Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power. However that was largely to keep Kinnock out rather than Major in and it was all downhill from for the Tory government. Starmer may be no Blair but he is no Kinnock either.
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
True zero at the abscissa/ordinate intersection, though.
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland with Yougov. Tories up to 19% in Scotland compared to 16% in London and 20% in the North
The red flashing warning sign I keep a look out for is not running out of ideas (although that is certainly true), but is instead complacency towards the public.
In the run-up to 97, Tory MPs were doing all manner of nonsense - they were complacent and thought they could get away with anything. In 2007, Labour thought they'd be in power for ever (shortly there will be an election at which Labour will increase their majority etc.)
I think there are certainly similar signs now for the Tories - but maybe Rishi can turn it around.
You would hope the fate of Liz Truss would jolt them out of it.
But what Talleyrand said applies.
In a way, Truss was the wrong person to give the Conservatives a dreadful warning. Her plans were so mad and so ham-fisted, that "don't have a crazy person as leader" would be a reasonable learning from the experience.
Reasonable, but insufficient. Hence the lashings of "nice Mr Sunak will calm things down" copium we're seeing at the moment.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
If you want to know more about modern Spain, you will generally struggle to find much in English. Giles Tremlett has just written a decent, very breathless, potted history of Spain that is worth a read. For me, the best historian of the country writing in English is Paul Preston.
In terms of general themes for Spain:
1. Catalan nationalism and its interaction with Spanish nationalism is absolutely pivotal to what has happened there for the last 200 years. You cannot begin to understand Spain without knowing that. Most recently it has led to the rise of Spain’s first post-Franco far-right party, Vox. 2. The environment - much of central and eastern Spain is on course to becoming semi-desert. Long-term water shortages are changing the country. But at the same time it could become a solar and wind energy superpower. 3. Immigration. There has been a huge influx of Latin Americans into Spain over recent years, alongside smaller but significant arrivals from Africa - North and sub-Saharan. How that plays out will be fascinating, but it’s likely to lead to major change. Start with those three, but there’s so much more.
Imagine having a job where there are websites which exist solely for watching your every move, criticising everything you do, and retweeting every tiny bit of negative information about you.
I don’t have to, I had one for ten years.
What job?
Teaching!
And finally: we apparently want MPs to be one of us, to 'represent' ourselves. Hence we want a certain number of female MPs, a certain number of BAME MPs, a certain number of state-educated ones. Note 'ability' does not creep into this. Yet we also want them to be 'better' than us. To be the same as us, yet better. It's an impossibility.
Yes there is some truth to this. The diversity on the government benches is in large part due to the work that Cameron put in in the late naughties, and those now have a dozen years experience as MPs, so are front benches. Would Sunak have been selected for a safe seat a decade or so earlier?
This was helped of course by the large number of new seats won in 2010, and the unusual number of retirements from the expenses scandal fall out. Polls would suggest that there will be a massive clear out at the next GE too, with perhaps half the government benches being novice MPs. An opportunity but also a problem.
One thing that we do seem to have lost is the presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates. Rayner is a rare example, and clearly political marmite (I am a fan). I do think this matters, as too many MPs come through the avenues of student politics, think tank, policy wonk, to MP. Either that or a narrow range of careers, often in financial services, giving a very one dimensional character to Parliament.
"presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates."
What is 'working class' nowadays? IMV the distinctions are becoming very blurred. For instance, is Owen Jones 'working class' ? If so, why not Rishi Sunak?
Agree totally on non-graduates. I've wittered on about the evils of the 50% university targets in the past; but what we are seeing are increasing number of roles which are closed to non-graduates (*). This is utterly wrong and throws lots of people under the bus - the same effect as the 11+, except later in life.
(*) I am a non-graduate.
We have a skills shortage of craftspeople and tradespeople. We don’t have a skills shortage of graduates.
We do. Doctors, Nurses, Physiotherapists etc are all suffering skills shortages.
Doctors I accept. Should nurses and physiotherapists need a degree?
I think so, yes. The suggestion that they don't probably underestimates the nature of their job. Most Doctors probably don't "need" a degree, but it is the way we deliver a structured programme of learning over several years including theoretical and practical work.
Mr. Royale, Spain is covered by Chris Wickham as one (of many) part of The Inheritance of Rome. So it's not a dedicated history to Spain by any stretch but I did find it very enlightening for the period 400-1000 AD (for Europe, North Africa, and bits of the Middle East).
Agree. Great but hard work. A bit easier if you start with, say, Peter Brown 'The World of late Antiquity' and move on.
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland
Is that in relative or absolute terms? Because it could hardly get lower.
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery.
How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
There is a real loss in losing daily newspapers with large circulation and a collective monopoly on current comment and news. Both the 24 hour news cycle and the internet (these of course are linked events) have destroyed the model.
It loses a whole culture of tens of millions imbibing a culture in common ways every morning. And there is nothing that quite replaces newspaper with writing on it, print coming off on your fingers. But newspapers are in a sense out of date as they are printed and distributed. And of course Guardian online is free (as is much of the FT if you work around).
My compromise is to subscribe to the print edition of the Economist for slower news and comment, and online for the 24 hour cycle.
But the only thing I miss about London days and commuting etc is the immediacy of newsprint, and reading the Times in pre -Murdoch days.
I remember the joy of arriving back at Brixton tube station late at night to find the first editions of tomorrow's papers already available. A completely alien world now.
Similarly, the last "PInk Un", in Portsmouth, ended this year. They were killed off by a combination of football matches no longer all starting at 3.00 p.m. on a Saturday and the introduciton of all-day pub hours.
Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
Data - technetracker.co.uk
Consistent picture - 6-9 point bounce leaves them still 25-30 adrift
CBA to look again but I looked at new PM bounces a bit ago and my impression was they are pretty instantaneous, so this will be as good as it gets unless Rishi actually impresses on the merits.
Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
Data - technetracker.co.uk
It'll take a few weeks for the Rishi effect to fully feed through into the polls IMO. By then I'd be surprised if the Tories aren't back at 30% or thereabouts.
Congrats to @ydoethur on the well written thread, and the historical context is 10/10. Impartiality 5/10 though (the 5 points for the last para). As a centrist I am relatively happy with the makeup of this government, particularly that of Jeremy Hunt. To suggest that because someone has been an experienced politician, they are therefore worn out seems totally counterintuitive. Braverman appointment almost certainly a mistake, but that is realpolitik that Disraeli would have understood.
@ydoethur would perhaps like to see this government replaced by Labour despite his final paragraph. While I like SKS and can see what many others cannot that he is a man of rare talent, he does not yet have the team that I would consider to be anything of an improvement over the current incumbents. They need at least another couple of years for Starmer to get rid of the lightweights and left wing nutters that are still running through the veins of his party like a half treated syphilitic infection.
Nonetheless, well done on an excellent header @ydoethur
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
There is no use in saying the next election is won or lost at this stage: there are too many variables yet to play out.
I think however it is fair to say from a probability perspective, that it is pretty unlikely the Tories will win a majority. Both a hung Parliament and Labour majority are more plausible outcomes.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
The last time it actually happened was in 1826.
79,83,87,92 ?
Sorry, to clarify - the last time it happened other than 1992 was in 1826, so it's in the last almost 200 years, not 100 years.
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland
Is that in relative or absolute terms? Because it could hardly get lower.
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
If you want to know more about modern Spain, you will generally struggle to find much in English. Giles Tremlett has just written a decent, very breathless, potted history of Spain that is worth a read. For me, the best historian of the country writing in English is Paul Preston.
In terms of general themes for Spain:
1. Catalan nationalism and its interaction with Spanish nationalism is absolutely pivotal to what has happened there for the last 200 years. You cannot begin to understand Spain without knowing that. Most recently it has led to the rise of Spain’s first post-Franco far-right party, Vox. 2. The environment - much of central and eastern Spain is on course to becoming semi-desert. Long-term water shortages are changing the country. But at the same time it could become a solar and wind energy superpower. 3. Immigration. There has been a huge influx of Latin Americans into Spain over recent years, alongside smaller but significant arrivals from Africa - North and sub-Saharan. How that plays out will be fascinating, but it’s likely to lead to major change. Start with those three, but there’s so much more.
I was in Madrid over the weekend, and took the chance to see the paintings of Goya. He captures brilliantly, the sheer stupidity and arrogance of Ferdinand VII 'El Rey Felone'. And then his later works are absolutely nightmarish.
If you want to get a clearer insight into the agonies and atrocities of Ukraine, a bit of time with Goya’s Peninsular War stuff should do it.
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
The only two big volume manufacturers are JLR and Nissan. Nissan are powering along at 500,000+ vehicles a year but it's all based on models that are approaching the end of their lifecycle. JLR are still doing decent volumes but their future looks cloudy. They have given up in the powertrain business (new RR has a BMW engine) and are going to attempt to move Jaguar upmarket to be an electric only Bentley/RR competitor. I mean, it's a strategy but who knows if it will work. They probably need to ditch the Jaguar brand and sell it to some Chinese company who have the capital to make a success of the plan.
I dislike the JLR strategy. It just screams ’failure’.
But Nissan is the big worry: when those old models are retired, why would they invest in England for the new models? There’s a question Sunak’s crap cabinet can try to answer. Bet they can’t.
Imagine having a job where there are websites which exist solely for watching your every move, criticising everything you do, and retweeting every tiny bit of negative information about you.
I don’t have to, I had one for ten years.
What job?
Teaching!
Hmmm. Was there really a website that existed solely to watch *your* every move, criticise everything *you* did, and retweeted every tiny bit of information about *you*?
Thanks for the article, BTW. To one of your questions about why politicians are of low quality, I'd put more emphasis on ideological purity. For four or five years, Labour selected a load of people who were total incompetents - but were solidly Corbynite. Likewise, as you state the Conservatives have been concerned more about Brexit purity than sane government, and have forced out a load of people who did not think Europe was the source of all the country's ills.
Both parties need to become broader churches.
I'd also argue that some politicians who are widely derided aren't as bad as they are made out. Gove is a classic example of this: he is widely hated, but also one of the better performers.
And finally: we apparently want MPs to be one of us, to 'represent' ourselves. Hence we want a certain number of female MPs, a certain number of BAME MPs, a certain number of state-educated ones. Note 'ability' does not creep into this. Yet we also want them to be 'better' than us. To be the same as us, yet better. It's an impossibility.
The last paragraph is weird nonsense. It's perfectly possible to have a parliament that includes "females" "BAME MPs" the "state-educated" who also have "ability".
People rightly see it as a sign of something wrong if government is dominated by, for example, rich people who went to elite private schools. Imagine a parliament that only contained white, male, privately-educated MPs. The only people who would just shrug and say "don't ask for more representation for other groups - it's just about ability" would probably be white, male and privately educated.
That's not my point, which I probably did not express well. You may be shocked to hear this, but I am a flawed individual. I fear that you are as well. Indeed, I may hasten to suggest that everyone on PB is. We will have some posters and readers who are liars; some who use prostitutes; some who swear in public; perhaps even some who indulge in domestic abuse. None of us will be perfect.
Yet that sort of behaviour might cause MPs significant issues (rightly, in some cases). We rightly expect MPs to be better than all of that, but if they are, then they are not *like* us. Like someone having an affair who complains about an MP having one.
So instead, we pretend that what matters is the 'group' someone is in - and assume that anyone who is not in that group cannot comprehend what it is like to be in that group. I'd much rather have someone totally unlike me as MP, who might be able to think and consider what it is like to be *me* (or my neighbours, or friends), than a middle-class, middle-aged heterosexual male like myself who is unable to consider what it might be like to be female. Or gay. Or Asian. Or elderly.
And as Sunak shows: even when they are a member of a group, if they have 'wrong' ideas then they are suddenly not a member of that group in some people's eyes.
And BTW, I've argued for inclusion consistently on here. But only if they are also good at the job - however you define the job of a politician (and that's a whole other issue).
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
The last time it actually happened was in 1826.
In terms of a fifth consecutive general election win yes but we are 12 years into a Tory government, the equivalent of late 1991 in the Thatcher to Major government
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
True zero at the abscissa/ordinate intersection, though.
Fridges produced in the UK?
True; I apologize for not going the extra mile on that front.
Good guess, but no. The dataset goes back to the mid nineteenth century, and I've just plucked out the last few years.
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
True zero at the abscissa/ordinate intersection, though.
Fridges produced in the UK?
True; I apologize for not going the extra mile on that front.
Good guess, but no. The dataset goes back to the mid nineteenth century, and I've just plucked out the last few years.
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland with Yougov. Tories up to 19% in Scotland compared to 16% in London and 20% in the North
Congrats on your first thread! (if it is - it's the first one I recall). I love the historical backdrop you provide.
I am not impressed with Sunak's cabinet either. I was similarly unimpressed with Boris and Truss's cabinets. I am not sure that the issue is just time spent in office, I think it's pursuing loyalty above all else. Though Truss would obviously disagree, because Braverman, who triggered Truss's exit, was one of the few Ministers that she hadn't chosen (she had to be given a job because she dropped out and supported Truss). Truss would probably argue that greater slavish loyalty was required.
Something extraordinary is happening in Iran... 4 minutes on the protests and how, despite the crackdown, they're changing the lives of Iranian women. Thanks to Rana Rahimpour from @BBCPersian . Video editing and production by Stuart Denman. https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1585712222369710081
Imagine having a job where there are websites which exist solely for watching your every move, criticising everything you do, and retweeting every tiny bit of negative information about you.
I don’t have to, I had one for ten years.
What job?
Teaching!
And finally: we apparently want MPs to be one of us, to 'represent' ourselves. Hence we want a certain number of female MPs, a certain number of BAME MPs, a certain number of state-educated ones. Note 'ability' does not creep into this. Yet we also want them to be 'better' than us. To be the same as us, yet better. It's an impossibility.
Yes there is some truth to this. The diversity on the government benches is in large part due to the work that Cameron put in in the late naughties, and those now have a dozen years experience as MPs, so are front benches. Would Sunak have been selected for a safe seat a decade or so earlier?
This was helped of course by the large number of new seats won in 2010, and the unusual number of retirements from the expenses scandal fall out. Polls would suggest that there will be a massive clear out at the next GE too, with perhaps half the government benches being novice MPs. An opportunity but also a problem.
One thing that we do seem to have lost is the presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates. Rayner is a rare example, and clearly political marmite (I am a fan). I do think this matters, as too many MPs come through the avenues of student politics, think tank, policy wonk, to MP. Either that or a narrow range of careers, often in financial services, giving a very one dimensional character to Parliament.
"presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates."
What is 'working class' nowadays? IMV the distinctions are becoming very blurred. For instance, is Owen Jones 'working class' ? If so, why not Rishi Sunak?
Agree totally on non-graduates. I've wittered on about the evils of the 50% university targets in the past; but what we are seeing are increasing number of roles which are closed to non-graduates (*). This is utterly wrong and throws lots of people under the bus - the same effect as the 11+, except later in life.
(*) I am a non-graduate.
We have a skills shortage of craftspeople and tradespeople. We don’t have a skills shortage of graduates.
We do. Doctors, Nurses, Physiotherapists etc are all suffering skills shortages.
Doctors I accept. Should nurses and physiotherapists need a degree?
That is a different question, but not the current situation.
There are other graduates jobs such as teaching with shortages too.
Imagine having a job where there are websites which exist solely for watching your every move, criticising everything you do, and retweeting every tiny bit of negative information about you.
I don’t have to, I had one for ten years.
What job?
Teaching!
And finally: we apparently want MPs to be one of us, to 'represent' ourselves. Hence we want a certain number of female MPs, a certain number of BAME MPs, a certain number of state-educated ones. Note 'ability' does not creep into this. Yet we also want them to be 'better' than us. To be the same as us, yet better. It's an impossibility.
Yes there is some truth to this. The diversity on the government benches is in large part due to the work that Cameron put in in the late naughties, and those now have a dozen years experience as MPs, so are front benches. Would Sunak have been selected for a safe seat a decade or so earlier?
This was helped of course by the large number of new seats won in 2010, and the unusual number of retirements from the expenses scandal fall out. Polls would suggest that there will be a massive clear out at the next GE too, with perhaps half the government benches being novice MPs. An opportunity but also a problem.
One thing that we do seem to have lost is the presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates. Rayner is a rare example, and clearly political marmite (I am a fan). I do think this matters, as too many MPs come through the avenues of student politics, think tank, policy wonk, to MP. Either that or a narrow range of careers, often in financial services, giving a very one dimensional character to Parliament.
"presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates."
What is 'working class' nowadays? IMV the distinctions are becoming very blurred. For instance, is Owen Jones 'working class' ? If so, why not Rishi Sunak?
Agree totally on non-graduates. I've wittered on about the evils of the 50% university targets in the past; but what we are seeing are increasing number of roles which are closed to non-graduates (*). This is utterly wrong and throws lots of people under the bus - the same effect as the 11+, except later in life.
(*) I am a non-graduate.
We have a skills shortage of craftspeople and tradespeople. We don’t have a skills shortage of graduates.
We do. Doctors, Nurses, Physiotherapists etc are all suffering skills shortages.
Doctors I accept. Should nurses and physiotherapists need a degree?
Nurses almost certainly no, and it may put off the less academic who would make very good nurses. Physiotherapy has always required high level professional qualifications. I believe the Chartered Institute of Physiotherapy has had its chartered status much longer than most. Most professions are essentially applied vocations. The "need" for a degree is always questionable. The law has now once again recognised it is not essential. IMO it is ludicrous that a GP needs to have the same essential training as a hospital consultant, and invariably ends up better renumerated, but that is another subject.
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
Data - technetracker.co.uk
Consistent picture - 6-9 point bounce leaves them still 25-30 adrift
CBA to look again but I looked at new PM bounces a bit ago and my impression was they are pretty instantaneous, so this will be as good as it gets unless Rishi actually impresses on the merits.
No, they take a short while. May and Johnson took a month to reach the top of the bounce then plateaued, Johnson then getting a second bounce after 3 months when he called the election
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
As the article refers to “self identification” I expect existing rights of GRC holders would be maintained. What’s put the cat among the pigeons is Scotlands half baked rush to self-ID. But certainly worth questioning the government on when proposals are brought forward.
Imagine having a job where there are websites which exist solely for watching your every move, criticising everything you do, and retweeting every tiny bit of negative information about you.
I don’t have to, I had one for ten years.
What job?
Teaching!
Hmmm. Was there really a website that existed solely to watch *your* every move, criticise everything *you* did, and retweeted every tiny bit of information about *you*?
Thanks for the article, BTW. To one of your questions about why politicians are of low quality, I'd put more emphasis on ideological purity. For four or five years, Labour selected a load of people who were total incompetents - but were solidly Corbynite. Likewise, as you state the Conservatives have been concerned more about Brexit purity than sane government, and have forced out a load of people who did not think Europe was the source of all the country's ills.
Both parties need to become broader churches.
I'd also argue that some politicians who are widely derided aren't as bad as they are made out. Gove is a classic example of this: he is widely hated, but also one of the better performers.
And finally: we apparently want MPs to be one of us, to 'represent' ourselves. Hence we want a certain number of female MPs, a certain number of BAME MPs, a certain number of state-educated ones. Note 'ability' does not creep into this. Yet we also want them to be 'better' than us. To be the same as us, yet better. It's an impossibility.
The last paragraph is weird nonsense. It's perfectly possible to have a parliament that includes "females" "BAME MPs" the "state-educated" who also have "ability".
People rightly see it as a sign of something wrong if government is dominated by, for example, rich people who went to elite private schools. Imagine a parliament that only contained white, male, privately-educated MPs. The only people who would just shrug and say "don't ask for more representation for other groups - it's just about ability" would probably be white, male and privately educated.
That's not my point, which I probably did not express well. You may be shocked to hear this, but I am a flawed individual. I fear that you are as well. Indeed, I may hasten to suggest that everyone on PB is. We will have some posters and readers who are liars; some who use prostitutes; some who swear in public; perhaps even some who indulge in domestic abuse. None of us will be perfect.
Yet that sort of behaviour might cause MPs significant issues (rightly, in some cases). We rightly expect MPs to be better than all of that, but if they are, then they are not *like* us. Like someone having an affair who complains about an MP having one.
So instead, we pretend that what matters is the 'group' someone is in - and assume that anyone who is not in that group cannot comprehend what it is like to be in that group. I'd much rather have someone totally unlike me as MP, who might be able to think and consider what it is like to be *me* (or my neighbours, or friends), than a middle-class, middle-aged heterosexual male like myself who is unable to consider what it might be like to be female. Or gay. Or Asian. Or elderly.
And as Sunak shows: even when they are a member of a group, if they have 'wrong' ideas then they are suddenly not a member of that group in some people's eyes.
And BTW, I've argued for inclusion consistently on here. But only if they are also good at the job - however you define the job of a politician (and that's a whole other issue).
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
True zero at the abscissa/ordinate intersection, though.
Fridges produced in the UK?
True; I apologize for not going the extra mile on that front.
Good guess, but no. The dataset goes back to the mid nineteenth century, and I've just plucked out the last few years.
Coal
or steel
Yup - coal.
I was surprised that coal production was that high, as recently as the 2010s.
For comparison, both global coal production and global car production were still increasing in 2021.
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery.
How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
There is a real loss in losing daily newspapers with large circulation and a collective monopoly on current comment and news. Both the 24 hour news cycle and the internet (these of course are linked events) have destroyed the model.
It loses a whole culture of tens of millions imbibing a culture in common ways every morning. And there is nothing that quite replaces newspaper with writing on it, print coming off on your fingers. But newspapers are in a sense out of date as they are printed and distributed. And of course Guardian online is free (as is much of the FT if you work around).
My compromise is to subscribe to the print edition of the Economist for slower news and comment, and online for the 24 hour cycle.
But the only thing I miss about London days and commuting etc is the immediacy of newsprint, and reading the Times in pre -Murdoch days.
I remember the joy of arriving back at Brixton tube station late at night to find the first editions of tomorrow's papers already available. A completely alien world now.
Similarly, the last "PInk Un", in Portsmouth, ended this year. They were killed off by a combination of football matches no longer all starting at 3.00 p.m. on a Saturday and the introduciton of all-day pub hours.
It's in Larkin's 'Show Saturday' that lost world:
Back now to private addresses, gates and lamps
In high stone one-street villages, empty at dusk,
And side roads of small towns (sports finals stuck
In front doors, allotments reaching down to the railway);
Back now to autumn, leaving the ended husk
Of summer that brought them here for Show Saturday –
It is strange and still going on, all those lost worlds you personally remember.
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
I think you have also revealed what you do when you are not posting nonsense on here. You might also want to look up "remarketing" as an explanation for your results. If I put Matt into Google I get a dictionary definition and then Matt Cartoons is the second listing. No Asian ladies.
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery.
How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
There is a real loss in losing daily newspapers with large circulation and a collective monopoly on current comment and news. Both the 24 hour news cycle and the internet (these of course are linked events) have destroyed the model.
It loses a whole culture of tens of millions imbibing a culture in common ways every morning. And there is nothing that quite replaces newspaper with writing on it, print coming off on your fingers. But newspapers are in a sense out of date as they are printed and distributed. And of course Guardian online is free (as is much of the FT if you work around).
My compromise is to subscribe to the print edition of the Economist for slower news and comment, and online for the 24 hour cycle.
But the only thing I miss about London days and commuting etc is the immediacy of newsprint, and reading the Times in pre -Murdoch days.
I remember the joy of arriving back at Brixton tube station late at night to find the first editions of tomorrow's papers already available. A completely alien world now.
Similarly, the last "PInk Un", in Portsmouth, ended this year. They were killed off by a combination of football matches no longer all starting at 3.00 p.m. on a Saturday and the introduciton of all-day pub hours.
And, even more critically, live scores on everyone's phones - the same thing that led the BBC, almost inconceivably, to drop the classified results from Sports Report.
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
I livew in semi-rural coastal SE Spain . As a gay man I find it very tolerant. It is still relatively poor - average income around 13k Euros. Taxes quite a lot higher than the UK - wickedly so for inheritances! The weather is sublime and the food at almost all levels is quite amazingly good and relatively cheap also. I live near a tiny town of about 3k souls and the whole area is barely 30k although it expands mostly with Spanish in the summer. Yet I have a fantastic restaurant and tapas bar 200 metres away and near Michelin quality places just a 5-10 miniute drive. Politically governed now by a left coalition but all the polls suggest a right coalition could win next time. In Andalucía the PP cons won outright last time, a centre -right leader and the first such result here ever I think. Me encanta!
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
It would seem so.
The problem is that we need to draft laws that work for the entire Trans population that work for everyone from the vulnerable and fully transitioned to exhibitionist perverts. It is not possible without drawing a line somewhere.
Similarly as well as the litigation expected for people inappropriately assessed before life altering transition, we are going to have cases with litigation where they were prevented from transitioning.
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
The only two big volume manufacturers are JLR and Nissan. Nissan are powering along at 500,000+ vehicles a year but it's all based on models that are approaching the end of their lifecycle. JLR are still doing decent volumes but their future looks cloudy. They have given up in the powertrain business (new RR has a BMW engine) and are going to attempt to move Jaguar upmarket to be an electric only Bentley/RR competitor. I mean, it's a strategy but who knows if it will work. They probably need to ditch the Jaguar brand and sell it to some Chinese company who have the capital to make a success of the plan.
I dislike the JLR strategy. It just screams ’failure’.
But Nissan is the big worry: when those old models are retired, why would they invest in England for the new models? There’s a question Sunak’s crap cabinet can try to answer. Bet they can’t.
Jaguar own what would be the best brand ever for a BEV (E Type) yet do exactly nothing with it.
Nissan will be fine because they'll just threaten to move production of the new EV models to Spain and the UK government of the day will pay them whatever it takes to make them stay in Brexitstan.
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
How will women react to big bearded transmen in their changing facilities?
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
I think you have also revealed what you do when you are not posting nonsense on here. You might also want to look up "remarketing" as an explanation for your results. If I put Matt into Google I get a dictionary definition and then Matt Cartoons is the second listing. No Asian ladies.
Never reveal your search results. People might discover that Bing thinks you are Matt Hancock curious.
Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
So the Rishi strategy looks set to be selling sound finances coupled with red meat on the culture war stuff.
In and of itself probably not an election winning message. But the focus now shifts to Labour to explain how they want to build their fairer society and do things differently. How well they can articulate and sell that will be the difference between a scrappy GE where we see a HP (or in Labours worst case a small Tory win, though very unlikely at this stage) and a genuine Labour majority government IMHO.
I would say Labours tactic is probably to carry on as they are until the Spring. Once things are clearer on the economic trajectory and likely timings for the next GE they need to be ready to go on this stuff.
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland with Yougov. Tories up to 19% in Scotland compared to 16% in London and 20% in the North
If the benchmark the English Tories are setting for themselves is Scottish Tory Voting Intention, then politics is about to become very interesting.
If Yougov is correct and the Tories are polling higher in Scotland than London it will be the first time this century Scotland has not been the region with the lowest Tory voteshare in GB.
Yet you don't here Londoners demanding independence!!
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
I livew in semi-rural coastal SE Spain . As a gay man I find it very tolerant. It is still relatively poor - average income around 13k Euros. Taxes quite a lot higher than the UK - wickedly so for inheritances! The weather is sublime and the food at almost all levels is quite amazingly good and relatively cheap also. I live near a tiny town of about 3k souls and the whole area is barely 30k although it expands mostly with Spanish in the summer. Yet I have a fantastic restaurant and tapas bar 200 metres away and near Michelin quality places just a 5-10 miniute drive. Politically governed now by a left coalition but all the polls suggest a right coalition could win next time. In Andalucía the PP cons won outright last time, a centre -right leader and the first such result here ever I think. Me encanta!
Just to add - now live in a new ultra modern house with pool about 10 miles from the coast with fantastic views which took a year to build and cost 250k - in much of the UK it would be 4/5/6 times as much. In California millions!
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
And pre-packed sandwiches.
I'm in glass, all our customers are abroad.
(We have spent most of the last 6 years ensuring that 75%+ of our customers are abroad.)
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
I livew in semi-rural coastal SE Spain . As a gay man I find it very tolerant. It is still relatively poor - average income around 13k Euros. Taxes quite a lot higher than the UK - wickedly so for inheritances! The weather is sublime and the food at almost all levels is quite amazingly good and relatively cheap also. I live near a tiny town of about 3k souls and the whole area is barely 30k although it expands mostly with Spanish in the summer. Yet I have a fantastic restaurant and tapas bar 200 metres away and near Michelin quality places just a 5-10 miniute drive. Politically governed now by a left coalition but all the polls suggest a right coalition could win next time. In Andalucía the PP cons won outright last time, a centre -right leader and the first such result here ever I think. Me encanta!
Just to add - now live in a new ultra modern house with pool about 10 miles from the coast with fantastic views which took a year to build and cost 250k - in much of the UK it would be 4/5/6 times as much. In California millions!
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
Data - technetracker.co.uk
It'll take a few weeks for the Rishi effect to fully feed through into the polls IMO. By then I'd be surprised if the Tories aren't back at 30% or thereabouts.
He had a great opportunity to clear out the debris of previous cabinets and instead he just re-employed them. The effect was to throw away his best weapon which was looking 'new' Voters just see the same old faces. He even drew attention to it by the inevitable Braverman controversy. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a Tory recovery.
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
As the article refers to “self identification” I expect existing rights of GRC holders would be maintained. What’s put the cat among the pigeons is Scotlands half baked rush to self-ID. But certainly worth questioning the government on when proposals are brought forward.
My question refers to the following line: "It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities."
The first clause is clear. The second is not: mtof people who have fully transitioned are 'transgender women'. Basically: do they mean *all* transgender women will not have those legal rights?
The Tories are clearly intellectually exhausted. They also need time to work out what Brexit means and how they might make it work. That is best done from opposition. There is no amazing talent on the Labour front benches, but there’s no-one I’d worry about putting in the Cabinet if Labour wins. All will come without the accumulated baggage of 12 years in government and with new approaches to key issues. They will have far less reason to pander to elderly home owners. In and of itself that will make a big and, I believe, positive difference.
That implies there is an intellect to be exhausted. When was the last time there was a lucid, consistent, coherent case made for conservatism made by the Tory party? Certainly before the citizens of nowhere unpleasantness.
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
And pre-packed sandwiches.
I'm in glass, all our customers are abroad.
I always thought your posts were a little transparent. Some others will feel shattered
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is it steel output?
Coal (see below). The steel graph looks very similar, but is about 3x the volume.
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery.
How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
There is a real loss in losing daily newspapers with large circulation and a collective monopoly on current comment and news. Both the 24 hour news cycle and the internet (these of course are linked events) have destroyed the model.
It loses a whole culture of tens of millions imbibing a culture in common ways every morning. And there is nothing that quite replaces newspaper with writing on it, print coming off on your fingers. But newspapers are in a sense out of date as they are printed and distributed. And of course Guardian online is free (as is much of the FT if you work around).
My compromise is to subscribe to the print edition of the Economist for slower news and comment, and online for the 24 hour cycle.
But the only thing I miss about London days and commuting etc is the immediacy of newsprint, and reading the Times in pre -Murdoch days.
I remember the joy of arriving back at Brixton tube station late at night to find the first editions of tomorrow's papers already available. A completely alien world now.
Similarly, the last "PInk Un", in Portsmouth, ended this year. They were killed off by a combination of football matches no longer all starting at 3.00 p.m. on a Saturday and the introduciton of all-day pub hours.
And, even more critically, live scores on everyone's phones - the same thing that led the BBC, almost inconceivably, to drop the classified results from Sports Report.
They've dropped the classified. But the presenter deals with each league in turn. And runs through all the results in a non-systematic way anyway. So. You get all the scores. Over an hour. In an unstructured fashion. The worst of all possibilities.
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland with Yougov. Tories up to 19% in Scotland compared to 16% in London and 20% in the North
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
And pre-packed sandwiches.
I'm in glass, all our customers are abroad.
I always thought your posts were a little transparent. Some others will feel shattered
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
How will women react to big bearded transmen in their changing facilities?
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
True zero at the abscissa/ordinate intersection, though.
Fridges produced in the UK?
True; I apologize for not going the extra mile on that front.
Good guess, but no. The dataset goes back to the mid nineteenth century, and I've just plucked out the last few years.
Coal
or steel
Yup - coal.
I was surprised that coal production was that high, as recently as the 2010s.
For comparison, both global coal production and global car production were still increasing in 2021.
I guess if we graph TWh produced by wind turbines we'd have a more cheering graph. I wonder what other outputs would show a positive trend?
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Is the entire UK economy going to be basically banking in a few years time ?
And pre-packed sandwiches.
I'm in glass, all our customers are abroad.
I always thought your posts were a little transparent. Some others will feel shattered
This is an interesting header. But, what I would say in response is that the zombie state of politics is also reflected in the opposition. The labour party have the same problem. The 'stars' of the labour party are people who were in Ed Milibands shadow cabinet. The 2019 intake are low quality. Starmers whole approach is of 'competent managerialism' which isn't going to work against Sunak. The 'truss' episode demonstrates that the markets will impose limits on what you can actually do.
Labour's problem is that there was little intake in 2019, and those few were often of very low calibre, such as my local Claudia Webbe. Hence there are a lot of Miliband retreads and old familiar faces. Thanks to 2019 the PLP have a n old group of MPs compared to Tories. The next GE may well reverse that of course.
I think though that @ydoethur in his interesting header is wearing his rose tinted specs. Parliament has always had a lot of nonentities, yes-men, careerists and time-servers. It is only the veneer of time that makes previous cabinets such as the 1997 New Labour one look good.
The other side of that coin is worth focusing on a bit more.
Thanks to 2019 being such an appalling GE result for the left, there will be a huge new Labour intake in 2024. It's not the case that the next GE "may well" reverse the previous course for Labour, the fact is that it is certain to do so even if Starmer were somehow to contrive not to win the GE faced with what at this moment looks like something close to an open goal. Even if Labour had no more than equal seats with the Conservatives, it looks like there would be something in the order of 100 new Labour MPs. Win and the number will exceed that. That will all reinvigorate the parliamentary party, in much the same way as happened to the Conservatives in 2010.
And there's an added bonus. I doubt whether the number of those on the far left will grow compared to the number elected in 2019. Some have self-imploded (Webbe), others have been deselected (Corbyn effectively, Tarry) and very few are coming through the constituency parliamentary selection process which is being heavily moderated by the national party. So the far left in parliament will be a pretty ineffective rump.
It must be very hard for the Liberal Democrats therefore. Even at their 2006 height of 62 MPs, that's not a lot of talent. These days, with MPs between 10 and 14, there really isn't any depth of talent amongst the MPs (In fact, as a LD support, I can only name three, Davey, Moran and Carmichael, and the latter only because he has been an MP for so long.... oh, and Farron! Forgot about him)
This is probably why there is no chance for government. No one is seriously going to consider voting for a party that currently couldn't even adequately staff the four great offices of state, let alone a full cabinet.
Morning all. Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3) Con 26% (+4) LibDem 10% (-1) Green 5% (nc) SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
Data - technetracker.co.uk
It'll take a few weeks for the Rishi effect to fully feed through into the polls IMO. By then I'd be surprised if the Tories aren't back at 30% or thereabouts.
He had a great opportunity to clear out the debris of previous cabinets and instead he just re-employed them. The effect was to throw away his best weapon which was looking 'new' Voters just see the same old faces. He even drew attention to it by the inevitable Braverman controversy. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a Tory recovery.
I don’t think the composition of cabinets really impacts voting preference. Save for where the appointments become the story (like Braverman - we wait to see what impact that will have).
I agree that it was a missed opportunity to put the government on a more competent/fresher footing but not convinced the fact that, say, Raab is back at justice or Dowden is in the cabinet office really makes any difference to peoples opinions of the party.
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
How will women react to big bearded transmen in their changing facilities?
I’ve been assured that they’lll be fine with it as long as said trans men show that they don’t have a fully functioning penis. At least I think that’s what they meant.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power. However that was largely to keep Kinnock out rather than Major in and it was all downhill from for the Tory government. Starmer may be no Blair but he is no Kinnock either.
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Sur John Major
He was only known as that when on the loo in France
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
I livew in semi-rural coastal SE Spain . As a gay man I find it very tolerant. It is still relatively poor - average income around 13k Euros. Taxes quite a lot higher than the UK - wickedly so for inheritances! The weather is sublime and the food at almost all levels is quite amazingly good and relatively cheap also. I live near a tiny town of about 3k souls and the whole area is barely 30k although it expands mostly with Spanish in the summer. Yet I have a fantastic restaurant and tapas bar 200 metres away and near Michelin quality places just a 5-10 miniute drive. Politically governed now by a left coalition but all the polls suggest a right coalition could win next time. In Andalucía the PP cons won outright last time, a centre -right leader and the first such result here ever I think. Me encanta!
You could always attend as a member of the public.
I think we should try it and see.
I'm very much in two minds about it, but don't have enough knowledge to make a firm opinion.
I do hesitantly think that if the aim is to increase confidence in the justice system, then there might be better ways of doing it. Like increasing funding for the justice system and making sure both suspect and victim get timely trials ...
Have there been any studies to show how well (or if) has it worked in Scotland?
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
That reminded me strongly of this graph. Anyone care to guess what it is?
True zero at the abscissa/ordinate intersection, though.
Fridges produced in the UK?
True; I apologize for not going the extra mile on that front.
Good guess, but no. The dataset goes back to the mid nineteenth century, and I've just plucked out the last few years.
Coal
or steel
Yup - coal.
I was surprised that coal production was that high, as recently as the 2010s.
For comparison, both global coal production and global car production were still increasing in 2021.
I guess if we graph TWh produced by wind turbines we'd have a more cheering graph. I wonder what other outputs would show a positive trend?
I guess reduction in coal production is cheering in and of itself.
Looking at the manufacturing sector stats: Defence, Security, Space Tech and Renewables.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power. However that was largely to keep Kinnock out rather than Major in and it was all downhill from for the Tory government. Starmer may be no Blair but he is no Kinnock either.
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Sur John Major
He was only known as that when on the loo in France
Edwina was "sur John Major" when they crossed the channel.
You could always attend as a member of the public.
I think we should try it and see.
It would not be allowed for any case which involved sex or in respect of which the complainer would suffer embarrassment (eg blackmail). Generally, though, I think justice requires to be seen to be done.
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
I think you have also revealed what you do when you are not posting nonsense on here. You might also want to look up "remarketing" as an explanation for your results. If I put Matt into Google I get a dictionary definition and then Matt Cartoons is the second listing. No Asian ladies.
Many moons ago a poster rather pompously told off OGH for having ads on his site for Romanian mail order brides. When it was pointed out that the ads he got were a function of his own browsing history he slunk off into the night....
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
I think you have also revealed what you do when you are not posting nonsense on here. You might also want to look up "remarketing" as an explanation for your results. If I put Matt into Google I get a dictionary definition and then Matt Cartoons is the second listing. No Asian ladies.
Many moons ago a poster rather pompously told off OGH for having ads on his site for Romanian mail order brides. When it was pointed out that the ads he got were a function of his own browsing history he slunk off into the night....
I think I might enjoy asking one of our resident Anglophobes about his possible newly revealed interest.
Mr Sunak also intends to look to review the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender.
This would mean that biological males cannot compete in women’s sport and other single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and women’s refuges will be protected.
It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities.
A Downing Street source said that protecting women and girls is a priority for Mr Sunak’s administration.
Does this mean that someone like my ex-colleagues and a friend, who have been through all the processes, had all the ops, and have been living as women for a decade or decades, will suddenly have to use male changing facilities?
How will women react to big bearded transmen in their changing facilities?
I’ve been assured that they’lll be fine with it as long as said trans men show that they don’t have a fully functioning penis. At least I think that’s what they meant.
Will that apply to alcoholic males with Brewer's Droop?
You could always attend as a member of the public.
I think we should try it and see.
It would not be allowed for any case which involved sex or in respect of which the complainer would suffer embarrassment (eg blackmail). Generally, though, I think justice requires to be seen to be done.
Obviously with a sample size of 2 I am unclear on the selection criteria in England and Wales, but I don't ever expect it to be universal.
On Topic. I did read it. I gobbled up the cool history bits. But on the politics, all this turbulence and friction that’s been building up, channelled upward through conduits and finally escaping through the vent of a PB header, that’s at times roaring or rumbling or hissing with disgust and frustration over the whole world, over everything.
And then the enigmatic question mark on the end, asking us, is this a header from a freelance history teacher? or from a grumpy mound of magma, with too much time on its hands? 🙂
You seem to be several differnt personas in one poster. I like this one. Very poetic
“Is it a mountainous header from a doctorate in history - or is it a craggy blow out from Mr Grumpy?”
Poetic? I was only taking the piss! 🙂
My headers I wrote and sent via internal email last month didn’t get used. Dr Y must be feeling magma-nanimous after this. I’m going to write and send another one!
Excellent header by @ydoethur. Of course I think the Conservatives need to lose the next election (I always think that) however I’m pretty certain I’d feel the same even if I was a passionate radical centrist (or apolitical) for the reason stated – they are indeed clapped out.
And who can blame them really. Having to work with the LibDems must have been terribly taxing, but having managed that for 5 years they got their reward with a majority in 2015, looked set fair for a nice smooth 2nd term under their nice smooth leader, but no - far from it. Enter the EU referendum and we know the rest.
The time since has been unremittingly harrowing for the party. By 2024 when the election happens (great bet @ 1.33 imo) they’ll have been governing for 14 years and they’ve been hard hard years. Just as people age faster if they live carelessly and raucously (eg Richard Burton when he died at 58 was essentially 91) so too do political parties in office. The Tories are feeling it now. They have not looked after themselves and it’s time for a rest.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
The last time it actually happened was in 1826.
In terms of a fifth consecutive general election win yes but we are 12 years into a Tory government, the equivalent of late 1991 in the Thatcher to Major government
The SNP have been in government for over 15 years, and are at 47% in this PeoplePolling/GB News poll. Incumbent governments are not always unpopular.
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
The only two big volume manufacturers are JLR and Nissan. Nissan are powering along at 500,000+ vehicles a year but it's all based on models that are approaching the end of their lifecycle. JLR are still doing decent volumes but their future looks cloudy. They have given up in the powertrain business (new RR has a BMW engine) and are going to attempt to move Jaguar upmarket to be an electric only Bentley/RR competitor. I mean, it's a strategy but who knows if it will work. They probably need to ditch the Jaguar brand and sell it to some Chinese company who have the capital to make a success of the plan.
I was driving behind a Jaguar driver down the A1 yesterday. They swung out confidently into the third lane to overtake the car in front, at precisely the moment that the third lane ended. They had obviously completely missed the four previous signs alerting them to this fact. We all took the piss out of them for the next few miles.
Small point of information: Neil Hamilton was miles away from being in Major’s Cabinet. He served two years as a lowly PUSS 1992-4 before his enforced departure.
“lowly PUSS 1992-4 before his enforced departure”
So they squeezed the PUSS out? 🫣
I was too busy being born when this was happening, which is why political history on PB is great.
I don’t remember Gladstone and Disraeli either, as well as you guys remember them 😁 so Gladstone was the liberal, but ultra dry and right wing on economics, very two nation politics, Disraeli a Tory, but über leftwing and very One Nation? But that doesn’t make any sense at all 🤷♀️
O/T Mrs. P and I are finally cancelling our daily paper after 43 years for a number of reasons (cost, environment, timeliness).
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery. fore How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Some newspapers have the normal website vs pretend paper format option, and the latter is what you want. The National is an example, for instance. In that case when you go to the main website there is a blue button labelled "Digital Edition" and you press that to go to the pretend paper format. (Rather illogical as both the website format and the pretend paper options are both digital, but ...). You might have to poke around for your preferred example ...
You read the National? That is true dedication to the cause, that is. Respect.
Sarky!
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
Yes, they were both quality reads once upon a time but are now little more than advertising pamphlets put together by a skeleton staff. It is sad.
I have told this story before but when I was a trainee I came across a copy of the Evening Telegraph in a set of title deeds which showed that the property had been repossessed and then sold by a bond holder before the first world war. The paper itself was remarkable with extended coverage of the comings and goings of the Austria-Hungarian court in Vienna and at least 6 pages of international news. What people going home on the tram to Lochee after a day in the Jute mills made of it heaven only knows but the international businesses based in Dundee in those times clearly created a demand for foreign news that is almost inconceivable today.
My Grandparents took the Telegraph because it used to not rely on the wire services, but rather had its own correspondents on the ground, so the quality of its foreign coverage was so much better than other papers. My Grandfather opined that it was because so much of the readership were retired soldiers and colonial officers!
It has lost that advantage now, but as we can directly read the Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Independent or South China Post we just don't need it anymore.
And Matt is free on Twitter. What else do people read the DT for?
I wish you hadn’t written that. I typed ‘Matt’ into Twitter’s search bar and got presented with a stream of young Asian ladies with very tight-fitting attire.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I find the Telegraph cartoonist much more entertaining.
I think you have also revealed what you do when you are not posting nonsense on here. You might
also want to look up "remarketing" as an explanation for your results. If I put Matt into Google I get a dictionary definition and then Matt Cartoons is the second listing. No Asian ladies.
Many moons ago a poster rather pompously told
off OGH for having ads on his site for Romanian mail order brides. When it was pointed out that
the ads he got were a function of his own browsing history he slunk off into the night....
Yes and it was quite possibly bollocks. I used to get repeated ads for farming resources despite not owning a farm and having no internet nor search history in farming. If you think automatic advertising is accurate you are much more credulous than I thought.
I would welcome more considered and thoughtful politicians, but one of the big problems on that front is they don’t have many avenues in which to test and properly debate their ideas.
News media is now obsessed with the “gotcha” moment and every interview is diluted into a scrappy battle of wills with a constantly interjecting journo trying to catch the person out. Add that to the online outrage wagon and it all becomes a very hostile environment for independent and interesting thinkers and doers.
In fact I would take it one step further and say that’s how you get politicians like Liz Truss, able to spout out the usual Tory shibboleths (“low taxes”, “sound money”, “small state”) but without a clue of what they mean and how to get there in a sensible and pragmatic way.
As for the solution? Not sure there is one, sadly. The genie does not go back in the bottle.
I agree to a large extent about the media. Some are better than others - I think Sophie Ridge gives a better chance to interviewees than most. I don't expect endless deference to politicians, but sometimes the interviews are so aggressive its no wonder a poisonous atmosphere results.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power. However that was largely to keep Kinnock out rather than Major in and it was all downhill from for the Tory government. Starmer may be no Blair but he is no Kinnock either.
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Sur John Major
He was only known as that when on the loo in France
Kinnock was ruined by the right wing media, I can still recall the front page of the Sun to this day, he was treated extremely badly by them, he done a helluva lot of hard yards getting rid of militant, that was rife in labour in the 80s, he certainly made it a lot easier for Blair, alright he fell in the water, Major had sex with Edwina Currie, I know what I would rather do, so when you say (to keep kinnock out) it's because Murdoch didn't like him, which is another credit for him in my eyes
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
The last time it actually happened was in 1826.
In terms of a fifth consecutive general election win yes but we are 12 years into a Tory government, the equivalent of late 1991 in the Thatcher to Major government
The SNP have been in government for over 15 years, and are at 47% in this PeoplePolling/GB News poll. Incumbent governments are not always unpopular.
Neither are Asian ladies' special websites apparently amongst the Scottish ex-pat community?
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 19h Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan @sullydish Replying to @GoodwinMJ Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af. 3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022 ·Twitter Web App"
The US media’s coverage of the UK is on a par with the UK media’s coverage of mainland Europe and Ireland. With a few honourable exceptions, it is entirely superficial, often completely wrong and usually seen through the prism of domestic political bias.
You can add Scotland and Wales.
I am sure that’s true. Spain is a country I know very well and the way it is covered here is absolutely abysmal. The recent coverage of the French presidential election in the UK was just awful. How anyone working for the Telegraph or Spectator could get upset about US coverage of the UK given their coverage of France is beyond me. And let’s not forget that one former UK PM made his name by writing lies about the EU. The hypocrisy is off the charts!
Tell us: what should we know about Spain, and how should it be covered?
I would start with measures that UK citizens are now subject to in Spain that they were not previously. It’s not because they’re being singled out in revenge for Brexit, it’s because they’re not citizens of an EU member state and so are subject to different laws if they want to visit, settle, drive, take their pets etc.
Yeah but we already know this, and the point is quite a boring one. Particularly because grinding your axe about Brexit is your bread & butter.
How do I get under the skin of modern Spain? What should we know about it? Where do we go to find out more? What do they think about themselves? How do they see the future?
Sincere questions.
I livew in semi-rural coastal SE Spain . As a gay man I find it very tolerant. It is still relatively poor - average income around 13k Euros. Taxes quite a lot higher than the UK - wickedly so for inheritances! The weather is sublime and the food at almost all levels is quite amazingly good and relatively cheap also. I live near a tiny town of about 3k souls and the whole area is barely 30k although it expands mostly with Spanish in the summer. Yet I have a fantastic restaurant and tapas bar 200 metres away and near Michelin quality places just a 5-10 miniute drive. Politically governed now by a left coalition but all the polls suggest a right coalition could win next time. In Andalucía the PP cons won outright last time, a centre -right leader and the first such result here ever I think. Me encanta!
Sounds like you are "living the life".
Nowhere is perfect and life is not always kind to us but I have much to be thankful for. I remain attached to the UK but I would not consider returning there to live.
Match abandoned at the G. Looked inevitable for a while. Deeply frustrating. I will have to do some work now.
The weather at this tournament has been absolutely terrible. It’s ruining it. Rather makes a mockery of the popular myth about the wonderful Aussie climate.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power.
The last time it actually happened was in 1826.
In terms of a fifth consecutive general election win yes but we are 12 years into a Tory government, the equivalent of late 1991 in the Thatcher to Major government
The SNP have been in government for over 15 years, and are at 47% in this PeoplePolling/GB News poll. Incumbent governments are not always unpopular.
Only because the SNP are the only main Nationalist party in Scotland.
If the SC rules against indyref2 without UK government support and Sturgeon continues to rule out UDI then Salmond will likely stand Alba candidates in SNP Westminster seats at the next general election. At last we will get that split in the Nationalist vote under FPTP Unionists need
Upshot seems to be that everyone is losing all of their existing car industry, and some proper effort has to be made to attract new investment to build a new car industry for the electric vehicle age - and so far Britain is missing out.
The only two big volume manufacturers are JLR and Nissan. Nissan are powering along at 500,000+ vehicles a year but it's all based on models that are approaching the end of their lifecycle. JLR are still doing decent volumes but their future looks cloudy. They have given up in the powertrain business (new RR has a BMW engine) and are going to attempt to move Jaguar upmarket to be an electric only Bentley/RR competitor. I mean, it's a strategy but who knows if it will work. They probably need to ditch the Jaguar brand and sell it to some Chinese company who have the capital to make a success of the plan.
I dislike the JLR strategy. It just screams ’failure’.
But Nissan is the big worry: when those old models are retired, why would they invest in England for the new models? There’s a question Sunak’s crap cabinet can try to answer. Bet they can’t.
Jaguar own what would be the best brand ever for a BEV (E Type) yet do exactly nothing with it.
Nissan will be fine because they'll just threaten to move production of the new EV models to Spain and the UK government of the day will pay them whatever it takes to make them stay in Brexitstan.
Hardly sound economic policy. Basically bribery and corruption. David Cameron’s gift to the nations.
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power. However that was largely to keep Kinnock out rather than Major in and it was all downhill from for the Tory government. Starmer may be no Blair but he is no Kinnock either.
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Sur John Major
He was only known as that when on the loo in France
Kinnock was ruined by the right wing media, I can still recall the front page of the Sun to this day, he was treated extremely badly by them, he done a helluva lot of hard yards getting rid of militant, that was rife in labour in the 80s, he certainly made it a lot easier for Blair, alright he fell in the water, Major had sex with Edwina Currie, I know what I would rather do, so when you say (to keep kinnock out) it's because Murdoch didn't like him, which is another credit for him in my eyes
Kinnock was not ruined by the media. He was a windbag and a bore. Please watch him on HIGNFY and ask yourself how it was that anyone thought that such a pillock could be PM (well prior to Johnson anyway!)
After 10 years in power the mood for change normally prevails as does the desire for fresh faces in government. Sunak will be aiming to emulate Sur John Major as the only PM in the last 100 years to have won a general election after 10 years of his party in power. However that was largely to keep Kinnock out rather than Major in and it was all downhill from for the Tory government. Starmer may be no Blair but he is no Kinnock either.
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Sur John Major
He was only known as that when on the loo in France
Kinnock was ruined by the right wing media, I can still recall the front page of the Sun to this day, he was treated extremely badly by them, he done a helluva lot of hard yards getting rid of militant, that was rife in labour in the 80s, he certainly made it a lot easier for Blair, alright he fell in the water, Major had sex with Edwina Currie, I know what I would rather do, so when you say (to keep kinnock out) it's because Murdoch didn't like him, which is another credit for him in my eyes
Kinnock was not ruined by the media. He was a windbag and a bore. Please watch him on HIGNFY and ask yourself how it was that anyone thought that such a pillock could be PM (well prior to Johnson anyway!)
Labour is also nowhere near as ruthless as the Tories. Only once in the last 60 years have the Tories allowed a leader who lost a general election to remain leader at the next general election, Heath in 1966 and then 1970.
Labour have done it with Wilson, Kinnock and Corbyn over the same time frame
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh · 1h I know it's a low bar, but this is a refreshing change from his 2 predecessors. 'Sunak isn’t currently planning to head to Chequers for his first weekend as prime minister and is expected to work from Downing Street.'
The Tories on just 18% (!!) in the Midlands. Surely some kind of record low?
London Lab 46% Con 24% LD 12% Grn 9% Ref 9%
Rest of South Lab 52% Con 25% LD 10% Ref 6% Grn 5%
Midlands and Wales Lab 52% Con 18% Ref 10% LD 8% Grn 6% PC 3%
North Lab 55% Con 19% LD 9% Grn 5% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 47% Lab 37% Con 7% LD 4% Ref 3%
(PeoplePolling/GB News; 1,185; 26 October)
Quite striking that the Tories are now doing less badly in London than almost anywhere else. Also that there must be quite a few southeastern Blue Wall seats on those figures where Labour are in reality the main challengers even though Labour supporters are used to voting LibDem tactically. What were the overall figures?
Lab 51% Con 20% LD 9% Ref 7% SNP 5% Grn 5% PC 1% oth 3%
Yes, already we are seeing some Sunak trends: Con doing comparatively less badly in London, Con collapse in Midlands, and Reform sweeping up the racist vote.
Lowest swing against the Tories since 2019 under Sunak is in Scotland with Yougov. Tories up to 19% in Scotland compared to 16% in London and 20% in the North
If the benchmark the English Tories are setting for themselves is Scottish Tory Voting Intention, then politics is about to become very interesting.
If Yougov is correct and the Tories are polling higher in Scotland than London it will be the first time this century Scotland has not been the region with the lowest Tory voteshare in GB.
Yet you don't here Londoners demanding independence!!
I know you think that the universe revolves around the Tory Party, but I’ve got some disturbing news for you: Scottish independence is about Scots and their choices for their national life, not about a political party that happens to be (usually) quite popular in a neighbouring country.
Comments
Techne is out and follows the broad trend seen of a small relief rally in the Tory score and fortunes. Labour still miles ahead. Techne note the improvement is all down to some non voters returning, not switching
NEW POLL:
🔴 Labour lead reduced slightly, but they remain 24 points ahead
Lab 50% (-3)
Con 26% (+4)
LibDem 10% (-1)
Green 5% (nc)
SNP 4% (nc)
1,626 questioned 26-27 Oct. Changes with 19-20 Oct.
Data - technetracker.co.uk
Then it will be the state of the economy under a Starmer government that determines how long the Tories take to recover
Fridges produced in the UK?
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/27/voting-intention-con-23-lab-51-25-26-oct-2022
Reasonable, but insufficient. Hence the lashings of "nice Mr Sunak will calm things down" copium we're seeing at the moment.
CBA to look again but I looked at new PM bounces a bit ago and my impression was they are pretty instantaneous, so this will be as good as it gets unless Rishi actually impresses on the merits.
@ydoethur would perhaps like to see this government replaced by Labour despite his final paragraph. While I like SKS and can see what many others cannot that he is a man of rare talent, he does not yet have the team that I would consider to be anything of an improvement over the current incumbents. They need at least another couple of years for Starmer to get rid of the lightweights and left wing nutters that are still running through the veins of his party like a half treated syphilitic infection.
Nonetheless, well done on an excellent header @ydoethur
I think however it is fair to say from a probability perspective, that it is pretty unlikely the Tories will win a majority. Both a hung Parliament and Labour majority are more plausible outcomes.
But Nissan is the big worry: when those old models are retired, why would they invest in England for the new models? There’s a question Sunak’s crap cabinet can try to answer. Bet they can’t.
Good guess, but no. The dataset goes back to the mid nineteenth century, and I've just plucked out the last few years.
or steel
I am not impressed with Sunak's cabinet either. I was similarly unimpressed with Boris and Truss's cabinets. I am not sure that the issue is just time spent in office, I think it's pursuing loyalty above all else. Though Truss would obviously disagree, because Braverman, who triggered Truss's exit, was one of the few Ministers that she hadn't chosen (she had to be given a job because she dropped out and supported Truss). Truss would probably argue that greater slavish loyalty was required.
Something extraordinary is happening in Iran... 4 minutes on the protests and how, despite the crackdown, they're changing the lives of Iranian women. Thanks to Rana Rahimpour from
@BBCPersian
. Video editing and production by Stuart Denman.
https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1585712222369710081
There are other graduates jobs such as teaching with shortages too.
I was surprised that coal production was that high, as recently as the 2010s.
For comparison, both global coal production and global car production were still increasing in 2021.
Back now to private addresses, gates and lamps
In high stone one-street villages, empty at dusk,
And side roads of small towns (sports finals stuck
In front doors, allotments reaching down to the railway);
Back now to autumn, leaving the ended husk
Of summer that brought them here for Show Saturday –
It is strange and still going on, all those lost worlds you personally remember.
The problem is that we need to draft laws that work for the entire Trans population that work for everyone from the vulnerable and fully transitioned to exhibitionist perverts. It is not possible without drawing a line somewhere.
Similarly as well as the litigation expected for people inappropriately assessed before life altering transition, we are going to have cases with litigation where they were prevented from transitioning.
Nissan will be fine because they'll just threaten to move production of the new EV models to Spain and the UK government of the day will pay them whatever it takes to make them stay in Brexitstan.
In and of itself probably not an election winning message. But the focus now shifts to Labour to explain how they want to build their fairer society and do things differently. How well they can articulate and sell that will be the difference between a scrappy GE where we see a HP (or in Labours worst case a small Tory win, though very unlikely at this stage) and a genuine Labour majority government IMHO.
I would say Labours tactic is probably to carry on as they are until the Spring. Once things are clearer on the economic trajectory and likely timings for the next GE they need to be ready to go on this stuff.
Yet you don't here Londoners demanding independence!!
"It would also mean clarifying that self-identification for transgender people does not have legal force, meaning transgender women have no legal right to access women-only facilities."
The first clause is clear. The second is not: mtof people who have fully transitioned are 'transgender women'. Basically: do they mean *all* transgender women will not have those legal rights?
But the presenter deals with each league in turn. And runs through all the results in a non-systematic way anyway.
So. You get all the scores. Over an hour. In an unstructured fashion.
The worst of all possibilities.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-63424794
This is probably why there is no chance for government. No one is seriously going to consider voting for a party that currently couldn't even adequately staff the four great offices of state, let alone a full cabinet.
I think we should try it and see.
I agree that it was a missed opportunity to put the government on a more competent/fresher footing but not convinced the fact that, say, Raab is back at justice or Dowden is in the cabinet office really makes any difference to peoples opinions of the party.
Sur John Major
He was only known as that when on the loo in France
I do hesitantly think that if the aim is to increase confidence in the justice system, then there might be better ways of doing it. Like increasing funding for the justice system and making sure both suspect and victim get timely trials ...
Have there been any studies to show how well (or if) has it worked in Scotland?
Looking at the manufacturing sector stats: Defence, Security, Space Tech and Renewables.
Poetic? I was only taking the piss! 🙂
My headers I wrote and sent via internal email last month didn’t get used. Dr Y must be feeling magma-nanimous after this. I’m going to write and send another one!
And who can blame them really. Having to work with the LibDems must have been terribly taxing, but having managed that for 5 years they got their reward with a majority in 2015, looked set fair for a nice smooth 2nd term under their nice smooth leader, but no - far from it. Enter the EU referendum and we know the rest.
The time since has been unremittingly harrowing for the party. By 2024 when the election happens (great bet @ 1.33 imo) they’ll have been governing for 14 years and they’ve been hard hard years. Just as people age faster if they live carelessly and raucously (eg Richard Burton when he died at 58 was essentially 91) so too do political parties in office. The Tories are feeling it now. They have not looked after themselves and it’s time for a rest.
So they squeezed the PUSS out? 🫣
I was too busy being born when this was happening, which is why political history on PB is great.
I don’t remember Gladstone and Disraeli either, as well as you guys remember them 😁 so Gladstone was the liberal, but ultra dry and right wing on economics, very two nation politics, Disraeli a Tory, but über leftwing and very One Nation?
But that doesn’t make any sense at all 🤷♀️
Hence KGM.
If the SC rules against indyref2 without UK government support and Sturgeon continues to rule out UDI then Salmond will likely stand Alba candidates in SNP Westminster seats at the next general election. At last we will get that split in the Nationalist vote under FPTP Unionists need
Labour have done it with Wilson, Kinnock and Corbyn over the same time frame
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1585920263807451136
Paul Waugh
@paulwaugh
·
1h
I know it's a low bar, but this is a refreshing change from his 2 predecessors.
'Sunak isn’t currently planning to head to Chequers for his first weekend as prime minister and is expected to work from Downing Street.'