nationally, voting is now predominantly about age rather than class or income, which means that the political balance is evening out across the whole country. Perhaps that's a good thing for national cohesion. People like Rees-Mogg at one end and the Communist Party website that I was looking at in the RMT context both feel as though they're from a bygone age, when it was all about the landed classes vs the proletariat.
Despite my constant mutterings to the contrary the markets are *still* overestimating the chances of Johnson somehow going before the GE. Solid value is therefore still available on bets like "Starmer Next PM" and the various BJ exit dates.
Total disgrace this guy is our PM. It really bugs me. It's changed me a bit too. Like any cerebral progressive worth their salt I used to be very interested in policy matters but now I'm not. "Boris" has turned me into a mirror of his messed-up self. It's clear he doesn't give a shit about anything so long as he gets to carry on being PM. Well ok then. So I don't give a shit about policies - or indeed much to do with British politics - so long as he fucks off.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
It is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Margaret Rutherford. Her father murdered her grandfather, a clergyman, with a chamber pot, she was the last woman born in the 19th C to win an Oscar, and her cousin was Tony Benn.
And adopted the trans daughter of Vita Sackville-West's chauffeur ...
https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/status/1528266437336391680
There’s a tank museum in Bovington https://tankmuseum.org/ with a few old relics they keep running, but not sure the British Army keeps stocks of old tanks ‘just in case’, as the Russians do.
One advantage of NATO, is that any defensive land war that the UK might realistically be involved with, would involve pooling resources from many nations including the USA.
In fact the South East still has the 3rd highest home ownership rate in England after the Midlands and the Midlands unlike the North is becoming increasingly Conservative I agree due to its high leave vote and home ownership rate.
The lowest rate of home ownership however is in London which is where new affordable housing needs to be focused not the southern greenbelt and is now Labour's safest region
https://www.birdandco.co.uk/site/blog/conveyancing-blog/midlands-has-the-highest-home-ownership-rate-in-england
But in reality there is a good reason the food industry places factories close to the food sources they are there to process. It makes no sense to relocate them from Anglia to Cheshire, and we both know the government isn't about to make efforts to make that happen. Not even creating a freeport would help!
As for the wages point, you miss the reality. Its not about wages, its about a lack of bodies. "Just pay more" would need to be huuuuge amounts more to entice people either to do long commutes or move.
Well the polite term is "useful idiot".
The Labour bit, Ashington, is going to Blyth and Ashington. Solid Labour.
The Tory bit, Morpeth, is going to Berwick. Solid Tory.
Edit. No clue what happened to block quote there.
If the Gray report is published this week there will be a immediate 'furore' but then Parliament goes into recess on Thursday until after the platinum celebrations, by which time Boris will no doubt be hoping the country is in a better mood, and will announce a package of measures that may well see him in place to GE24
I have no idea what will happen, but as much as anyone 'frets' about Boris there is only one group of people who can do anything about it, and they know who they are
If it costs a huuuuge amount more, then pay it, or invest in automation so you don't need the bodies, or find another solution, or go out of business. That's a free market.
No business has a divine right to cheap plebs to run itself with.
True, as with Vietnam, but to far greater extent, the population are united in wanting to throw out the imperialist invader.
But unlike the US in Vietnam, Russia does not have the resources to sustain the effort.
You missed your opportunity when Trump was president.
'Sadly'.
Sunderland Central looks the most likely interesting seat of the 3 former Sunderland seats
You're not even useful.
What is happening at the moment is that the Donbas is acting a bit like a car's crumple zone. The Ukrainians are absorbing the energy of the Russian advance while retreating when they have to. Russia is suffering very heavy losses for only marginal gains as a result.
At some point the impetus of the Russian advance will end. Then we will see if Ukraine are able to launch a more effective offensive operation.
If a Ukrainian counteroffensive fails then both sides might be ready for negotiation. The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
It's good politics. It's bad policy. And that's why I expect Boris to implement it.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
https://www.birdandco.co.uk/site/blog/conveyancing-blog/midlands-has-the-highest-home-ownership-rate-in-england
Do you get the feeling yet that your attempts to persuade us the west is going to weaken isn't working where pretty much everyone here is telling you the same. Russia must and will be stopped and stopped hard.
I think what you mean was "you couldn't get a plumber" for the dirt cheap amount you wanted to pay people. Quite frankly, any time I've wanted a plumber I've always been able to get one, it just maybe cost more than I would have liked.
If you need something enough, you pay for it, and when you have an issue with water or gas it makes sense to pay a professional if that is what is required.
We couldn't clamp down on "benefits tourists" due to the universal nature of benefits in this country that you would call the Tories all sorts of things if they dared to go near.
Skunk (and similar hyper strains) was invented to reduce volume for illegal traffic. It's like 80% by volume alcohol vs beer. The problem is that the legalisation types don't want to talk about the harm that skunk does.
Scrap universal credit however and those out of work who have not contributed enough would just be left with foodbanks
Food inflation is now running away and as the commentators keep pointing out the real upward pressure hasn't kicked in yet - it will get a lot worse. "Just pay more" only accelerates the inflation and puts more people in real trouble.
Western resolve set to be tested as key US and EU figures want Ukraine to cede territory
The inevitable outcome may be a compromise, but as the balance shifts there is more fighting to be done before either side will accept one
ByRoland Oliphant, SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT22 May 2022 • 8:03pm
May 23, 2022
In three months of war in Ukraine, Russia is likely to have suffered casualty numbers similar to those experienced by the Soviet Union during a nine-year conflict in Afghanistan, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has claimed.
The MoD has listed a number of failures that have led to Russia experiencing heavy casualties in Ukraine, the numbers of which have continued to rise in its offensive in the east of the country.
In a daily briefing on Twitter on Monday, the MoD said: “In the first three months of its ‘special military operation’, Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine year war in Afghanistan.
Only brain-washed Conservatives and their supporters in the media talk of "a pact". Priorities about where to campaign to win are determined by shortage of resources, unlike the Conservatives who have access to almost unlimited wealth through their closeness to Russian oligarchs, unprincipled bankers, speculative mega construction companies and the like.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The second time, was still a surprise. Johnson nuked Ken over personal tax, though Livingstone increased his personal vote. To his highest vote for mayor, incidentally -
2000 - Ken got 39%
2004 - 36.8%
2008 - 37% (lost)
2012 - 40.3% (lost)
Hardly the performance of a politician in freewill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culminating_point
"I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back.
I am talking about our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately, an ability we have demonstrated since our founding. The peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/opinion/biden-trump-republicans-democrats.html
New Zealand abolished tariffs and support to the farming industry and instead of their agricultural sector collapsing as forecast it thrived instead. I see no reason our industry couldn't do the same given the opportunity.
If paying a decent wage causes problems then anyone so inefficient they can't operate without paying a decent wage in a full employment environment should go out of business and they can be replaced by a more productive, more efficient and better ran operation instead.
That's how we get long term economic growth and productivity gains. Creative destruction works, rather than feathering in unproductive businesses with state subsidies that just hold us back.
Russian Trollnormal poster @Heathener. )In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
The 2024 Presidential Election and its aftermath are going to be world shaking chaos. Can't wait. 🤣
And TBH its the same with so many businesses as well. We used to have shares traded in companies where people bought in for the long term. Which allowed them to invest in multi-generational projects which pay out years after the money gets spent. Instead we're fixated on a quick buck and maximising the quarterly profit projections.
I suppose the distinction is we don't get paid post here. Though, having said that, I wonder if some of our more persuasive posters are trying lines out for CCHQ etc...
On the policies thing, what I mean is it's hard - at least for me - to take it seriously when the PM obviously doesn't. Windfall tax or not. Rwanda. Conversion therapy. NI protocol. Energy subsidies. Ukraine rhetoric. Everything from this government has an air of phoniness and triviality because you know the one and only objective is shoring up Boris Johnson.
Ygesias has a good piece on it.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/understanding-effective-altruisms?s=w
What I didn't realize was that SBF's mum is a moral philosophy professor, and SBF has made 20 billion dollars and is using it to promote the application of her ideas. Seems like a good kid.
And Hexham. It has had a ward of Newcastle added to it. It's been moving against the NE trend for some time and becomes vulnerable on a decent night for Labour.
Nowt else looks competitive north of the river.
Heavy casualties, no equipment left, technically inferior, last resistance, can't go on much longer.
And yet....
We're sat on the edge of our biggest food market (the EU) which notoriously subsidises the shit out of it. So we either subsidise or we lose it, and no we can't just trade elsewhere as fresh food goes off and the other markets are all so much smaller.
Again you talk in absolutes based on textbook theory and utterly ignore the real world. I agree with you that we need to work to transform our currently shit position in so many industries, but creative destruction is just destruction. Haven't we learned that lesson when we lost heavy industry?
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
The UK suffered 450,900 deaths in WWII and large parts of the country was wrecked too, to the point there were still bombed out buildings getting redeveloped by the 1980s. However most people would consider the defeat of Hitler and the UK winning WWII as a tremendous and shining victory.
The Ukrainians are quite literally fighting to defend their homeland from invasion. Those who give their lives in this fight will no doubt be remembered by generations to come, just as we remember our Fallen from the past, but they are not giving their lives in vain fighting off this invasion.
Hadn't realised they were direct copies - or indeed cared: so what imo. You could probably find "Boris is a twat" posted on a fair few websites around if you were looking.
Except its going far worse for Russia than it did for the USA. And the Ukrainians fighting for their homeland are far better supported and aided than the Vietcong were.
On the political side the problem I think is largely down as much as anything is down to the media and tribalism where by everything is opposed regardless of whether it might actually be a good idea dependent on which side proposes it. A good example of this for example was May's 2017 dementia tax. Not saying it was the best solution but at least it was a move towards one and it would nice instead of just statements like evil tories trying to steal your inheritance it had been talked about with a bit of nuance and perhaps some of the problems raised and suggestions how to ameliorate them.
All sides do this for the other side that was just a recent example that came to mind. An example the other way would be Sure start centres.
How we reduce hyperbolic shrieking and tribalism though I have no idea.