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A LAB majority still longer than evens in the betting – politicalbetting.com
A LAB majority still longer than evens in the betting – politicalbetting.com
Inevitably given the polling since Truss became the prime minister the betting has moved to LAB to win a majority at the next general election. But even though some polls have them at 33% ahead of the Tories punters still make a Labour majority longer than evens
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Would it be possible though? Would the Party accept it? And more to the point would Wallace and Sunak agree?
I'm far from sure.
1. if the existing Parliament is still "vital, viable, and capable of doing its job",
2. if a general election would be "detrimental to the national economy", and
3. if the sovereign could "rely on finding another prime minister who could govern for a reasonable period with a working majority in the House of Commons".
1. is questionable and 2. it would be the best thing that could happen to the national economy.
Thankfully there isn't.
https://mattgoodwin.substack.com/p/the-space-for-a-new-party-in-britain?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Evening all
As is so often the case, I'm late to the debate on today's polling about which I have a few thoughts.
The 38 Degrees poll for London (Lab 59, Con 22, LD 13) isn't as wild as it sounds - other recent London polling has shown enormous Labour leads.
In December 2019, Labour won 48% of the vote, the Conservatives 32% and the LDs 15% - that translated to 49 seats for Labour, 21 for the Conservatives and 3 for the Liberal Democrats and while that was the same as after 2017 that masked quite a bit of churn.
The new poll shows a 10.5% swing from Conservative to Labour (compared with the national 20% swing indicated by Redfield & Wilton for example).
Of the current 20 London Conservative seats, some of the sitting MPs face LD challengers who ran on a strong anti-Brexit ticket in 2019 and I just need convincing that's going to be possible to repeat. Wimbledon, for instance, was a Labour seat in the Blair years and might well be so again if the LD 2019 vote proves to be a chimera.
As for Julia Lopez, a 20% swing in Hornchurch & Upminster would reduce her 23,000 majority to something like 1,500 but she'd survive. Conversely, for all the poll swing, the evidence from the local elections is the LDs won't drop Richmond Park, Twickenham or Kington & Surbiton (you know the old phrase " to lose one leader at a General Election might be considered foolish, to lose two..."). The Conservatives might drop a former leader in Uxbridge & South Ruislip I suppose (if he stands).
Nonetheless, if the London swing is 10% and the national swing is above 15% there must be huge swings elsewhere - last night's local by-elections, by definition a small and wholly unrepresentative sample (up there with Scottish sub samples in truth), were very good for Labour but superficially less so for the LDs.
A rampant Labour Party may well perversely help the Conservatives enabling it to hold seats which might otherwise have gone LD - I can't imagine Starmer would be too bothered if his majority were 200 or 300 but I'd argue a Conservative Party with 150 seats would be in a better shape than one with 100 seats inasmuch as it would have survived an existential threat. The most extreme polling this week has toyed with the Conservatives not just being the third party in the Commons (behind the SNP) but perhaps the fourth (behind the LDs). The latter would be the existential threat, not the former, catastrophic though the former would be).
https://www.derbyshire.police.uk/contact/find-a-police-station/
There's always been a fire station at the Osmaston Road end, though. So where is it?
Bring it on. Bring it on.
Labour landslide.
Not a doubt in my mind!
(Seriously - bizarre choice. My wife is already moaning about all the grockles she'll get at work)
It’s also not true my friends Anabob & Horse are giving me a hard time - the truth is anyone posting the Tories are done for so at least 10yrs of Labour is coming I’m determined to give a hard time to. Have these people even followed UK politics for the last 55 years? 🤷♀️ as it was said in galaxy quest, don’t they even watch the show?
UK politics is wild and febrile, because UK has some big issues not getting tackled very well - growth, productivity, post industrial economic transformation, social care and demographic time bomb, energy security, globalisation - arguably New Labour years didn’t help with these, the next Labour government rides a buckaroo-dandy of public opinion if not dealing with them, and can get thrown off pretty damn quick themselves if they don’t deliver. Winning power is no time for hubris, it’s time for sleeves up even harder work.
Also of course, what is someone’s mentality if it’s all triumphalism and excitement at opinion polls right now? with workers rights, consumer rights, environmental protections and our welfare system in the hands of this government, and bonfire night approaching?
Things havn’t been this bad since chief judge Cal took over mega city one. If there’s anyone claiming Universal Credit called Arthur A Aardvark, I suggest they pack a bag and flee.
2) Mood. Basic truthfulness and honest competence is the demand of the day
3) The Tories are already in the populist position: Defending a bad Brexit to the hilt; spending tax payers and borrowed money like water; filling prisons; sounding off about migration. People have noticed there is a problem with it.
Doesn't seem a very democratic move to me.
Best of all is how he captures her vanity and madness.
The other day RCS asked me, if this is a repeat of the 70s disrupters who ended up changing the world, who is the Keith Joseph? And I replied Truss herself.
Canada's legalisation law presumably got Royal Assent?
"Following shortcomings identified by Derbyshire Constabulary highlighting their deteriorating station located on Cotton Lane in Derby, a review was initiated to modernise the facilities for future use by the force. The study concluded that building a brand new police station would be much more cost-effective and less intrusive than refurbishing their current headquarters.
Subsequently, a £9.5m plan was drawn up to build the new police station at Ascot Drive, located towards the city’s south. This would become the central police hub for the area, providing greater access to Derby County’s Pride Park stadium, making match day policing far more efficient."
https://www.westvillegroup.co.uk/project/ascot-drive-police-station/
So it's been open since April, and they have not even updated the list of stations on their website. Good luck to any members of the public who attempt to go to the old Cotton Lane station...
First, never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake (that's elementary politics)
Second, don't frighten the horses - Labour need to be "boring" to a point - people may want "change" but not too much and not too soon. This isn't 1945 when Attlee could transform society - in 2024, Starmer will have to convince millions of disillusioned Conservatives the Labour Party he leads is a non-socialist party of the centre or centre-left.
The contract he and the Left have unwittingly and unconsciously agreed is the same one Blair obtained - the Left will shut up or play loyal until the votes are counted and the majority is in the bag. If Starmer only wins by 50, he'll have an awkward squad of his own, if he wins by 200, he won't care.
He will be able to expend a fair bit of public goodwill undoing the excesses of Kwarteng's libertarianism (the wonderful prospect is the electorate, in their good sense, will have forced BOTH the Labour and Conservative Parties to abandon their own extremisms for a generation) before he can even start re-shaping the country. Now, we can hope (or not) Starmer doesn't get derailed by external events as Blair did - the longer in office the more likely that becomes so the argument is be radical quickly.
The one piece of good news I can offer beleaguered Tories, who have basically had the whip hand for the last 15 years or more - is, short of a complete existential wipeout (which I consider highly unlikely), the centre-right will be back. Nature abhors a vacuum and an opposition of some sort will emerge to the Labour hegemony. It should be the Conservatives and if they hold 100 seats or more it will be, at 50-100 seas there will be challenges from the LDs and the SNP. Sub 50 seats and the Conservative Party may need to undergo a transformation much as conservatism in Canada had to. It worked for them in time.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Edward+Lucas+for+the+Daily+Mail
Well, the government might be rising to that challenge;
Plans to give serving military personnel free train travel to attend remembrance services this year have been scrapped, after the government decided the cost would be “too great”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/07/free-train-travel-for-military-to-attend-remembrance-services-scrapped?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/governor-of-bermuda-update-on-cannabis-licensing-bill
Bermuda is an Overseas Territory.
Stands for "big ass nubile girl"?
Presumably then HMG doesn't get a say in the Royal Assent for Canadian laws, but does for Bermuda's?
And why is this moment 95-97? Why not 1974-75? In the 1970s Labour were not the disrupters to the failing orthodoxy, and since 79 we have not seen a social market economy of the post war consensus - UK Capitalism of 2020s needs a reset, but I don’t hear it from Labour in fact on PB it’s “don't frighten the horses - Labour need to be "boring" to a point - people may want "change" but not too much and not too soon”
In the 70s the right wing liberal-economic disrupters won, and if in 1974 I told you they were going to win, you would have laughed at me. Wouldn’t you?
Well, we may see this put to the test as one Pierre Poilievre is the new Conservative leader and he is described as a libertarian and a populist.
Current polls have put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals - the latest, by Nanos, on September 30th , has the Conservatives on 33%, the Liberals on 29% and the New Democrats recovering back to 23%. They're still a long way back from the incredible 2011 result under Jack Layton but Jagmeet Singh has stopped the rot and on these numbers the party would win 40-50 seats next time and would likely continue supporting a Liberal minority Government (Justin Trudeau will be 51 on Christmas Day and has led the Liberals for nearly 10 years).
No idea in Bermuda.
https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1578456156778872832?s=20&t=6fj3miEEtMi78xuOzT9k4w
Oh, that type of weed...
Legalise, and use differential taxation to encourage a move back to more normal strengths. Bit like beer vs spirits….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriation
The problem with this line is that a) voters don't buy it, and b) it isn't true. Our energy bills haven't been cut, as we keep being told. They're roughly doubled over the last year. Up, not cut. They are mistaken in thinking that voters will be grateful that their energy bills have 'only' doubled when they could have quadrupled or worse. £2.5k is a huge annual bill for an awful lot of households. (The fact that there's no alternative, and Labour would have done similar, is not relevant). I reckon this is the biggest single factor behind the opinion polls, supplemented now by rising mortgage rates.
Current polls have put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals - the latest, by Nanos, on September 30th , has the Conservatives on 33%, the Liberals on 29% and the New Democrats recovering back to 23%. They're still a long way back from the incredible 2011 result under Jack Layton but Jagmeet Singh has stopped the rot and on these numbers the party would win 40-50 seats next time and would likely continue supporting a Liberal minority Government (Justin Trudeau will be 51 on Christmas Day and has led the Liberals for nearly 10 years).'
He means the Progressive Conservatives never recovered. Today's Canadian Conservative Party led by Poilievre and which formed the Conservative government of Harper
from 2006 to 2015 is a product of the merger of the Progressive Conservatives and populist right Canadian Alliance in 2003.
Callaghan and, let's be honest, the Lib-Lab Pact were getting on top of inflation in 1977-78 but the Unions wouldn't play ball - even in autumn 1978 it's believed, had Callaghan gone to the country, he might have won.
The Winter of Discontent saw the Unions overplay their hand disastrously for the last time. Living through that winter convinced millions, if nothing else, Union power had to be curbed. Callaghan and Labour couldn't or wouldn't do it but Thatcher would.
It's often forgotten her 1979 Manifesto was less radical than Heath's in 1970 but the Conservatives had unfinished business with the TUC.
Rather like those who refused to accept the 2016 Referendum result, some in the Union movement believed they could run the country and control Government policy but that's not how democracy worked then or now.
Who advises the Governor General in both? How come Canada's GG felt it appropriate to approve Royal Assent, but Bermuda's didn't?
Incidentally from the article it seems like it might not be Liz Truss's Government who blocked it? The Governor of Bermuda says "I have now received an instruction, issued to me on Her Majesty’s behalf, not to Assent to the Bill as drafted." If the decision was taken in the past few days the instruction would have come on His Majesty's behalf.
Then again, it says the Foreign Secretary made the decision and Truss was the Foreign Secretary before then, so either way she seems to be responsible.
Bermuda's Governor is directly appointed by the King on the advice of the UK government as it is a UK overseas territory
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-weed-became-new-oxycontin-marijuana-psychosis-addiction
from 2006 to 2015 is a product of the merger of the Progressive Conservatives and populist right Canadian Alliance in 2003.
Yes. And they sit in uneasy alliance. This is a switch back to the libertarian Prairie faction. Which tends to lose votes in the marginal rich East. And pile up ludicrous majorities in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
I don't consider it likely - whether comparable to the 1997/2001 reverses or even worse, the Conservative Party will remain the opposition to Labour in England and that's what's important.
If you're second, you're in the best position to become first - if you're third or fourth it requires a huge amount of additional work.
When Labour becomes unpopular in Government (sooner or later), there will need to be an alternative and that is far more likely to be the Conservative Party than the Liberal Democrats.
The one game changer might be PR but I suspect if he wins a huge majority, Starmer will quietly put it to one side or perhaps bring it in for local elections only (which I'd support).
One of the cartoonists needs to start adding empty bean cans in place of ears to their caricature of Truss, as she truly is tin-eared.
True but if Trudeau continues to leak votes to the NDP Poilievre could win most seats on just a third of the vote, although not a majority.
Albeit the next election not until 2025
Starmer COULD pursue a more radical agenda than seems to be the case and will risk the detestation for Truss and Kwarteng will offset any anxiety (which will be magnified by the Mail and Express) regarding Labour's plans.
I argued in my previous there's a compelling rationale for acting radical quickly in the first term while you have public goodwill and before external events intervene too strongly. Johnson wasn't even given three months before he faced an unprecedented public health crisis.
However, there's also a need to prepare the ground - Thatcher did this frequently floating ideas in speeches to see what the reaction would be. Could Starmer or Reeves do this? Yes, but that then begs the cupboard whether they have any radical ideas or whether, as with Blair, the cupboard was bare.
Truss and Kwarteng have discovered how radical change can go down like a lump of cold sick if delivered in a cack-handed way. Starmer's team will, if they have a scintilla of sense, learn from that and ensure the communication of planned policy is kept as tight as possible.
https://www.gov.uk/private-renting/rent-increases
The GG of Canada is appointed by the king of Canada, advised by the Canadian government.
Canada is sovereign and independent.
The GG of Bermuda is appointed by the king of the UKGBNI, advised by the UKGBNI government.
Bermuda is a British colony.
Is this the first time that royal assent has been refused by the British monarch since 1708?
Doing well, this new duo, aren't they?
She may well be setting up a betrayal narrative whilst relying on her proven support in the Members vote, like Corbyn. Never fails.
The UK is falling quite backwards on this actually.
https://www.ft.com/content/a3aea4e6-0b29-4783-a024-ad3629a3bc3e
Of course, the cynical fkers know this, but that’s part of the plan. They then play off the legitimate grievances of existing businesses outside of these zones, to argue for lower business taxes across the board, paid for with deficit financing.
Reaganomics, without the dollar. We’re barely even a reserve currency any more. An emerging market economy, becoming a submerging economy.
But it was refused by the Foreign Secretary under Her Majesty, which would be apart from Her Majesty's final couple of days would be a certain Right Hon. Mary Elizabeth Truss.
And no not first time, it was refused on the same topic in another overseas territory a couple of years ago. Assent's not been refused in the UK in that time period, it has been refused overseas.