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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
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
That group of people is the public, BigG, I think. Come the GE they'll either give him another term or kick him out. GE19 was the Brexit election and I see GE24 as the Self Respect election - ie if after 5 years of him taking the piss as PM we decide to vote him back, it'll mean we don't have any.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
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.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
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.
All of them ? I thought they'd retained part of the Ashchurch facility ?
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
In a sense it doesn't matter which sane model a society uses as long as it is consistent. I am not in favour of criminalizing drugs generally. But if you do, you have to do two things: attack the right target, and have a society that accepts painful consequences.
Drugs are like prostitution and driving cars too fast. The attack should be on demand/user not supply. It is ludicrous that you can get 20 years for supplying a demand for drugs when you get a slap on the wrist for being the demander/user. There will always be a few career criminals. But they only supply demands that exist. Most people don't take risks that involve several years in prison. Career criminals do, that's their job. Make the demand side a massive and unacceptable risk if you really want to do something about it from a crime aspect.
Conservatives appear to have selcted a good candidate for the Devon by election, a woman with an atractive background and I believe Dep Mayor of Honiton. Could have a reasonable chance of holding off the male Liberal. Think the betting may change.
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.
Hope he is in this case. I'll happily swallow any betting losses that ensue.
Betfair have finally put a market up btw on "Will he lead into the GE?"
I price it 1.33 for "Yes" but it's looking like it will trade much higher at about 1.8. The punter in me has to do that.
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.
Who on earth ever said that Russia was the gendarme of Eastern Europe.
The argument, if you want to engage with it, is that Russia observed for many years while the US appointed itself gendarme of the world, indeed replying when Russia sought NATO membership, that such an idea was absurd and that the world would be delighted to have the US and only the US as its guardian. Which position included engaging in unilateral and "illegal" actions such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Applauded by much of the West (although far from all).
Hence Russia learned that might is indeed right and that it could appoint itself as guardian of whatever Russian values justified invading Ukraine. A course of action not applauded by the West this 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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
Setting aside Ukraine for a moment, It’s @GaryL’s punctuation and commenting style that intrigues me. Occasionally he forgets all full stops. Or he puts three commas in a row
This is not meant in a hostile way (and I apologise if it appears thus) but @rcs1000 has, as moderator, told us Gary uses a known-to-be-compromised ISP
It is therefore right to be wary, a forum that gets flooded with trolls, bots and sock puppets swiftly becomes boring and pointless. It’s just good housekeeping
He is, as I say, welcome to carry on commenting, as long as the mods see fit. It’s their site
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
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.
Taxes should be predictable.
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
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.
Yes, Hexham has some intrigue now but i think 'should' hold on incumbancy etc short of a meltdown night Whitley bay looks interesting yep, tynemouth used to be Tory but has trended away badly, Blyth the opposite. Would require a swingback to be competitive right now i think but not sure. Sunderland - for reference, the Tories have moved into the 30s from low 20s in all 3 former seats whilst the seats still carry double digit BXP votes. Only Sunderland central survives unchanged so is the one to watch. Theres a new mash up of Washington and Sunderland S and Houghton and Sund S that could be interesting, the Washington part and Bridget Phillipson dug in make it a tough ask though. The remainder of Washington goes into Jarrow and the other half of Houghton is now City of Durham making them likely wasted areas of relative strength.
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.
Taxes should be predictable.
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
Especially given that massive losses were made during the pandemic, and the companies concerned are facing huge costs as a direct result of government sanctions in Russia.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then they are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
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.
An interesting point, especially when you use the Dementia Tax to illustrate it. Remember that for so many Labour voters they won't have a lot of estate to pass on. The hyperbolic shrieking against the policy came from Tories!
The solution to various issues is clearly there and demonstrably works. I can buy energy from EDF, get products delivered by DPD, catch an Arriva bus. All owned by StateCo enterprises ultimately owned by their respective governments. So what we need is for government to say "what kind of stuff do we need" and then ensure those are protected.
As a businessman I am hardly anti-capitalism, but the profit motive is not all there is, and in so many sectors is a disadvantage. Lets take energy as a starter for 10 - we neither have sufficient generating capacity nor control over transmission. Where we start to invest in more capacity we don't have the technical or manufacturing ability. Which means that anything we need whether it be a nuclear power station or wind turbines is made abroad.
We need to create StateCo Energy, StateCo Wind, StateCo Solar etc. Government owned and able to borrow at government rates, but fully commercial. Not only should we be making our own state of the art wind and solar kit, we should be exporting it. Big British industry won't invest in such things both because it is beholden to the stock market but also because the projected economics are entirely beholden to the foibles of future political meddling. So it has to be the state.
Theres a difference between taking a 'realistic' stance about some kind of diplomatic settlement, involving possibly land, and going 'it is immoral to help Ukraine defend itself because war is horrible', which is the inevitable result of saying 'prolonging' things is bad.
The former many would disagree with, especially if they are optimistic about Ukrainian chances, but has a cold logic to it. It's at least arguable.
The latter is just twisting the morality to suggest surrender (but never Russian withdrawal) is the only option.
Realists do themselves no favours trying to suggest their cold but logical stance is similar to the moral reservists. It really isnt. Their stance is more reasonable, no need to whine about people being mean to those advocating a position which is entirely illogical.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
They are VERY good points. “Ceding territory” to Putin is not like surrendering to the Allies in WW2. It is much more like ceding territory to Stalin, or even Hitler
The behaviour of Putin’s army has made “compromise” nearly impossible
I’m still haunted by that desolating image of raped and mutilated Ukrainian girls hanging lifeless from trees in a forest, like some satanic fruit in Dante’s Hell; if it haunts me, Christ knows what that does to the Ukrainian mind
If was Ukrainian I suspect I’d want to see Russians dying in very large numbers for a long long time. I’d possibly want the war to go on, just to get revenge
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.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
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.
Taxes should be predictable.
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Tories have selected in Tiverton and Honiton in case it hasn't been posted. Rachel Hurford, former headmistress, lives near Honiton, so pretty much fitting the brief. The LibDem candidate now lives in what would be the new Honiton constituency. so I was wrong in saying he would likely stand in Tiverton at the next GE.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then they are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
It seems obvious to me that even more than age (although the two are related) owner occupation drives the Conservative vote, and therefore, it is in the long term interest of the Conservatives to encourage house building.
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.
Who is arguing that ? (And where does your KIA number come from ?)
Good news, hope he can find somewhere to give him asylum. He’ll likely have a target made of Novichok on his back for the rest of his life. Seriously brave move.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
Good news, hope he can find somewhere to give him asylum. He’ll likely have a target made of Novichok on his back for the rest of his life. Seriously brave move.
An 18 year old man who says he is trans has reported a Dr to the GMC for what he says is 'conversion therapy'. The Dr says he is not anti-trans, and was engaging in "exploratory psychotherapy to persons suffering from gender dysphoria".
For me that is symptomatic that we do not yet have a settled definition of conversion therapy wrt to gender, so to attempt to legislate now is not viable. Still much thinking to do, and we perhaps needs cases like this to help.
Is, for example, 'trans-supportive' counselling at the Tavistock within the definition of conversion therapy? I'm not clear what the current stance is there.
It does rather remind me of the first moves on FGM, when the first case to be criminally prosecuted for FGM was a Dr Dharmasena (and his colleague) who had used a single stitch to repair a post-birth tear for a woman who had previously been subject to FGM. The jury found the Drs innocent in just half an hour. The public prosecutor was of the view that it was correct to prosecute - I'm inclined to agree as part of there being clarity around what is permissible.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Yes, breathing and relaxation works. There are an infinity of guides, of all backgrounds, secular, spiritual, religious. They are all the same at heart. My favourite is stuff by a bloke called Geoffrey Harding, now dead, once vicar of St Mary Woolnoth by Bank tube. His pamphlet 'How to relax' is a gem.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then they are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
It seems obvious to me that even more than age (although the two are related) owner occupation drives the Conservative vote, and therefore, it is in the long term interest of the Conservatives to encourage house building.
In brownbelt areas, especially in London. Build too much in greenbelt areas of the South however and more Tory seats will be lost to the Liberal Democrats like Chesham and Amersham.
Home ownership alone does not drive the Tory vote either. In 1997 for example Blair even won over 65s as well as all other age groups despite a higher home ownership level than now while in 2019 Johnson won most voters over 39 despite a lower home ownership rate than 1997
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies 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.
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.
Taxes should be predictable.
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
Indeed.
Privatising the gains and nationalising the losses is bad economics.
Privatising the losses and nationalising the gains is equally bad economics.
These firms seeing huge profits now, were seeing huge losses only a year or two ago.
If you want investment, then taxes need to be predicable. I see some people claiming that oil and gas companies won't change their investment plans because they weren't planning for the present levels of energy prices and the latter part is true, they would have expected energy prices to be lower, but its also not relevant.
The large oil and gas firms know that the prices are variable and so unlike the fly-by-night electricity companies serving customers on USwitch they keep cash reserves so they can ride out losses when prices are low and make a profit when the prices are high. That is good business and it is good for the economy.
If we send out a signal that we will let them take the hit when the price falls, but we won't let them gain when it rises, then that will be terrible for encouraging investment because why invest in a one-way bet going against you?
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.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
Your final word - "benefits" - being the heart of the problem. They are not benefits. They are not generous. The whole language needs to change before we can reform people's horrendous attitudes to what is one of the worst and most punitive safety nets out there.
Social Security was the previous term and is a far better way to describe the welfare state. The idea that the forrin move here to simultaneously take our jobs and steal our benefits was always laughable. But so weaponised has the issue become that people genuinely do think "benefits" can be lived on, and that asylum seekers get loads of free stuff as opposed to the literally zero cash reality etc etc.
Its not the nature of contribution that was the issue...
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
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.
The Vietnam analogy doesn't hold at all. Both sides have armoured units. Both sides have fast jets. Both sides have ballistic missiles. Both sides have helicopter gunships. This is a war between near peers.
It's not an asymmetric guerrilla war.
It's been a long time since we've seen a war like this one. People are struggling to fit it into the paradigm of one side or the other having a very clear advantage as has been the case with most recent wars.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
That's not really the point of contention, though, is it ?
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
The more emotive responses to him are rooted in the not unreasonable assumption that he's not arguing in good faith. All the 'my friend'; "You don't get good leaders in a democracy" stuff is pretty creepy.
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.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
The fix was for Labour to have done it back in 2005 as they changed education by treating education between the ages of 16 to 18 as the initial contribution.
Back I've only being saying that since about 2004 when the problem first appeared...
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
Your attitude is to build all over the Southern greenbelt and hand Tory blue wall seats on a plate to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. See too Australia where the biggest swing was not to Labor but in affluent areas to Independents and the Greens over the Coalition's perceived lack of concern for the environment
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
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
We know German and France want this all to be over and would happily give up Ukrainian territory to make that happen.
The telegraph has nothing new
Compromising with butchers who have murdered civilians and used rape as a weapon of war would be a tough pill to swallow and ceding territory and citizens to them inexcusable.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
Personised as Smurfs?
Hope you are well currently.
Thankyou for asking. Various stresses and strains but nothing remotely unbearable. I’m also sitting on my balcony staring at the Med wondering whether to have a beer, so life could be a lot worse. I shall spare @heathener another annoying photo
An 18 year old man who says he is trans has reported a Dr to the GMC for what he says is 'conversion therapy'. The Dr says he is not anti-trans, and was engaging in "exploratory psychotherapy to persons suffering from gender dysphoria".
For me that is symptomatic that we do not yet have a settled definition of conversion therapy wrt to gender, so to attempt to legislate now is not viable. Still much thinking to do, and we perhaps needs cases like this to help.
Is, for example, 'trans-supportive' counselling at the Tavistock within the definition of conversion therapy? I'm not clear what the current stance is there.
It does rather remind me of the first moves on FGM, when the first case to be criminally prosecuted for FGM was a Dr Dharmasena (and his colleague) who had used a single stitch to repair a post-birth tear for a woman who had previously been subject to FGM. The jury found the Drs innocent in just half an hour. The public prosecutor was of the view that it was correct to prosecute - I'm inclined to agree as part of there being clarity around what is permissible.
That FGM prosecution was considered quite curious. Almost as if it was an attempt to kill the enforcement of the anti-FGM laws.
As to the "conversion therapy" issue - this was why the recent attempt at a legal ban on conversion therapy for the trans area was withdrawn. There wasn't a definition in place that didn't hit the issue of criminalising legitimate psychotherapy. The issue, as I understand it, is that a number of people go to the medics, thinking they are trans, but actually having different, medically recognised, conditions.
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.
Yes, Hexham has some intrigue now but i think 'should' hold on incumbancy etc short of a meltdown night Whitley bay looks interesting yep, tynemouth used to be Tory but has trended away badly, Blyth the opposite. Would require a swingback to be competitive right now i think but not sure. Sunderland - for reference, the Tories have moved into the 30s from low 20s in all 3 former seats whilst the seats still carry double digit BXP votes. Only Sunderland central survives unchanged so is the one to watch. Theres a new mash up of Washington and Sunderland S and Houghton and Sund S that could be interesting, the Washington part and Bridget Phillipson dug in make it a tough ask though. The remainder of Washington goes into Jarrow and the other half of Houghton is now City of Durham making them likely wasted areas of relative strength.
The really interesting thing about Cramlington and Whitley Bay is that they feature the "new" voting blocs, rather than the old ones. Both are places on the up. Very desirable. But for utterly different reasons. Cramlington is exactly the place @BartholomewRoberts and @another_richard go on about. Mile upon mile of new build. And more going up, still (just) in five figures. Not much evidence of a town centre. Certainly no decrepitness. It's new, clean, soulless and very much car-dependent. Every shop is a chain. Whitley Bay twenty years ago was all smack addicts in B+B and bail hostels. There's a little of that still, but prices are climbing vastly. And they're moving there for the wild swimming, tofu and yoga.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
Your attitude is to build all over the Southern greenbelt and hand Tory blue wall seats on a plate to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. See too Australia where the biggest swing was not to Labor but in affluent areas to Independents and the Greens over the Coalition's perceived lack of concern for the environment
Except that the home owners who get on the ladder will themselves over time vote Tory, that's how these things work. Home ownership is the biggest causative correlation with voting that there is.
It'd be better both morally and politically if you care for the Tories to have more home owners, even if that means some losses to the Lib Dems, than it is to have fewer and losing the seats wholesale over time to socialists instead.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
Try the buteyko breathing technique Leon It teaches you to breathe through your nose and take smaller breaths, I use it and it's wonderful
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
tyvm sorry to hear that. Let's hope the technique works.
Excellent post from TSE, but I just wanted to flag up one point right at the end, where the Alternative Vote system was flagged up as 'Primus Inter Pares'. Presumably meant to imply that would be the optimal choice. Actually AV is in no way a proportional voting system - it is a slight improvement perhaps on our current First Past the Post, which as TSE points out often produces bizarre and inequitable outcomes. To give just one example (figures are from memory but I think they're in the right ballpark) - in I think the 2010 general election, on a similar vote share, getting approx 4 million votes, the SNP had something like 50 seats and UKIP had none. (I'm no apologist for UKIP, being the precise opposite in my political views, but it's a scandal that those voters didn't get the representation they deserved). Because of course UKIPs votes were spread around many constituencies, and the SNPs all concentrated in the Scottish constituencies. I could go on - I recall in the 1980s the LibDems were often not that far behind in percentage vote from Labour, but typically got around a tenth of the seats.
So bringing in proportional representation would be a consummation devoutly to be wished - at least that would be my view. The argument against is that it makes it less likely to get majority governments, but why should a party gaining in the mid 30s percentage vote end up with an ability to do what it likes, when two thirds of the voters voted for different parties? However AV would in no way take this forward - it is only a very slight improvement if that on FPTP in terms of proportionality. STV would be the way to go, or some other genuinely proportional system, and many parts of the UK are already using it very successfully in their elections (blowing out of the water the desperate argument 'it's too complicated for voters to understand').
You say AV would be a slight improvement on FPTP in terms of proportionality but at an election like 1997 it would have delivered an even more disproportionate result. Labour would have won a majority of more than 200 seats instead of 179 because the Tories would have lost even more seats which they won with less than 50% of the vote.
Firstly I would just like to comment on @Rainbowmerlin . Just 2 posts so far and both excellent, and not because I necessarily agree with them, but because they are well argued. Looking forward to many more.
Re your point @AndyJS, I agree, however one mitigating point is that AV tends to be only more disproportionate when one side is a clear winner already. That of course doesn't justify under representation of the losers so I would prefer STV.
If we do change the voting system it should probably be to STV. But it would mean having very large constituencies unless you want to have more than a thousand MPs.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
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.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
I think that a quick Ukrainian victory is in our best economic interests. The only explanation I can offer is that a gradual defeat of Russia is less likely to lead to a panic-driven nuclear escalation than a rapid defeat, as a gradual defeat will provide more time for Russia to adjust to the reality of defeat.
But if I support more help to Ukraine than Western political leaders I'm not sure why that should bother me particularly. I support more rapid action on climate change and a whole host of other issues. It's not an unusual position for me to be in.
It doesn't require imagining that they don't really want Ukraine to win to explain a degree of caution.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Good news, hope he can find somewhere to give him asylum. He’ll likely have a target made of Novichok on his back for the rest of his life. Seriously brave move.
Rumours say it is fake. Clearly I hope it’s real
This is the twitter bio of the chap who shared it -
Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer International lawyer, human rights activist, writer. Executive Director, United Nations Watch. BA, BCL, LLB, LLM & Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa. 🇨🇦 Non-Governmental & Nonprofit Organization Geneva, Switzerland unwatch.org/hillelneuer Joined March 2009
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.
Yes, Hexham has some intrigue now but i think 'should' hold on incumbancy etc short of a meltdown night Whitley bay looks interesting yep, tynemouth used to be Tory but has trended away badly, Blyth the opposite. Would require a swingback to be competitive right now i think but not sure. Sunderland - for reference, the Tories have moved into the 30s from low 20s in all 3 former seats whilst the seats still carry double digit BXP votes. Only Sunderland central survives unchanged so is the one to watch. Theres a new mash up of Washington and Sunderland S and Houghton and Sund S that could be interesting, the Washington part and Bridget Phillipson dug in make it a tough ask though. The remainder of Washington goes into Jarrow and the other half of Houghton is now City of Durham making them likely wasted areas of relative strength.
The really interesting thing about Cramlington and Whitley Bay.
My advice to someone employed by a Russian troll farm - a person doing a job of work. Of course, a bot is a different matter.
I think genuine Russian perspectives would be of interest on here, just not so much the identikit party line your line managers and the Russian system provide for you and which we see regularly.
So, when you go home, take a very large glass of your favoured tipple, apply the usual computing workarounds for Russians who seek to reach out, choose yourself a username that perhaps alludes obliquely to your trolling name and just tell us about your life and what is going on around you. It doesn't have to be overtly political, but there may be an appetite on here beyond the second and third hand of people's relatives.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
Nothing means it automatically. But its still a major factor was then and still is today.
Again, a rising tide effect, just as I said earlier, but the fundamentals of demographics mattered then and still matters today, even if the rising or lowering of the tide interacts with or temporarily masks that.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
tyvm sorry to hear that. Let's hope the technique works.
We had a long discussion about it the other day. Turns out a fair few PB-ers can hear the howl of the Black Dog, from time to time
Lockdown/covid has also made general mental health a lot worse, for a lot of people, see the guardian today: 400,000 kids trying to get help
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
Commiserations. I don't drink or do recreational drugs, so my life is mostly minimal rises and falls from a happy medium. But just occasionally (usually in early spring, coming out of the darkness of winter, ironically) I will drop like a stone - the most basic tasks in life are like wading through treacle. It is all I can do to not burst into tears.
But I am fortunate. For me they pass, quite quickly. For my mother, she used to have to go into hospital for ECT treatment.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
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.
An interesting point, especially when you use the Dementia Tax to illustrate it. Remember that for so many Labour voters they won't have a lot of estate to pass on. The hyperbolic shrieking against the policy came from Tories!
The solution to various issues is clearly there and demonstrably works. I can buy energy from EDF, get products delivered by DPD, catch an Arriva bus. All owned by StateCo enterprises ultimately owned by their respective governments. So what we need is for government to say "what kind of stuff do we need" and then ensure those are protected.
As a businessman I am hardly anti-capitalism, but the profit motive is not all there is, and in so many sectors is a disadvantage. Lets take energy as a starter for 10 - we neither have sufficient generating capacity nor control over transmission. Where we start to invest in more capacity we don't have the technical or manufacturing ability. Which means that anything we need whether it be a nuclear power station or wind turbines is made abroad.
We need to create StateCo Energy, StateCo Wind, StateCo Solar etc. Government owned and able to borrow at government rates, but fully commercial. Not only should we be making our own state of the art wind and solar kit, we should be exporting it. Big British industry won't invest in such things both because it is beholden to the stock market but also because the projected economics are entirely beholden to the foibles of future political meddling. So it has to be the state.
I think an interesting idea might be the state creates these companies with the added proviso that the company will take anyone unemployed on to their books at minimum wage and train them up to do the job. So for example want to become a windmill repair man....join Statewind....after a while of training for which you get paid albeit min wage you should find yourself with skills wanted by the private sector.
However there would be issues to deal with its true, like for example the state being able to undercut private firms by too much due to cheap borrowing and cheap labour but these could be addressed.
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being built in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Hmm
I think anyone saying, in Britain, in 1940, that Britain should “just give up” and let Hitler take over the UK would, understandably, have generated a lot of “opprobrium”
We are not Ukraine and Putin is not quite Hitler, but he is close enough to Hitler for people apparently advocating Ukrainian surrender to get some angry pushback
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.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
Commiserations. I don't drink or do recreational drugs, so my life is mostly minimal rises and falls from a happy medium. But just occasionally (usually in early spring, coming out of the darkness of winter, ironically) I will drop like a stone - the most basic tasks in life are like wading through treacle. It is all I can do to not burst into tears.
But I am fortunate. For me they pass, quite quickly. For my mother, she used to have to go into hospital for ECT treatment.
It’s interesting that John Crace, in that Guardian article, refers to his use as a young man of heroin, in relation to his depressive bouts
When I look back on my days of drug abuse, especially heroin, I wonder if it was just a blundering, half-witting attempt at self medication. At least in part
Sure I enjoyed the bliss of that first heroin hit, but I also really liked the way it smoothed my moods. You can’t be depressed on heroin, at least not until you are deep into a terrible addiction, it’s a superb painkiller. It numbs everything so nicely
Xanax does the same. It is also horribly addictive and dangerous
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
I'm sure I've seen it said on here that Hitler was mightly pissed off when we declared war after Poland because we let him get away with so much.
Sounds rather like you'd have had sympathy for him back then.
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.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
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.
An interesting point, especially when you use the Dementia Tax to illustrate it. Remember that for so many Labour voters they won't have a lot of estate to pass on. The hyperbolic shrieking against the policy came from Tories!
The solution to various issues is clearly there and demonstrably works. I can buy energy from EDF, get products delivered by DPD, catch an Arriva bus. All owned by StateCo enterprises ultimately owned by their respective governments. So what we need is for government to say "what kind of stuff do we need" and then ensure those are protected.
As a businessman I am hardly anti-capitalism, but the profit motive is not all there is, and in so many sectors is a disadvantage. Lets take energy as a starter for 10 - we neither have sufficient generating capacity nor control over transmission. Where we start to invest in more capacity we don't have the technical or manufacturing ability. Which means that anything we need whether it be a nuclear power station or wind turbines is made abroad.
We need to create StateCo Energy, StateCo Wind, StateCo Solar etc. Government owned and able to borrow at government rates, but fully commercial. Not only should we be making our own state of the art wind and solar kit, we should be exporting it. Big British industry won't invest in such things both because it is beholden to the stock market but also because the projected economics are entirely beholden to the foibles of future political meddling. So it has to be the state.
I think an interesting idea might be the state creates these companies with the added proviso that the company will take anyone unemployed on to their books at minimum wage and train them up to do the job. So for example want to become a windmill repair man....join Statewind....after a while of training for which you get paid albeit min wage you should find yourself with skills wanted by the private sector.
However there would be issues to deal with its true, like for example the state being able to undercut private firms by too much due to cheap borrowing and cheap labour but these could be addressed.
...and this is the hole that such state enterprises fall into. They start being used for policy, rather than provision of services.
A classic example was a steel works under British Steel. The location of the existing site was wrong (port access insufficient), the equipment out of date etc. The commercially rational thing to do was to build a new plant at a different site.
Except this meant closing down a plant in a government constituency and creating a new one in an opposition constituency. And the new one would employ less workers.
So the plan was scrapped and another few years of subsidy bunged at it to keep things going until the next election.
Bondarev is listed amongst the Geneva blue book, one of 65 members of the "Permanent Mission of he Russian Federation to the United Nations Office and other international organisations in Geneva".
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
No, because, in 2014, Ukraine and the west had to accept Crimea and the Donbass as a fait accompli. No-one liked it, but there was nothing anyone could do about it, save for recognising that Russia wouldn't stop there and start to put in place measures to prevent any further land grabs. Which, under the radar, was clearly what happened, much to our surprise when the Ukrainian army was surprisingly competent at fighting off the next invasion. And also to start to wean ourselves of Russian hydrocarbons - where the west was, er, less successful.
I think we were agreed that the Crimean invasion was wrong. Even if Crimeans wanted to be Russians, achieving this through unilateral invasion was the wrong way of going about it. But in terms of how we evicted Russia from Crimea there was a reasonable consensus that in the short term, not much could be done.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
Not to the same extent and if we had soon then maybe this would have been averted.
There are some remarkable similarities between the Russians today and the Nazis of the past. Crimea was like their Anschluss and we didn't act strong enough then at that aggression, leading to more and more aggression in the future until the inevitable conflict.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Agreeing terms with Hitler was the position of the British Foreign Secretary in May 1940.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
No, because, in 2014, Ukraine and the west had to accept Crimea and the Donbass as a fait accompli. No-one liked it, but there was nothing anyone could do about it, save for recognising that Russia wouldn't stop there and start to put in place measures to prevent any further land grabs. Which, under the radar, was clearly what happened, much to our surprise when the Ukrainian army was surprisingly competent at fighting off the next invasion. And also to start to wean ourselves of Russian hydrocarbons - where the west was, er, less successful.
I think we were agreed that the Crimean invasion was wrong. Even if Crimeans wanted to be Russians, achieving this through unilateral invasion was the wrong way of going about it. But in terms of how we evicted Russia from Crimea there was a reasonable consensus that in the short term, not much could be done.
That's actually a good point. Many, including myself just then, say we should have done more post-2014 but actually we did do a lot post-2014 which set up Ukraine nicely and led Russia to fail with its next attacks.
Trying to support Ukraine to reclaim Crimea in 2014 would have been catastrophic failure. Aiding Ukraine so they could defend themselves next time on the other hand . . .
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
Commiserations. I don't drink or do recreational drugs, so my life is mostly minimal rises and falls from a happy medium. But just occasionally (usually in early spring, coming out of the darkness of winter, ironically) I will drop like a stone - the most basic tasks in life are like wading through treacle. It is all I can do to not burst into tears.
But I am fortunate. For me they pass, quite quickly. For my mother, she used to have to go into hospital for ECT treatment.
It’s interesting that John Crace, in that Guardian article, refers to his use as a young man of heroin, in relation to his depressive bouts
When I look back on my days of drug abuse, especially heroin, I wonder if it was just a blundering, half-witting attempt at self medication. At least in part
Sure I enjoyed the bliss of that first heroin hit, but I also really liked the way it smoothed my moods. You can’t be depressed on heroin, at least not until you are deep into a terrible addiction, it’s a superb painkiller. It numbs everything so nicely
Xanax does the same. It is also horribly addictive and dangerous
Which is why you wont get Xanax in UK through primary care (GP).
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
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.
Yes, Hexham has some intrigue now but i think 'should' hold on incumbancy etc short of a meltdown night Whitley bay looks interesting yep, tynemouth used to be Tory but has trended away badly, Blyth the opposite. Would require a swingback to be competitive right now i think but not sure. Sunderland - for reference, the Tories have moved into the 30s from low 20s in all 3 former seats whilst the seats still carry double digit BXP votes. Only Sunderland central survives unchanged so is the one to watch. Theres a new mash up of Washington and Sunderland S and Houghton and Sund S that could be interesting, the Washington part and Bridget Phillipson dug in make it a tough ask though. The remainder of Washington goes into Jarrow and the other half of Houghton is now City of Durham making them likely wasted areas of relative strength.
The really interesting thing about Cramlington and Whitley Bay is that they feature the "new" voting blocs, rather than the old ones. Both are places on the up. Very desirable. But for utterly different reasons. Cramlington is exactly the place @BartholomewRoberts and @another_richard go on about. Mile upon mile of new build. And more going up, still (just) in five figures. Not much evidence of a town centre. Certainly no decrepitness. It's new, clean, soulless and very much car-dependent. Every shop is a chain. Whitley Bay twenty years ago was all smack addicts in B+B and bail hostels. There's a little of that still, but prices are climbing vastly. And they're moving there for the wild swimming, tofu and yoga.
It still seems strange to me that Tynemouth could be Labour at the same time that Blyth Valley is Conservative. Truly weird. Off all regions the North East always looked the most resistant to change.
Wonder what Sir Neville Trotter and Ronnie Campbell thought when the results flashed up.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
I'm sure I've seen it said on here that Hitler was mightly pissed off when we declared war after Poland because we let him get away with so much.
Sounds rather like you'd have had sympathy for him back then.
Precisely for Crimea there were reasons for less pushback, the general feel was Putin was just securing Crimea and there were a lot of russians settled there so maybe there was some justification. Since then he has however shown that not kicking up a fuss just results in him feeling smug enough to come back for more in a few years. The russian state is not a state we should consider trustworthy. Its negotiated settlements have been shown to be less useful than second hand loo roll. If we give him the slightest concession now we are just setting ourselves up to be back here in 5 years time muttering about the latest annexation. Now is the time to stop him and said him back with his tail between his legs.
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.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Agreeing terms with Hitler was the position of the British Foreign Secretary in May 1940.
Indeed, we look back and think how good it was that Viscount Halifax was overruled by Churchill and he was replaced as Foreign Secretary for good reason too.
How many people look back at World War Two and think Churchill was wrong and Halifax was right?
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.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
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
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
There are realistically two territorial deals Zelensky can agree to (although sure there can be some minor variants).
Comments
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
I thought they'd retained part of the Ashchurch facility ?
See this FOI answer from a couple of years back, referring to 6500 vehicles (which I think includes a couple of hundred Challenger II hulks):
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/883646/Information_regarding_the_MOD_s_vehicle_depot_at_Ashchurch_in_Gloucestershire___2020_01347.pdf
Drugs are like prostitution and driving cars too fast. The attack should be on demand/user not supply. It is ludicrous that you can get 20 years for supplying a demand for drugs when you get a slap on the wrist for being the demander/user.
There will always be a few career criminals. But they only supply demands that exist. Most people don't take risks that involve several years in prison. Career criminals do, that's their job. Make the demand side a massive and unacceptable risk if you really want to do something about it from a crime aspect.
Betfair have finally put a market up btw on "Will he lead into the GE?"
I price it 1.33 for "Yes" but it's looking like it will trade much higher at about 1.8. The punter in me has to do that.
The argument, if you want to engage with it, is that Russia observed for many years while the US appointed itself gendarme of the world, indeed replying when Russia sought NATO membership, that such an idea was absurd and that the world would be delighted to have the US and only the US as its guardian. Which position included engaging in unilateral and "illegal" actions such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Applauded by much of the West (although far from all).
Hence Russia learned that might is indeed right and that it could appoint itself as guardian of whatever Russian values justified invading Ukraine. A course of action not applauded by the West this time.
This is not meant in a hostile way (and I apologise if it appears thus) but @rcs1000 has, as moderator, told us Gary uses a known-to-be-compromised ISP
It is therefore right to be wary, a forum that gets flooded with trolls, bots and sock puppets swiftly becomes boring and pointless. It’s just good housekeeping
He is, as I say, welcome to carry on commenting, as long as the mods see fit. It’s their site
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
Whitley bay looks interesting yep, tynemouth used to be Tory but has trended away badly, Blyth the opposite. Would require a swingback to be competitive right now i think but not sure.
Sunderland - for reference, the Tories have moved into the 30s from low 20s in all 3 former seats whilst the seats still carry double digit BXP votes. Only Sunderland central survives unchanged so is the one to watch. Theres a new mash up of Washington and Sunderland S and Houghton and Sund S that could be interesting, the Washington part and Bridget Phillipson dug in make it a tough ask though.
The remainder of Washington goes into Jarrow and the other half of Houghton is now City of Durham making them likely wasted areas of relative strength.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then they are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/23/i-feel-totally-seen-john-crace-on-how-guided-breathing-soothed-a-lifetime-of-anxiety
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
The solution to various issues is clearly there and demonstrably works. I can buy energy from EDF, get products delivered by DPD, catch an Arriva bus. All owned by StateCo enterprises ultimately owned by their respective governments. So what we need is for government to say "what kind of stuff do we need" and then ensure those are protected.
As a businessman I am hardly anti-capitalism, but the profit motive is not all there is, and in so many sectors is a disadvantage. Lets take energy as a starter for 10 - we neither have sufficient generating capacity nor control over transmission. Where we start to invest in more capacity we don't have the technical or manufacturing ability. Which means that anything we need whether it be a nuclear power station or wind turbines is made abroad.
We need to create StateCo Energy, StateCo Wind, StateCo Solar etc. Government owned and able to borrow at government rates, but fully commercial. Not only should we be making our own state of the art wind and solar kit, we should be exporting it. Big British industry won't invest in such things both because it is beholden to the stock market but also because the projected economics are entirely beholden to the foibles of future political meddling. So it has to be the state.
The former many would disagree with, especially if they are optimistic about Ukrainian chances, but has a cold logic to it. It's at least arguable.
The latter is just twisting the morality to suggest surrender (but never Russian withdrawal) is the only option.
Realists do themselves no favours trying to suggest their cold but logical stance is similar to the moral reservists. It really isnt. Their stance is more reasonable, no need to whine about people being mean to those advocating a position which is entirely illogical.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-61549489
The behaviour of Putin’s army has made “compromise” nearly impossible
I’m still haunted by that desolating image of raped and mutilated Ukrainian girls hanging lifeless from trees in a forest, like some satanic fruit in Dante’s Hell; if it haunts me, Christ knows what that does to the Ukrainian mind
If was Ukrainian I suspect I’d want to see Russians dying in very large numbers for a long long time. I’d possibly want the war to go on, just to get revenge
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-no-time-to-go-wobbly-on-russia-putin-invasion-ukraine-weapons-support-aid-isolation-war-dictator-11652731939?mod=e2two
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
It’s Hard for Moscow to Win While Mistreating Its Soldiers
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2022-05-18/russian-militarys-people-problem?utm_medium=social
BREAKING: 🇷🇺 Russia’s Counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned.
Boris Bondarev: “Never have I been so ashamed of my country.”
UN Watch is now calling on all other Russian diplomats at the United Nations—and worldwide—to follow his moral example and resign.
🧵:
https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1528668629482541057
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/may/10/windfall-tax-on-north-sea-oil-and-gas-could-raise-2bn-says-labour
Corbyn's Manifesto in 2019 said £11bn.
The telegraph has nothing new
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
(And where does your KIA number come from ?)
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/trans-conversion-therapy-patient-speaks-out-psychiatrist-reported-1641330
An 18 year old man who says he is trans has reported a Dr to the GMC for what he says is 'conversion therapy'. The Dr says he is not anti-trans, and was engaging in "exploratory psychotherapy to persons suffering from gender dysphoria".
For me that is symptomatic that we do not yet have a settled definition of conversion therapy wrt to gender, so to attempt to legislate now is not viable. Still much thinking to do, and we perhaps needs cases like this to help.
Is, for example, 'trans-supportive' counselling at the Tavistock within the definition of conversion therapy? I'm not clear what the current stance is there.
It does rather remind me of the first moves on FGM, when the first case to be criminally prosecuted for FGM was a Dr Dharmasena (and his colleague) who had used a single stitch to repair a post-birth tear for a woman who had previously been subject to FGM. The jury found the Drs innocent in just half an hour. The public prosecutor was of the view that it was correct to prosecute - I'm inclined to agree as part of there being clarity around what is permissible.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/doctor-not-guilty-fgm-dhanuson-dharmasena
Home ownership alone does not drive the Tory vote either. In 1997 for example Blair even won over 65s as well as all other age groups despite a higher home ownership level than now while in 2019 Johnson won most voters over 39 despite a lower home ownership rate than 1997
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Privatising the gains and nationalising the losses is bad economics.
Privatising the losses and nationalising the gains is equally bad economics.
These firms seeing huge profits now, were seeing huge losses only a year or two ago.
If you want investment, then taxes need to be predicable. I see some people claiming that oil and gas companies won't change their investment plans because they weren't planning for the present levels of energy prices and the latter part is true, they would have expected energy prices to be lower, but its also not relevant.
The large oil and gas firms know that the prices are variable and so unlike the fly-by-night electricity companies serving customers on USwitch they keep cash reserves so they can ride out losses when prices are low and make a profit when the prices are high. That is good business and it is good for the economy.
If we send out a signal that we will let them take the hit when the price falls, but we won't let them gain when it rises, then that will be terrible for encouraging investment because why invest in a one-way bet going against you?
Social Security was the previous term and is a far better way to describe the welfare state. The idea that the forrin move here to simultaneously take our jobs and steal our benefits was always laughable. But so weaponised has the issue become that people genuinely do think "benefits" can be lived on, and that asylum seekers get loads of free stuff as opposed to the literally zero cash reality etc etc.
Its not the nature of contribution that was the issue...
It's not an asymmetric guerrilla war.
It's been a long time since we've seen a war like this one. People are struggling to fit it into the paradigm of one side or the other having a very clear advantage as has been the case with most recent wars.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up.
As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
The more emotive responses to him are rooted in the not unreasonable assumption that he's not arguing in good faith.
All the 'my friend'; "You don't get good leaders in a democracy" stuff is pretty creepy.
Back I've only being saying that since about 2004 when the problem first appeared...
Hope you are well currently.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
As to the "conversion therapy" issue - this was why the recent attempt at a legal ban on conversion therapy for the trans area was withdrawn. There wasn't a definition in place that didn't hit the issue of criminalising legitimate psychotherapy. The issue, as I understand it, is that a number of people go to the medics, thinking they are trans, but actually having different, medically recognised, conditions.
Cramlington is exactly the place @BartholomewRoberts and @another_richard go on about. Mile upon mile of new build. And more going up, still (just) in five figures. Not much evidence of a town centre. Certainly no decrepitness. It's new, clean, soulless and very much car-dependent. Every shop is a chain.
Whitley Bay twenty years ago was all smack addicts in B+B and bail hostels. There's a little of that still, but prices are climbing vastly. And they're moving there for the wild swimming, tofu and yoga.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/housingandhomeownershipintheuk/2015-01-22
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
It'd be better both morally and politically if you care for the Tories to have more home owners, even if that means some losses to the Lib Dems, than it is to have fewer and losing the seats wholesale over time to socialists instead.
But if I support more help to Ukraine than Western political leaders I'm not sure why that should bother me particularly. I support more rapid action on climate change and a whole host of other issues. It's not an unusual position for me to be in.
It doesn't require imagining that they don't really want Ukraine to win to explain a degree of caution.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Hillel Neuer
@HillelNeuer
International lawyer, human rights activist, writer. Executive Director, United Nations Watch. BA, BCL, LLB, LLM & Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa. 🇨🇦
Non-Governmental & Nonprofit Organization Geneva, Switzerland unwatch.org/hillelneuer Joined March 2009
And he's blue ticked.
Doesn't seem an obvious source of a fake?
I think genuine Russian perspectives would be of interest on here, just not so much the identikit party line your line managers and the Russian system provide for you and which we see regularly.
So, when you go home, take a very large glass of your favoured tipple, apply the usual computing workarounds for Russians who seek to reach out, choose yourself a username that perhaps alludes obliquely to your trolling name and just tell us about your life and what is going on around you. It doesn't have to be overtly political, but there may be an appetite on here beyond the second and third hand of people's relatives.
Again, a rising tide effect, just as I said earlier, but the fundamentals of demographics mattered then and still matters today, even if the rising or lowering of the tide interacts with or temporarily masks that.
(Edit: or maybe it's just inappropriate cropping?)
Lockdown/covid has also made general mental health a lot worse, for a lot of people, see the guardian today: 400,000 kids trying to get help
So, it'll be introduced any day then?
But I am fortunate. For me they pass, quite quickly. For my mother, she used to have to go into hospital for ECT treatment.
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
However there would be issues to deal with its true, like for example the state being able to undercut private firms by too much due to cheap borrowing and cheap labour but these could be addressed.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being built in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
I think anyone saying, in Britain, in 1940, that Britain should “just give up” and let Hitler take over the UK would, understandably, have generated a lot of “opprobrium”
We are not Ukraine and Putin is not quite Hitler, but he is close enough to Hitler for people apparently advocating Ukrainian surrender to get some angry pushback
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
When I look back on my days of drug abuse, especially heroin, I wonder if it was just a blundering, half-witting attempt at self medication. At least in part
Sure I enjoyed the bliss of that first heroin hit, but I also really liked the way it smoothed my moods. You can’t be depressed on heroin, at least not until you are deep into a terrible addiction, it’s a superb painkiller. It numbs everything so nicely
Xanax does the same. It is also horribly addictive and dangerous
Sounds rather like you'd have had sympathy for him back then.
A classic example was a steel works under British Steel. The location of the existing site was wrong (port access insufficient), the equipment out of date etc. The commercially rational thing to do was to build a new plant at a different site.
Except this meant closing down a plant in a government constituency and creating a new one in an opposition constituency. And the new one would employ less workers.
So the plan was scrapped and another few years of subsidy bunged at it to keep things going until the next election.
I think we were agreed that the Crimean invasion was wrong. Even if Crimeans wanted to be Russians, achieving this through unilateral invasion was the wrong way of going about it. But in terms of how we evicted Russia from Crimea there was a reasonable consensus that in the short term, not much could be done.
There are some remarkable similarities between the Russians today and the Nazis of the past. Crimea was like their Anschluss and we didn't act strong enough then at that aggression, leading to more and more aggression in the future until the inevitable conflict.
Trying to support Ukraine to reclaim Crimea in 2014 would have been catastrophic failure. Aiding Ukraine so they could defend themselves next time on the other hand . . .
US is another story...
Wonder what Sir Neville Trotter and Ronnie Campbell thought when the results flashed up.
How many people look back at World War Two and think Churchill was wrong and Halifax was right?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-61549489
1. 2014 borders
2. Pre-2014 borders