After the terrible by-election results for the Conservatives, many commentators are suggesting that the time is up for Johnson. Yet as the chart shows that although there has been an uplift in the betting chances of a 2022 exit it is still rated at just a 41% chance.
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https://uk.news.yahoo.com/conservative-party-donors-drink-dine-125455095.html
One can't tell for sure as the confidence vote is secret and it is far from guaranteed that Johnson swept up the payroll vote. But it seems pretty likely the majority on the backbenches want him gone, and he's being kept afloat more by spinelessness, self-interest and, I'm sure, some genuine personal support from ministers.
It unravels pretty quickly if more than just Dowden decide to leave the bunker before Johnson starts handing round the cyanide capsules.
Beyond cynical even if it were to work; utterly stupid given that it won't.
https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1540091478076280833?s=20&t=q6Q79A-Ei_bSi3GDYp0i-Q
No doubt there's plenty room for improvement, but it's a large program.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_Agreement
What is pushed by Tresher yesterday, Rentoul and Kellner in old thread header is juvenile psephology.
Firstly each by election night is different so not straightforward in what they are telling us, it was two mid term defences it could have been two opposition defences where Conservative vote has previously hardly amounted to anything, secondly tactical voting isn’t the reason for loss everywhere such as Lib Dems lost deposit Wakefield 2019.
There are places where Lab or Lib votes are both high, so you think some sort of collusion will make it much easier to beat the Tory, but it’s not straight forward as moving sheep from one field to another with a sheep dog, more like herding cats - think of the first hours of the coalition when Cameron said welcome to my coalition to Kennedy, and Charles replied fuck off, or the Burgon Bus with Sultana hostess driven to North Yorkshire - the maths of what you get from tactical push isn’t straightforward and could vary dramatically from place to place.
For the most part it happens organically anyway, even with a candidate still in place. Quite simply vox pop in Tiverton today will show Lab voters switching to Lib Dem to bash Boris, Tory voters switching to Lib Dem to bash Boris, these results would have happpened anyway at this mid term with unliked Boris, even without a big tactical cat herding.
The more interesting discussion for me is the role levelling up is playing in Tory constituencies in the south. When they are not getting funding for something, school repairs etc etc, they are blaming levelling up. But To what extent is this inherent vice of anger and “taken for granted not getting fair do’s” in Boris levelling up agenda is becoming a driver of Tory unpopularity in the blue wall and the Libdem success? Are Thresher, Kellner and Rentool talking about this yet? Maybe these slow and compromised psephologists will catch up soon. They are not as sharp as me.
The blue wall proper also fits the bill: it’s the absolute stockbroker belt heartland, the ramparts of old Toryism in the prosperous commuter belt of SE England. It is an area that fitted old Conservative politics but has found itself at odds with the new direction of the party particularly around Europe.
If anything the South West was the first wall. It was the yellow wall, which crumbled in 2015 partly through tactical unwind but also because of a drift apart of the traditional Liberal voter base in the region and the new more metropolitan pro-EU identity of the Lib Dems. You could argue T&H is them winning back part of the yellow wall.
There are then large swathes of the country that are not walls at all. There are inner sanctums, like parts of Kent and Essex for the Tories or inner London for Labour. And there are the “marches” or blood lands, the perpetual marginals.
So, how about an automatic ban on anybody who refers to other posters as 'mate' or 'pal'? Beyond the pale, in my view.
https://twitter.com/NeilClark66/status/1540414549182013440?s=20&t=qSV4YvWWH3DOJpQf5Uhe2w
Melville's thesis is: previously healthy people, are getting ill. That in my experience is how getting ill has always worked.
As for addressing the argument, if you’d like to present one, we’ll consider it.
Cumulative mortality rates YTD are 0.1% of a full year’s mortality worse than 2019. 2/3 https://t.co/0oikxlDC9C
I think that there is a limit to how far back one can safely compare when looking at excess deaths, as population ageing effects start to intrude.
The problem of Omicron is more one of morbidity than mortality, lengthening hospital stay, etc.
'The i reports one saying: “Parish shouldn’t have resigned.
“He should have just gone away with his wife for a few weeks and then come back to the job. I don’t know why the girls had to speak out like that.”
Another suggested the witnesses would “feel like a turd in the swimming pool”.
On Johnson, a Tory MP said: “It’s like a disease. The prime minister is infecting the cabinet, and if the Tory party doesn’t act in the next six months we will all be infected by him.”'
Original is here but ££.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-is-like-a-disease-inside-a-tory-party-shell-shocked-by-horrific-double-defeat-1706526
I was merely being whimsical. I've learnt my lesson.
Get rid of him and we can discuss treatment for the infection.
"Voters are lying on the doorstep."
I wonder where they got the idea that is an acceptable way to behave?
We all make mistakes…
It being all the fault of the people who pointed out he was watching porn at work isn't a great look. Not would be top of my list in analysis, mind.
This is an interesting piece of work looking at the excess million deaths from covid in the USA, in particular the higher mortality in the young and middle aged.
https://covidactuaries.org/2022/06/20/excess-mortality-in-the-usa/
https://twitter.com/YardleyShooting/status/1540629355025600513?s=20&t=aeLmWIghmmQ7BfrRyjos8A
The previous week being the Platinum jubilee week with registrars offices closed so deaths can't be registered?
My suspicion is it wouldn’t be as effective as at present, but that’s what lots of civil servants at the DfE try to tell me about education which is not the case.
So maybe we should make the experiment?
{picks up baseball bat and a handful of rust nails…}
Virgil Malloy: Watch it, bud.
Turk Malloy: Who you calling bud, pal?
Virgil Malloy: Who you calling pal, friend?
Turk Malloy: Who you calling friend, jackass?!
Virgil Malloy: Don't call me a jackass.
Turk Malloy: I just did call you a jackass.