Is it time for the Redwall Tory MPs to panic? – politicalbetting.com

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Is it time for the Redwall Tory MPs to panic? – politicalbetting.com

Just imagine you are one of those Tory MPs who came to Westminster as a result of gains made at the last general election. It is likely that when you put yourself forward to be the candidate in a constituency that always went Labour you really had no thought that victory was possible.

Read the full story here

eek

I will post this again as exhibit 1

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/20618405.bid-launched-reopen-bishop-auckland-e-shut-2009/

wooliedyed

It depends which red wall MP you are.
If youre Bishop Auckland or Rother Valley you dont need much of a comeback. If you're Blyth Valley or Leigh youre buggered.
Remember, a lot of these fell by a big margin and can withstand a moderate swing

Pulpstar

I think it's time for everyone to panic with a 5 grand cap coming down the line tbf.

dixiedean

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

wooliedyed

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Yes we are and yes we should

MarqueeMark

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

noneoftheabove

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

EPG

wooliedyed said:

It depends which red wall MP you are.
If youre Bishop Auckland or Rother Valley you dont need much of a comeback. If you're Blyth Valley or Leigh youre buggered.
Remember, a lot of these fell by a big margin and can withstand a moderate swing

National swing is 1 of 3 factors, the other two being more intense local negative impacts from Johnson's departure and energy costs than the average area, the other being a gradual beneficial trend over time against Labour than the average area.

Nigelb

Pulpstar said:

I think it's time for everyone to panic with a 5 grand cap coming down the line tbf.

Scarier still for business users with no cap.

NickPalmer

Generally MPs elected "unexpectedly" do make some provision for not holding on. After 1997 I concentrated on digging in and building a personal vote, but by 2009 I was convinced I was going to lose big time and quietly built up my translation work on the side. I was surprised by how close it was, tbh. I suspect that some of the Red Wall MPs are similarly developing contingency plans and may not be all that proactive in doing anything either for or against Truss..

dixiedean

wooliedyed said:

It depends which red wall MP you are.
If youre Bishop Auckland or Rother Valley you dont need much of a comeback. If you're Blyth Valley or Leigh youre buggered.
Remember, a lot of these fell by a big margin and can withstand a moderate swing

Yep.
They are a pretty heterogeneous group. As well as the ones you mention, there are also the Burys, Bolton NE and several in W Yorks which are often cited, but are in reality just bog standard marginals.

IshmaelZ

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

Wulfrun_Phil

There's no need for Red Wall Tory MPs to panic, so long as the door is open for them to defect.

Party Conference season may be interesting.

geoffw

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Whatever is done it will be a transfer from people as taxpayers to people as energy consumers, pace Liz Truss.

noneoftheabove

geoffw said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Whatever is done it will be a transfer from people as taxpayers to people as energy consumers, pace Liz Truss.

Indeed, and only fantasists would believe otherwise.

mwadams

NickPalmer said:

Generally MPs elected "unexpectedly" do make some provision for not holding on. After 1997 I concentrated on digging in and building a personal vote, but by 2009 I was convinced I was going to lose big time and quietly built up my translation work on the side. I was surprised by how close it was, tbh. I suspect that some of the Red Wall MPs are similarly developing contingency plans and may not be all that proactive in doing anything either for or against Truss..

The question, then, is "can we determine who believes that their seat is still winnable?" Looking at their behaviour should be informative. ETA: whereas the behaviour of those who *don't believe their seat is winnable* will be a distorting factor.

dixiedean

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

If the government sets the prices and subsidises the difference to what would be a huge proportion of the price, then I think we differ only on the precise definition of "de facto nationalised".

EPG

NickPalmer said:

Generally MPs elected "unexpectedly" do make some provision for not holding on. After 1997 I concentrated on digging in and building a personal vote, but by 2009 I was convinced I was going to lose big time and quietly built up my translation work on the side. I was surprised by how close it was, tbh. I suspect that some of the Red Wall MPs are similarly developing contingency plans and may not be all that proactive in doing anything either for or against Truss..

I knew some young Tories who took nominations for very red seats after 2005, took fright when they were close to winning them in 2009 and never returned to electoral politics.

Sean_F

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

logical_song

Wulfrun_Phil said:

There's no need for Red Wall Tory MPs to panic, so long as the door is open for them to defect.

Party Conference season may be interesting.

... but why should Labour take them?
I suspect that they would be closely examined.

MarqueeMark

IshmaelZ said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

Morning Dove White by One Dove on Glasgow-based Soma was a fantastic 90s album. Sadly, their only one. Try Breakdown as a taster if you don't know them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpH1fOMIZxk

Northern_Al

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

I had quite a crush on Clare Grogan in my youth. Altered Images wrote at least one great pop song - I Could be Happy.

MarqueeMark

Northern_Al said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

I had quite a crush on Clare Grogan in my youth. Altered Images wrote at least one great pop song - I Could be Happy.

If I could have one wish it might be to have 19 year old Clare sing me Happy Birthday.....

eek

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

londonpubman

Astonishingly, even though we clearly have an incompetent government and also that neither Liz nor Rishi offer any solutions to address ordinary people's concerns over CPI and fuel bills, there is still no real enthusiasm for Starmer or LAB. Mid term poll leads can be very soft.

logical_song

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Might be better to subsidise house insulation and re-introduce solar panel subsidies.

Mexicanpete

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Northern_Al

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

Not sure about that. In the Stoke seats, for example, I reckon Boris got a strong personal vote, and Tory loyalty is fragile without him at the helm.
And Jonathan Gullis (Stoke North) is a complete numpty.

kinabalu

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

If you have a life essential where affordable supply, come what may, is far more important than choice, I think the case for some form of public ownership is strong.

TOPPING

MarqueeMark said:

Northern_Al said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

I had quite a crush on Clare Grogan in my youth. Altered Images wrote at least one great pop song - I Could be Happy.

If I could have one wish it might be to have 19 year old Clare sing me Happy Birthday.....

@Leon?

Unpopular

Wulfrun_Phil said:

There's no need for Red Wall Tory MPs to panic, so long as the door is open for them to defect.

Party Conference season may be interesting.

Defections are weird beasts though, and while one or two can be great, I don't think the Labour Party will be pleased to accept too many from seats that they are expecting to win anyway.

mwadams

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

The important thing for reading the tea leaves, though, is (as I blather about below) whether the individual MP also understands the situation in this way. If they *believe* the seat is winnable, what they say helps us build a picture of what the MP *really* thinks is needed to help them win. If they don't, then maybe they have something to contribute, but it is not tempered by personal survival.

If we also factor in our assessment of whether we think the MP is *right* to believe that the seat is winnable (as per your analysis), we may also have some measure of how attached to reality they may be.

noneoftheabove

dixiedean said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

If the government sets the prices and subsidises the difference to what would be a huge proportion of the price, then I think we differ only on the precise definition of "de facto nationalised".

My proposed solution is temporary, longer term the market would operate as was (bar putting in place capital requirements for energy providers so we dont get the micro-companies using the implicit state guarantee to have a free one way bet on prices).

De facto nationalisation to me implies that the market is managed by the government on a longer term basis. I think that is a big difference.

EPG

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I like the clarity of the analysis though I don't fully agree. The trend may eventually secure your red wall seat by 2030, but losing Johnson / less Brexit agitation / energy bills could threaten any incumbent in particular. (There's a bigger conversation to have on PB about how long those trends will continue.)

eek

Interesting short thread on twitter

https://mobile.twitter.com/SolHughesWriter/status/1557679972621451264

Solomon Hughes
@SolHughesWriter
·
9m
(1)You can run things quite a long time in a cheapskate way, sweating your assets, and nothing much happens, people pull a bit harder, it creaks along. But when things break or go wrong , there's no slack to pull it back, the delayed crisis can be pretty bad.
Solomon Hughes
@SolHughesWriter
(2)The problem we have now is the entire public realm has been sweated and run down, so not only have all parts struggled with two consecutive , related shocks - Covid/Energy-Cost-of-living , they are al breaking together, each with a knock on effect
11:47 AM · Aug 11, 2022·Twitter Web App
1
Retweet
14
Likes

Solomon Hughes
@SolHughesWriter
·
2m
Replying to
@SolHughesWriter
(3)Social Care failures jam the (worn down) NHS, fair cost, local authorities threadbare, central govt no capacity to fill in.The lack of slack means the crisis multiplies:How does a care home deal with increased energy costs? Food price effects on school meals ? and so on and on

All the chickens are coming home to roost at the same time...

Northern_Al

MarqueeMark said:

Northern_Al said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

I had quite a crush on Clare Grogan in my youth. Altered Images wrote at least one great pop song - I Could be Happy.

If I could have one wish it might be to have 19 year old Clare sing me Happy Birthday.....

Yes, that was good as well. The extended versions of HB and I Could be Happy were great dance songs.

rottenborough

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

"Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?"

Gregory wasn't sure.

HYUFD

Truss certainly seems more popular with Leavers than Remainers, including in the redwall.

RedfieldWilton has Starmer leading Truss only 40% to 35% in the redwall seats compared to 44% to 29% for Sunak

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1557036631089205248?s=20&t=A8W5sSH5dS0G9A1VMQhQHA

Mexicanpete

rottenborough said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

"Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?"

Gregory wasn't sure.

He was by the end. Mind you Dee Hepburn was lovely, but not a patch on Clare

Pulpstar

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Ba-dum tish!

HYUFD

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

RochdalePioneers

Wulfrun_Phil said:

There's no need for Red Wall Tory MPs to panic, so long as the door is open for them to defect.

Party Conference season may be interesting.

I have an eye on NE Tories. Local Tory associations are notorious for schisms and booting people out. With Ben Houchen International Airport installed as the local big boss it is difficult for the shouldn't be MPs like Jacob Young.

But - and its a big but. They face the spectacle of defecting to Labour, Starmer saying "Mistress Truss can't keep her supplicants", parading someone like Jacob Young, and then selecting Anna Turley again as candidate.

There is virtually no route for most of these Red Wall Tories to defect to Labour.

noneoftheabove

logical_song said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Might be better to subsidise house insulation and re-introduce solar panel subsidies.

That solves a different problem, investing to reduce costs in the longer term. All in favour.

But if that was the support for this winter, then millions will freeze, more millions will stop paying and our suppliers won't be able to buy the energy from the international markets and will go bust.

wooliedyed

eek said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

Take out the 97 to 05 blowout and Darlington has been back and forth, 92 was a tight one betwen Milburn and Fallon for example. Bishop A was solid red and has trended steadily conservative. Darlington never had a big kipper type presence, BA had the classic 2015 Kipper big vote feeding to Tory 17 and 19 on top of demographic changes

dixiedean

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

If the government sets the prices and subsidises the difference to what would be a huge proportion of the price, then I think we differ only on the precise definition of "de facto nationalised".

My proposed solution is temporary, longer term the market would operate as was (bar putting in place capital requirements for energy providers so we dont get the micro-companies using the implicit state guarantee to have a free one way bet on prices).

De facto nationalisation to me implies that the market is managed by the government on a longer term basis. I think that is a big difference.

Fair enough. I think we are differing on semantics only. I don't think it needs to be long term either.
The danger with just chucking money at folk though, which is the only conceivable alternative, is that firstly, it won't be enough, and secondly, the money gets diverted to pay rent, debts, etc.

Sandpit

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Was she actually that gorgeous in real life, or were you looking at altered images?

Carnyx

StuartDickson said:

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:

Selebian said:

moonshine said:

What’s the reason pb isn’t just one long perma thread? All this chopping and changing, comments lost upon a new thread (like this one in a minute) seems silly.

How would we keep on the topic of the thread header if it was all one thread?

Mike could just have posted a header in 2004 about how wonderful Jim Wallace’s and Jack McConnell’s Lib-Lab coalition government was, and we could just have merrily chatted away for 18 years.

The Fresh Talent initiative, public smoking ban, bid for Euro 2008 and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) bill. Never any need for Off Topic comments…

TBF they did get rid of feudal law.

Absolutely! They weren’t too bad in some respects. Largely due to having the SLDs in there.

The tragedy is the decline in radical liberalism since then. They are just pale copies of their red and blue Unionist colleagues.

Hard to remember that it was Michael Forsyth and the SLabbers that drove through pro-Gaelic legislation. The BritNats are nowadays vociferously anti-Gaelic.

FPT - Indeed. It's pleasant not to have to worry about bribing the laird annually not to call you out for military service with horse and armour, or glaive and boiled leather waistcoat as appropriate.

Some Unionists do take the support for Gaelic as a personal insult, though not all, presumably on the same principle that anything with Scotland on it must be SNP on it and bad.* Nobody on PB moaned about Sunil's discovery of railway station names in the Gaelic, which I think a pleasant cultural enrichment of a train ride, and he does too I think!

The Slab-LD alliance is also to be credited with the 2003 open access legislation - preserving access to land in a climate where the landowners wanted to use the lack of specific right of way law as an excuse to close down all access.

*Yet Labour, for instance, had the policy of supporting Gaelic language teaching for young children from islands communities years back, too. One of the most interesting revelations on PB, for me at any rate, is how many people from down south are convinced that the progressive administrative devolution of c. 1890-1995 is (a) all modern and (b) all the SNP's credit/fault whern they come up here and see e.g. "Transport Scotland" or "Scottish Natural Heritage" etc. Yet much of it long predates even Holyrood and the Dewar administrations, never mind the SNP in 2010.

Taz

Sandpit said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Was she actually that gorgeous in real life, or were you looking at altered images?

The original Kochanski.

dixiedean

EPG said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I like the clarity of the analysis though I don't fully agree. The trend may eventually secure your red wall seat by 2030, but losing Johnson / less Brexit agitation / energy bills could threaten any incumbent in particular. (There's a bigger conversation to have on PB about how long those trends will continue.)

Not to mention new boundaries. Which changes the position quite radically for many incumbents.

MarqueeMark

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

In the 80's, Isabel Adjani ran her close.

Steve Wright has had a good run. I heard some interesting stuff about him (from one of his Radio 2 colleagues. He has been very astute about keeping his job this long.

RochdalePioneers

Looks like I am getting a Tesla next month...

eek

Sandpit said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Was she actually that gorgeous in real life, or were you looking at altered images?

for that

EPG

wooliedyed said:

eek said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

Take out the 97 to 05 blowout and Darlington has been back and forth, 92 was a tight one betwen Milburn and Fallon for example. Bishop A was solid red and has trended steadily conservative. Darlington never had a big kipper type presence, BA had the classic 2015 Kipper big vote feeding to Tory 17 and 19 on top of demographic changes

I don't know the area well, but a general pattern seems to be that the replacement of mining communities with car-commuters in private housing has been turning ex-mining areas more like the rest of the country: urban red, commuter and suburban blue.

Northern_Al

MarqueeMark said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

In the 80's, Isabel Adjani ran her close.

Steve Wright has had a good run. I heard some interesting stuff about him (from one of his Radio 2 colleagues. He has been very astute about keeping his job this long.

Frighteningly similar tastes. Bet you liked 80s Nastassja Kinski as well.

Taz

eek said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

Just look at the new estates being thrown up in both for starters. Drive through both and they don't really feel like Labour seats. They have been labour as long as they have due to people voting labour traditionally.

Bishop Auckland also has some lovely and very rural areas too it that would be natural Tory territory.

I would say Blyth Valley was similar too.

eek

RochdalePioneers said:

Looks like I am getting a Tesla next month...

Why - just whats available first?

Probably picking up an MG 4 as soon as they appear - it's for the Mrs so I can't use company money as she needs it for work purposes.

turbotubbs

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Best thing happening to R2 in years - Steve Wright is an abomination. If for nothing else than misusing the term factoid. (Factoid - something widely held to be true, that is actually false).

Big_G_NorthWales

dixiedean said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

If the government sets the prices and subsidises the difference to what would be a huge proportion of the price, then I think we differ only on the precise definition of "de facto nationalised".

My proposed solution is temporary, longer term the market would operate as was (bar putting in place capital requirements for energy providers so we dont get the micro-companies using the implicit state guarantee to have a free one way bet on prices).

De facto nationalisation to me implies that the market is managed by the government on a longer term basis. I think that is a big difference.

Fair enough. I think we are differing on semantics only. I don't think it needs to be long term either.
The danger with just chucking money at folk though, which is the only conceivable alternative, is that firstly, it won't be enough, and secondly, the money gets diverted to pay rent, debts, etc.

Support has to be targeted to the least well off and must be direct energy discounts and food vouchers

Sandpit

RochdalePioneers said:

Looks like I am getting a Tesla next month...

Keep it or flip it? They’re going for well over list price second-hand at the moment.

eek

Taz said:

eek said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

Just look at the new estates being thrown up in both for starters. Drive through both and they don't really feel like Labour seats. They have been labour as long as they have due to people voting labour traditionally.

Bishop Auckland also has some lovely and very rural areas too it that would be natural Tory territory.

I would say Blyth Valley was similar too.

Darlington has 1,000s of new homes.

My point wasn't so much the Sedgefield / Bishop are trending Tory - it's that with the amount of new housing Darlo has to be as well.

Taz

Another day another forecast for rising energy bills. Now £5K from Auxilione in January.

Natural gas prices have seen a spike over the last couple of days and up over 60% this month.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/uk-energy-bills-could-pass-5-000-from-january-in-grimmest-forecast-yet/ar-AA10yerM?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=e99e4c23945f404bfb9447dcb0e1b2f1

On the govt's "high level talks" with the gas providers to bring prices down :-

‘It seems there is little appreciation just how impossible that task is and neither have control over this in such a globally-influenced market.’

We really are screwed on energy in the short term.

wooliedyed

EPG said:

wooliedyed said:

eek said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

Take out the 97 to 05 blowout and Darlington has been back and forth, 92 was a tight one betwen Milburn and Fallon for example. Bishop A was solid red and has trended steadily conservative. Darlington never had a big kipper type presence, BA had the classic 2015 Kipper big vote feeding to Tory 17 and 19 on top of demographic changes

I don't know the area well, but a general pattern seems to be that the replacement of mining communities with car-commuters in private housing has been turning ex-mining areas more like the rest of the country: urban red, commuter and suburban blue.

Yeah thats a pretty fair summation. Darlington already had the classic 'large town' marginality with no real hinterland to the constiteency.

Carnyx

kinabalu said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

If you have a life essential where affordable supply, come what may, is far more important than choice, I think the case for some form of public ownership is strong.

Water? Not as if you can choose to be supplied by Severn Trent when Thames Water screw up, is it?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/10/oxfordshire-village-living-without-running-water

Stuartinromford

noneoftheabove said:

logical_song said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Might be better to subsidise house insulation and re-introduce solar panel subsidies.

That solves a different problem, investing to reduce costs in the longer term. All in favour.

But if that was the support for this winter, then millions will freeze, more millions will stop paying and our suppliers won't be able to buy the energy from the international markets and will go bust.

And yes, that money somehow has to come from "us". But what the "government giving taxpayers their own money back" argument (deliberately?) overlooks is that we're really talking about taking money from the better-off to stop poorer people freezing. You have investments in energy companies? You are better-off. Simple as.

And whilst few people view that prospect with any sort of joy, it's inevitable if "One Nation" is to mean anything at all, isn't it? The only question is the mechanism; give money to companies to cap the bills, or give money to people to pay the higher bills.

Theuniondivvie

IshmaelZ said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

Dunno, it’s profile isn’t that different from Liverpool’s*. And there is the musical marching tradition of course..

*not necessarily a recommendation in your view istr 🙂

IshmaelZ

turbotubbs said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Best thing happening to R2 in years - Steve Wright is an abomination. If for nothing else than misusing the term factoid. (Factoid - something widely held to be true, that is actually false).

High on his own supply for years. Creepily sycophantic interviews, the pointless countdowns to that thing on fridays that I cannot bear to put into writing. ken bruce is the jewel in the crown.

Big_G_NorthWales

RochdalePioneers said:

Looks like I am getting a Tesla next month...

0n our 450 mile journey to the North of Scotland we noticed many Teslas but then we had a range of 650 miles on a single tank and managed to achieve 56mpg at an average speed of 60mph so not sure Teslas have that range

Leon

turbotubbs said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Best thing happening to R2 in years - Steve Wright is an abomination. If for nothing else than misusing the term factoid. (Factoid - something widely held to be true, that is actually false).

No. A factoid is something that is widely assumed to be true, because it is widely reported, but has never been confirmed (rather than actually falsified)

So your allegation that Steve Wright's usage of factoid is false, is false, and your definition of factoid is worse than a factoid, it is not a fact, and that's a fact

OnlyLivingBoy

IshmaelZ said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

I put together a playlist of Scottish pop/rock artists for Burns Night once and I still listen to it regularly - Scotland has produced so much good music and Glasgow accounts for much of it. I have a theory that the Celts are a much more musical people than the Anglo Saxons, and so the musical map of Britain is tilted towards the west coast, with its Irish immigrant connections, as well as the celtic fringe more broadly.

dixiedean

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

RochdalePioneers

eek said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Looks like I am getting a Tesla next month...

Why - just whats available first?

Probably picking up an MG 4 as soon as they appear - it's for the Mrs so I can't use company money as she needs it for work purposes.

Model Y Long Range. Ordered back in April and deferred for a quarter in June. Buying it though my company and have quite a few things planned for the various pies I have appendages in.

MarqueeMark

Northern_Al said:

MarqueeMark said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

In the 80's, Isabel Adjani ran her close.

Steve Wright has had a good run. I heard some interesting stuff about him (from one of his Radio 2 colleagues. He has been very astute about keeping his job this long.

Frighteningly similar tastes. Bet you liked 80s Nastassja Kinski as well.

She would have been welcome to join Clare, Isabel and I for the night....

rottenborough

Javier Blas
@JavierBlas
·
41m
Don't look up.

Because if you do, the European electricity market may scare the hell out of you. French base and peak load prices for Cal23 and, particularly, for the Nov-to-Feb period, are reaching stratospheric levels.

This morning, France 1-year baseload €602 per MWh

https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1557675782486597633

Leon

OnlyLivingBoy said:

IshmaelZ said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

I put together a playlist of Scottish pop/rock artists for Burns Night once and I still listen to it regularly - Scotland has produced so much good music and Glasgow accounts for much of it. I have a theory that the Celts are a much more musical people than the Anglo Saxons, and so the musical map of Britain is tilted towards the west coast, with its Irish immigrant connections, as well as the celtic fringe more broadly.

Yes, the Germanic peoples, with their feeble Mozarts, Bachs, Beethovens and Wagners, are known for their pathetic lack of musicality

Big_G_NorthWales

Sky reporting the drought in Europe is very serious with river levels threatening shipping and the Rhine may become impassable for ships carrying coal and petrol later this week

wooliedyed

RochdalePioneers said:

Wulfrun_Phil said:

There's no need for Red Wall Tory MPs to panic, so long as the door is open for them to defect.

Party Conference season may be interesting.

I have an eye on NE Tories. Local Tory associations are notorious for schisms and booting people out. With Ben Houchen International Airport installed as the local big boss it is difficult for the shouldn't be MPs like Jacob Young.

But - and its a big but. They face the spectacle of defecting to Labour, Starmer saying "Mistress Truss can't keep her supplicants", parading someone like Jacob Young, and then selecting Anna Turley again as candidate.

There is virtually no route for most of these Red Wall Tories to defect to Labour.

Aside from NW Durham and Blyth Valley they've all got around 8% plus as a margin to play with so they'll fancy a chance at holding with first time incumbancy on anything around even stevens nationally at the tight end

Casino_Royale

londonpubman said:

Astonishingly, even though we clearly have an incompetent government and also that neither Liz nor Rishi offer any solutions to address ordinary people's concerns over CPI and fuel bills, there is still no real enthusiasm for Starmer or LAB. Mid term poll leads can be very soft.

It's a plague on all your houses.

But, somebody has to win.

Leon

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Sky reporting the drought in Europe is very serious with river levels threatening shipping and the Rhine may become impassable for ships carrying coal and petrol later this week

The FT (£) says that the Drying of the Rhine will, by itself, knock 0.2% off German GDP this year

Pulpstar

With the skyrocketing leccy price is there a possibility charging an EV will become more expensive than a moderately economical ICE ?

I mean at the moment electric vehicles are basically using gas.

Northern_Al

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Sky reporting the drought in Europe is very serious with river levels threatening shipping and the Rhine may become impassable for ships carrying coal and petrol later this week

I was going to write 'it never rains but it pours', but I guess that's not an apt idiom at the moment.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a relentless torrent of bad news.

Daveyboy1961

Leon said:

turbotubbs said:

Mexicanpete said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Was there anyone more gorgeous than Clare Grogan in the 1980s?

I am boycotting R2 after the Steve Wright sacking. Ken will be next!

Best thing happening to R2 in years - Steve Wright is an abomination. If for nothing else than misusing the term factoid. (Factoid - something widely held to be true, that is actually false).

No. A factoid is something that is widely assumed to be true, because it is widely reported, but has never been confirmed (rather than actually falsified)

So your allegation that Steve Wright's usage of factoid is false, is false, and your definition of factoid is worse than a factoid, it is not a fact, and that's a fact

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.....

IshmaelZ

Theuniondivvie said:

IshmaelZ said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

Dunno, it’s profile isn’t that different from Liverpool’s*. And there is the musical marching tradition of course..

*not necessarily a recommendation in your view istr 🙂

Well, no. Compare, say, Twist and Shout with, say, Twist and Shout. No contest, and the winning city also has fratellis, del Amitri, Amy, Franz Ferdinand, aztec Camera, ultravox....

Theuniondivvie

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:

Selebian said:

moonshine said:

What’s the reason pb isn’t just one long perma thread? All this chopping and changing, comments lost upon a new thread (like this one in a minute) seems silly.

How would we keep on the topic of the thread header if it was all one thread?

Mike could just have posted a header in 2004 about how wonderful Jim Wallace’s and Jack McConnell’s Lib-Lab coalition government was, and we could just have merrily chatted away for 18 years.

The Fresh Talent initiative, public smoking ban, bid for Euro 2008 and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) bill. Never any need for Off Topic comments…

TBF they did get rid of feudal law.

Absolutely! They weren’t too bad in some respects. Largely due to having the SLDs in there.

The tragedy is the decline in radical liberalism since then. They are just pale copies of their red and blue Unionist colleagues.

Hard to remember that it was Michael Forsyth and the SLabbers that drove through pro-Gaelic legislation. The BritNats are nowadays vociferously anti-Gaelic.

FPT - Indeed. It's pleasant not to have to worry about bribing the laird annually not to call you out for military service with horse and armour, or glaive and boiled leather waistcoat as appropriate.

Some Unionists do take the support for Gaelic as a personal insult, though not all, presumably on the same principle that anything with Scotland on it must be SNP on it and bad.* Nobody on PB moaned about Sunil's discovery of railway station names in the Gaelic, which I think a pleasant cultural enrichment of a train ride, and he does too I think!

The Slab-LD alliance is also to be credited with the 2003 open access legislation - preserving access to land in a climate where the landowners wanted to use the lack of specific right of way law as an excuse to close down all access.

*Yet Labour, for instance, had the policy of supporting Gaelic language teaching for young children from islands communities years back, too. One of the most interesting revelations on PB, for me at any rate, is how many people from down south are convinced that the progressive administrative devolution of c. 1890-1995 is (a) all modern and (b) all the SNP's credit/fault whern they come up here and see e.g. "Transport Scotland" or "Scottish Natural Heritage" etc. Yet much of it long predates even Holyrood and the Dewar administrations, never mind the SNP in 2010.

Yep, one of the casualties of the last few years is the patriotic Scottish Unionist, eg John Buchan. Pride in anything Scottish is now seen as giving in to the Nats.

noneoftheabove

Stuartinromford said:

noneoftheabove said:

logical_song said:

noneoftheabove said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.

Might be better to subsidise house insulation and re-introduce solar panel subsidies.

That solves a different problem, investing to reduce costs in the longer term. All in favour.

But if that was the support for this winter, then millions will freeze, more millions will stop paying and our suppliers won't be able to buy the energy from the international markets and will go bust.

And yes, that money somehow has to come from "us". But what the "government giving taxpayers their own money back" argument (deliberately?) overlooks is that we're really talking about taking money from the better-off to stop poorer people freezing. You have investments in energy companies? You are better-off. Simple as.

And whilst few people view that prospect with any sort of joy, it's inevitable if "One Nation" is to mean anything at all, isn't it? The only question is the mechanism; give money to companies to cap the bills, or give money to people to pay the higher bills.

The advantage of the former is that it reduces the increase in inflation, and therefore reduces the increase in lots of other govt expenditure including on debt and pensions.

Sandpit

Pulpstar said:

With the skyrocketing leccy price is there a possibility charging an EV will become more expensive than a moderately economical ICE ?

I mean at the moment electric vehicles are basically using gas.

Certainly at the motorway services chargers.

OnlyLivingBoy

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

IshmaelZ said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

Where PB leads...

Odd how much good music is from Glasgow.

I put together a playlist of Scottish pop/rock artists for Burns Night once and I still listen to it regularly - Scotland has produced so much good music and Glasgow accounts for much of it. I have a theory that the Celts are a much more musical people than the Anglo Saxons, and so the musical map of Britain is tilted towards the west coast, with its Irish immigrant connections, as well as the celtic fringe more broadly.

Yes, the Germanic peoples, with their feeble Mozarts, Bachs, Beethovens and Wagners, are known for their pathetic lack of musicality

Doesn't seem to translate into the popular music sphere. Kraftwerk and Nina's 99 red balloons and...? And the English don't have any really top rank classical composers either - perhaps the Anglos were kicked out of Germany for singing out of tune.

Big_G_NorthWales

Northern_Al said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Sky reporting the drought in Europe is very serious with river levels threatening shipping and the Rhine may become impassable for ships carrying coal and petrol later this week

I was going to write 'it never rains but it pours', but I guess that's not an apt idiom at the moment.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a relentless torrent of bad news.

Like but do not like really

You are correct that the torrent of bad news is almost unprecedented and is not confined to the UK

HYUFD

dixiedean said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

Given Truss is set to have arch free marketeer Kwarteng as her Chancellor and bring arch free marketeers like John Redwood into her Cabinet as I said it won't happen in a government led by her. Truss will lead a more Thatcherite government economically than that of Johnson and Sunak.

It might happen in a government led by Starmer after the next general election however.

RochdalePioneers

Pulpstar said:

With the skyrocketing leccy price is there a possibility charging an EV will become more expensive than a moderately economical ICE ?

Not on the tariff at my office. 13.5p per kWh (net of VAT and Corporation tax) fixed until May 2024.

noneoftheabove

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

Given Truss is set to have arch free marketeer Kwarteng as her Chancellor and bring arch free marketeers like John Redwood into her Cabinet as I said it won't happen in a government led by her.

It might happen in a government led by Starmer after the next general election however

Textbooks get trumped by reality in a crisis. The only way I can see your prediction coming true is if Truss goes for a kamikaze GE this year.

Big_G_NorthWales

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

Given Truss is set to have arch free marketeer Kwarteng as her Chancellor and bring arch free marketeers like John Redwood into her Cabinet as I said it won't happen in a government led by her.

It might happen in a government led by Starmer after the next general election however

Labour said this morning they are not looking at nationalising energy

OldKingCole

Northern_Al said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Sky reporting the drought in Europe is very serious with river levels threatening shipping and the Rhine may become impassable for ships carrying coal and petrol later this week

I was going to write 'it never rains but it pours', but I guess that's not an apt idiom at the moment.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a relentless torrent of bad news.

If I recall correctly Jim Callaghan appointed Dennis Howell as Minister for Drought in August 1976. Almost immediately it poured with rain.
Problem sorted by a Labour government!

Selebian

eek said:

Interesting short thread on twitter

https://mobile.twitter.com/SolHughesWriter/status/1557679972621451264

Solomon Hughes
@SolHughesWriter
·
9m
(1)You can run things quite a long time in a cheapskate way, sweating your assets, and nothing much happens, people pull a bit harder, it creaks along. But when things break or go wrong , there's no slack to pull it back, the delayed crisis can be pretty bad.
Solomon Hughes
@SolHughesWriter
(2)The problem we have now is the entire public realm has been sweated and run down, so not only have all parts struggled with two consecutive , related shocks - Covid/Energy-Cost-of-living , they are al breaking together, each with a knock on effect
11:47 AM · Aug 11, 2022·Twitter Web App
1
Retweet
14
Likes

Solomon Hughes
@SolHughesWriter
·
2m
Replying to
@SolHughesWriter
(3)Social Care failures jam the (worn down) NHS, fair cost, local authorities threadbare, central govt no capacity to fill in.The lack of slack means the crisis multiplies:How does a care home deal with increased energy costs? Food price effects on school meals ? and so on and on

All the chickens are coming home to roost at the same time...

Factors like this are also why the NHS etc can look like a bottomless money pit. At this point a large injection of cash is needed to enable it to do what it is currently doing without burning out all its employees and being able to cope with fairly routine spikes in demand. That cash is sorely needed, but the impact would not, to the outsider, be all that obvious.

To (half) borrow an Osborne analogy, the roof might be in a right state, but it still keeps the rain off, mostly (although in a storm it might fall apart completely). It's a roof, it keeps you dry for now. A new roof will cost a fortune and will still just be a roof, keeping you dry, it just won't fail completely in a storm.

RochdalePioneers

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

Given Truss is set to have arch free marketeer Kwarteng as her Chancellor and bring arch free marketeers like John Redwood into her Cabinet as I said it won't happen in a government led by her.

It might happen in a government led by Starmer after the next general election however

We know the ideological position she is sowing. The challenge will be what happens when the ideological rhetoric splats against reality and need.

"No handouts" and "tax cuts will deliver" work fine as slogans for ancient Tory giffers. But not in the real world. So they will have to act - the question is will it just be too little too late, or will they sneer at the people in trouble first?

IshmaelZ

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Sky reporting the drought in Europe is very serious with river levels threatening shipping and the Rhine may become impassable for ships carrying coal and petrol later this week

LOL, the climate change implications of that snippet are like the blurb of a J G Ballard novel.

dixiedean

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

Given Truss is set to have arch free marketeer Kwarteng as her Chancellor and bring arch free marketeers like John Redwood into her Cabinet as I said it won't happen in a government led by her.

It might happen in a government led by Starmer after the next general election however

Arch free market means wholesale disconnections, including for plenty in work, old folk freezing, the collapse of providers, and a brutal culling of businesses reliant on discretionary spending.
I cannot see how a cleaving to ideology will solve anything at all.

Sean_F

eek said:

Sean_F said:

If you're in a seat that's been trending Conservative for several elections like Don Valley/Rother Valley/ Sedgefield, Bishop Auckland, the Stoke seats, you probably don't have much to worry about. These are all heading into the safe Conservative camp.

If you're in a seat that was just a fluke win, like Burnley, Leigh, you should be looking for another job.

If you're in a classic marginal, like Darlington, or High Peak, everything turns on the national state of play.

I'm confused as to how Darlington can be a marginal yet Bishop Auckland / Sedgefield are trending Tory?

Over the past 100 years, Darlington has been held for 57 years by Labour, 43 by the Conservatives. It has a Labour lean, but regularly shifts back and forth.

Over the same period, Labour has held Bishop Auckland for 93 years, National Liberal 4, Conservative 3. There was always a fair sized Conservative vote in the West, around Barnard Castle, but it was safe Labour. Since 1997, the Labour vote share has dropped by 27%, and the Conservative vote share has risen by 35%. That's an example of permanently shifting allegiances, as coal mining drops out of peoples' memories.

Taz

A campaign called "Enough is Enough", fronted by Unions and MP's including labour Rising Star Zarah Sultana, has been formed to tackle the cost of living crisis.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/new-union-and-mp-fronted-campaign-enough-is-enough-plans-to-hold-rallies-to-fight-cost-of-living-crisis/ar-AA10r7jV?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=e99e4c23945f404bfb9447dcb0e1b2f1

"Ms Sultana adds there are billionaires are pocketing record profits whilst households “suffer”, saying: “It’s all about one political choice – your need or their greed. It’s time to channel anger into action.”

Enough is Enough say they plan to hold rallies across Britain, form community groups, organise picket line solidarity and take action against the firms and individuals it claims are profiting from the cost of living crisis.

It has put forward five demands including giving households a real pay rise, with a hike to minimum wage, as well as slashing energy bills by cancelling the October price hike and reinstating the significantly lower pre-April price cap of £1,277 per year."


"Celebrities such as Caitlin Moran also vocalised their support on Twitter with the writer adding that she had signed up to the campaign."

Be interesting to see how this pans out even with the support of witless celebs tweeting for likes and retweets.

HYUFD

Big_G_NorthWales said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

HYUFD said:

dixiedean said:

FPT.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we?
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.

Though until the Ukraine and Russia war is over and sanctions ended that won't make much difference to inflation. It would also likely require a Labour government to implement

You really don't think that's where the new PM will end up (barring a swift end to the war of course)?
All other options look implausible and risk mass collapse of providers.
Of course, it won't be called nationalisation. But it won't differ much in all but name.

Given Truss is set to have arch free marketeer Kwarteng as her Chancellor and bring arch free marketeers like John Redwood into her Cabinet as I said it won't happen in a government led by her.

It might happen in a government led by Starmer after the next general election however

Labour said this morning they are not looking at nationalising energy

I said might but given Labour is still committed to nationalising the railways again it would not take much of a shift

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-sticks-plan-nationalise-27566893

Nigelb

TOPPING said:

MarqueeMark said:

Northern_Al said:

MarqueeMark said:

Clare Grogan on Radio 2 has chosen Mmm-bop as one of the tracks of her years.

I had quite a crush on Clare Grogan in my youth. Altered Images wrote at least one great pop song - I Could be Happy.

If I could have one wish it might be to have 19 year old Clare sing me Happy Birthday.....

@Leon?

No, his singing Happy Birthday would just be weird.