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So far the polling’s not looking bad for LizT – politicalbetting.com

LizT has been Prime Minister for just over 3 weeks and I have been skimming the polling trends to see if we can conclude whethe she is making a difference
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2022
This despite a change of leader who is banging her ideological Daily Express drum. She has failed to make an impact.
Labour will win the next General Election with an outright majority.
You can get 3/1
If you expect Liz to be a cluster fuck, this is value
Mr. Doethur, but the English union occurred over a thousand years ago whereas the German and Italian states came into being just a couple of centuries or so ago. I think that makes quite the difference.
https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1572328294393020419
Do we think Starmer is 90% of Blair?
But the Conservatives are facing numerous significant problems.
1) They've been in for a long time, so time for a change becomes a powerful mantra.
2) Cost of living is a problem for many people.
3) The former clownish PM's antics lost the party a lot of support which has not returned.
Against that, they do have incumbency and the boundary changes should help, but I'd not be surprised if we see a lot of changes next time.
Archaeology, nature, transport and services can be dealt with by appropriate zoning, making self-building easy in the zones where those aren't an issue and meaning people don't seek to develop in zones where it is problematic, because they can easily self-build in the appropriate and relevant zones.
If you make archaeology, nature, transport and services the responsibility of the developer then only developers dealing with entire estates can manage that. No individual self-builder can resolve transportation, nor should they. Zone appropriately, plan transportation for that zone, and let people self-build within the zone.
Lab for most seats at 1.83 looks good to me also. Even if Liz Truss is being underestimated, she has a big poll deficit to turnaround to win most seats.
On one side the red wall has woken up to the reality that they have been scammed. With levelling up to be dead on Friday and the various promised Brexit unicorns not arriving, polling and byelection results already show a wholesale reversion back to Labour in so many Tory 2019 seats.
On the other side the more southern and more rural seats who traditionally vote Tory wonder whatever happened to the Tory Party. A resurgence of LibDems winning here across swathes of the south and shires looks to be a reasonable proposition.
So whilst I agree that a Starmer majority would be a stretch, I do think it will take a radical shift to keep Truss in Downing Street.
If you did take that argument, you could note that the capital of the aforesaid state was split off from it in 1806 when it became the capital of the new Empire of Austria and the northern German states began the path that would lead to unification in 1871.
The use of nuclear weapons by Russia will make things much worse for Russia.
Although of course he was born in Austria
They're MAD weapons for self-defence, but Russia isn't engaged in self-defence so that's moot.
I imagine this was particularly true in border areas like Salzburg.
The announcement of "partial" mobilization in Russia was greeted with a shrug. It is a sign of the scale of the problems that Russia faces, and as one analyst said to me "partial mobilization is like partial virginity, it doesn´t mean anything unless you go the whole way". However the rumblings from across the border underline just how difficult the situation is becoming. Until the Estonians (and Latvians, Lithuanians and Poles) closed their border to holders of tourist visas, the border crossings at Narva and Petseri were extremely busy as more and more Russians were seeking to get out of the country. The few flights still running, to Yerevan and Istanbul or the Gulf are fully booked. Despite the comment from Putin that "of course" that the mobilization will not cover students or conscripts, no one believes it. Yet even calling up "just" reservists is an extremely difficult exercise, for a start, there is no modern equipment or weapons available, and the logistics for shifting tens of thousands of men simply does not exist. This is a last, desperate throw and could be his final miscalculation. More to the point, it will take weeks or months to find the troops, prepare them and supply them, and Russia is losing the war now. The flanking movement towards Lyman is putting huge pressure on the whole Donbas, and the Russians are running out of options. Meanwhile the pressure on Kherson is relentless and the liberation of that city would be nearly as disastrous as the breakout across the Oskil river. So the expectation in Estonia is that despite nuclear sabre rattling, the Russian forces are increasingly close to exhausted.
The growing question is what would happen if the Putin regime does fall apart. This is, in part, why Estonia is still expanding its defence capabilities, Huge issues could arrive on the Estonian border quite quickly if the situation in Russia does in fact break down. No one is really thinking about this potential crisis at the moment, but as Götterdämmerung begins to approach the Kremlin, the question of how to cope with the collapse will be concentrating minds, and not just being discussed at security conferences in Tallinn.
Paradoxically, however, if only one side has them it's really urgent the other side get them to make them pointless.
If only the Yanks had had nuclear weapons in 1949-50, they would surely have used them in Korea and then invaded China.
Labour is pretty level at around 40-42% which is a high for the past year. Truss does not appear to appeal to this collection of voters.
Lib Dems are back down to around 10%, the same level as around 6 months ago. Their summer boost appears to have dissipated.
The Conservatives are back up to around 33%, around the level about 6 months ago. This suggests a swing from Lib Dems to Conservatives.
The other parties are on fairly similar numbers with the greens on around 5-6%.
So the question for the Conservatives is whether the change in policies and a new prime minister will shift the Labour vote.
Even if he does the full Blair, he ends up with only the same majority Cameron got in 2015.
There’s a very large hung parliament landing zone, which is by far the most likely outcome of the next election.
It is simply too early to say what would happen in a GE, and how that group would vote if there were one.
But the issues that would make the difference from the Tory point of view are: Courage, integrity, respect for parliament and the rule of law, not pandering to extremes, concern both for wealth creation and the needs of those who need help, modesty, competence and honesty.
And from the SKS point of view: Can he keep the extremes in their box.
Interesting times. And with so much to possibly go/stay wrong, and almost nothing going right there seem to be no easy wins at all for government.
A number of their plans posited replying to a surprise attack from NATO.
A surprise attack which -
1) caused no losses in the Warsaw Pact forces.
2) took no East bloc territory.
3) did not involve alerting most of NATO forces
This kind of double think has a history….
For me the Trussteam have two major issues:
1 Disconnection from reality. The latest cabinet team seem even less clued up than their predecessors which is impressive. You can't defy reality for long before it demolishes whatever baseless rhetoric you are peddling
2 That belittling sneer so many of them speak with. An absolute dripping disdain for anyone who isn't them. Even if they find themselves lucky with a couple of policies which manage to resonate, the sneering will remove whatever political points they should get.
Specially for @RochdalePioneers if he hasn't noticed.
'A SCOTTISH Conservative MP who left the UK Government in a reshuffle last year is returning to the Scotland Office as a junior minister, it has been confirmed.
David Duguid, MP for Banff and Buchan, previously served as a junior minister in the department but was taken off the brief and given a fisheries envoy position by Boris Johnson last September.
He quit that job during the exodus from Johnson’s government this summer, describing the Prime Minister’s position as “untenable”.
His return to government comes after he publicly declared his support for Liz Truss during the Conservative leadership election – something his party leader Douglas Ross, and Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, chose not to do.'
Once people have weapons, compelling them to disarm is virtually impossible. Whether the USSR or USA wanted to "allow" it is neither here nor there, any more than it is them "allowing" Pakistan or North Korea to have them.
On Putin's mobilisation:
1)Why the delay from the message that was supposed to go out yesterday? Seems like behind the scenes disagreements going on which could be the most significant revelation of all.
2)What sort of shape will these reservists be in? They've already been offering substantial money to go to the front lines and people haven't taken the bait so much so that Russia's resorted to recruiting prisoners.
3)What are they going to be equipped with and how will they be sufficiently supplied?
4)How is it going to be paid for? There's already talk about major spending cuts and the economic pain is only just beginning.
5)This is presumably a signal to the west of Putin's 'indomitable will' so it's time to negotiate. Frankly I think we should keep calling his bluff no least given the shenanigans over the broadcast. It's worth remembering that if Putin is at an 8 on the escalation scale Nato is at about 3. No elite fighter jets for Ukraine, no ATACMS and certainly not a no fly zone or boots on the ground or blockade of Russian ships. We have plenty to up the ante with.
I have been bullish on the outcome of the war since a few weeks in. That said it would be wrong not to be a little nervous about hundreds of thousands of men being mobilised. Could they make a difference at least in terms of holding the current lines? Yes but given the lack of kit and the fact they have no answer to American precision guided artillery a lot of them will surely die or be maimed in the process and they probably know it. I suspect this is an army that has more chance of marching on Moscow than Kyiv.
If they had decided to rework the plutonium into some simple single stage designs, how could they have been stopped? Imposing sanctions, when they had never been part of the non proliferation treaties?
The Russia was in no mood or condition to invade anyone at that point.
There needs to be a very narrow landing patch for the Tories to stay in power without a majority - it involves DUP and Tory numbers being sufficient. I'd say that is less likely than either Labour or the Tories winning an overall majority.
But the technical problems Ukraine would have faced in maintaining increasingly-aged warheads and the related delivery systems were massive and costly. Ukraine volunteering to get rid of their nukes was a brave move, and the west's inability to keep their side of the deal shameful.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-korean-war-almost-went-nuclear-180955324/
The Business Secretary could abolish the droit du suite and VAT impositions the EU used to divert part of the global art market from London to New York.Maybe they thought it would help Paris but it just made the whole EU less competitive.
He could lower costs of buying a home by removing anti money laundering checks from any U.K. citizen buying and selling their main home and using a U.K. regulated bank. He could make energy certificates for homes a matter of choice for buyers and sellers.
He could work with Defra to use farm grants to promote growing more food here and to foster investment in more glasshouses and new farming techniques instead of subsidising wilding policies, and relying on more imports from the EU.
He could simplify the expensive bureaucracy created by the EU data protection legislation.
He could repeal the EU Ports Regulation which was widely opposed by our ports when it was introduced. It gets in the way of port investment and expansion.
He could repeal the railway rules which require the separation of track ownership from train ownership.Integrated ownership of routes by private companies should be an option.
He with the Treasury should allow more people self employed tax status, removing the penal elements of IR 35.
He should repeal the on line digital tax.
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/09/20/time-to-reverse-eu-damage-to-our-industries-and-economy/
What state do we think the weapons might be in, after 33 years of neglect that was signed off as serviceable every week or month?
I still think that the most likely place for a Russian nuke to go off, is in its own silo.
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The packed schedule is to accommodate The Hundred.
I can't believe I couldn't find odds on these Russian referenda in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The results are on a knife edge as far as I can tell.
Shadsy et al. - please sort.
Not been to St p but I am told the entire city shares one central heating system
At that point no one really knew wheter Ukraine would be truly independent, pro west or continue as a pro Russia satelite. It suited everyone at the time not to have probably imperfectly maintained nuclear weapons rotting away in a state that could have gone in several unpredictable directions.
It suited everyone for Ukraine to disarm, which is why guarantees were made which encouraged them to do so. That those guarantees turned to dust should shame everyone involved though.
I could understand a bit of crowing from those whose intelligence assessment had been closer to the mark.
Who exactly is Ukraine attacking right now?
GB News
@GBNEWS
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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry set to return to California without brokering a peace deal with royal family - despite 'efforts on both sides'
But allegedly taking soldiers from the missile systems to fight in the war is a slight indication they might not be.
How wrong can you be?
Didn’t they want privacy? More chance of peace breaking out between Moscow and Kiev.
(heads down to the bookies...).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11233957/Prince-Harry-Meghan-Markle-set-return-California-without-peace-deal-struck.html
The one I think I really disagree with is repealing the on line digital tax.
So it's not an ideal that can be carried out 100% unless you don't bother with through trains, and make everyone get out and change where companies meet.
What also sticks out like a sore thumb is that it's a very London-centric concept - someone who only thinks in tersm of travel to/from London, which was usually on a single company's track. .
See my contribution on related stuff, @OnlyLivingBoy:
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4120748/#Comment_4120748
Foxy retorts that Britain isn't like that and he thinks I must be in a Russky cyber-tent somewhere.
There are some conflicts in which the adversary has contempt for the ground you walk on, but when you realise that fact and you talk about it in public their hatred for you goes through the roof. A lot could be said about that. Suffice to say it's always good to know the adversary better than he knows you.