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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
It's interesting, though - London and the inner Home Counties seem to be diverging politically.
Not that interesting. There is a strong correlation between being left-wing and being desperate to live in overpriced places like London.
I also think it's to do with being able to afford a home. If people are priced out of owning a home in major cities despite having a salary of £35-40k and a partner with a similar salary, they're not likely to vote for a party that's doing nothing to help them get on the housing ladder apart from token stamp duty relief.
Instead, they're going to go for the party that says it'll stand up for renters since they have no medium term hope of being able to get on the property ladder.
The solution for the Conservatives is simple (build houses in places people want to live) but NIMBYism means they won't do it willingly.
The Tories don't need to win London anyway, as 2019 proved when they won a landslide despite losing London
You're right, they don't currently need it, but if the Red Wall turns solid Labour again then they'll need the outskirts of major metropolitan areas and they're only really trending towards Labour currently.
It's not a good electoral strategy to write off areas as unwinnable due to demographics, otherwise the Tories would never have targeted the Red Wall in 2017 and 2019.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
I wonder if 'Brexit Party' or 'Farage' responses go in the column (or are included in the prompts)? Richard Tice by the way
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
Over on AlternativeHistory forum, the consensus seems to be that all you needed to have Kinnock win in 1992 was Major's affair come out a week before polling day. Major's hypocrisy and his Back to Basics campaign probably would've sunk him.
Not to be though.......
Strangely, a 1992 Kinnock win probably would've sunk Blair. Kinnock probably would've been a one termer and a Clarke win in 1997 would've seen off Labour for another two terms or so.
Counting one's eggs before they hatched?
You can count your eggs before they've hatched.
Or is that a clever joke?
I'm obviously too subtle for you (or older, anyway). Ms Currie was famous for a brouhaha over eggs, though I forget the details - I think she was at MAFF/DEFRA at the time of a salmonella scare in eggs scare or something of the sort.
Sunak and Hunt Mugging the energy companies and banks to fill the black hole, so they can keep benefits up with inflation - anyone think that is a bad idea?
What fall in house prices gives rise to a £23bn black hole?
Under Osborne's Help to Buy scheme, banks or building societies lend 75 per cent, and the taxpayer puts up 20 per cent, in a typical 95 per cent mortgage. In the event of the borrower defaulting during a market crash where the forced sale of the house will not raise enough to cover the loan, the taxpayer loses their 20 per cent, and only after that are the banks affected. The total liability would be £23 billion. Not the end of the world even if all borrowers default, which seems unlikely, but not insignificant either.
It's £23bn if ALL borrowers default, and the Government's stake is wiped out?
We've got a rather bigger problem than £23B if that lot happens.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
Social media? Which is, of course, quite strongly directional. Especially if one was already interested in Brexittery, UKIP and so on.
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
It's interesting, though - London and the inner Home Counties seem to be diverging politically.
Not that interesting. There is a strong correlation between being left-wing and being desperate to live in overpriced places like London.
I also think it's to do with being able to afford a home. If people are priced out of owning a home in major cities despite having a salary of £35-40k and a partner with a similar salary, they're not likely to vote for a party that's doing nothing to help them get on the housing ladder apart from token stamp duty relief.
Instead, they're going to go for the party that says it'll stand up for renters since they have no medium term hope of being able to get on the property ladder.
The solution for the Conservatives is simple (build houses in places people want to live) but NIMBYism means they won't do it willingly.
The Tories don't need to win London anyway, as 2019 proved when they won a landslide despite losing London
You're right, they don't currently need it, but if the Red Wall turns solid Labour again then they'll need the outskirts of major metropolitan areas and they're only really trending towards Labour currently.
Assuming the Tories go back to the populist right post Rishi if they lose the next election, Truss having killed off libertarianism at the top of the party, then the Red Wall seats will still be better prospects for the Conservatives for years to come than almost all London seats except for the very outer suburbs
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
Reform is the rebranded Brexit Party. Led by Richard Tice who seems to be generally 'not mad' but that is about all I can say about him. I am surprised to see them on 7%. Stuart Dickson's fatuous branding of any nationalist leaning movement other than the SNP as racist is just his normal lazy garbage.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
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
Over on AlternativeHistory forum, the consensus seems to be that all you needed to have Kinnock win in 1992 was Major's affair come out a week before polling day. Major's hypocrisy and his Back to Basics campaign probably would've sunk him.
Not to be though.......
Strangely, a 1992 Kinnock win probably would've sunk Blair. Kinnock probably would've been a one termer and a Clarke win in 1997 would've seen off Labour for another two terms or so.
Counting one's eggs before they hatched?
You can count your eggs before they've hatched.
Or is that a clever joke?
I'm obviously too subtle for you (or older, anyway). Ms Currie was famous for a brouhaha over eggs, though I forget the details - I think she was at MAFF/DEFRA at the time of a salmonella scare in eggs scare or something of the sort.
Ah, I see. Yes, I was around at the time of salmonella.
But my point was that it is fine to count your eggs before they have hatched - it's counting them before they've been laid that would be foolish.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
It's interesting, though - London and the inner Home Counties seem to be diverging politically.
Not that interesting. There is a strong correlation between being left-wing and being desperate to live in overpriced places like London.
I also think it's to do with being able to afford a home. If people are priced out of owning a home in major cities despite having a salary of £35-40k and a partner with a similar salary, they're not likely to vote for a party that's doing nothing to help them get on the housing ladder apart from token stamp duty relief.
Instead, they're going to go for the party that says it'll stand up for renters since they have no medium term hope of being able to get on the property ladder.
The solution for the Conservatives is simple (build houses in places people want to live) but NIMBYism means they won't do it willingly.
The Tories don't need to win London anyway, as 2019 proved when they won a landslide despite losing London
You're right, they don't currently need it, but if the Red Wall turns solid Labour again then they'll need the outskirts of major metropolitan areas and they're only really trending towards Labour currently.
The long term trend in the red wall is very much against it returning to uniform Lab voting. If the Tories dont or cant capitalise ,someone else will
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
There's also the interesting question of what happens when angry racist voter gets to the polling booth and discovers that there is no Reform candidate on the ballot.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Nowhere as there is not even a London independence party wanting full London independence
As much of a nonsense as Washington, Paris or Tokyo independence.
Or Monaco, Singapore, Vatican City independence?
I don't think its a good idea, but city states can be independent if they choose.
Vatican City's independence is a complete nonsense. Monaco's isn't much better.
its good to have sovereign entities like the Vatican that has an international adherence , it lessens the excesses of more geographical states and promotes understanding . There should be more not less
Also good to have sovereign jurisdiction over your own child abuse issues.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
That one of Putin's nuclear blast maps ?
The average media person's view of what constitutes "London's hinterland".
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.
Is it really more environmentally friendly to read digitally than on paper? You'd think so but maybe the obvious answer isn't right. It may be that paper is more easily recycled than the components of digital devices.
Well the iPad is already bought and used for other stuff so the net increase for having a newspaper on it is nil.
I suspect the energy costs of recycling and reprinting actual paper is quite hight too.
Then we have to allow for the distribution of paper copies, in our case the last 3 miles is by a rather elderly 'paperboy' in his car. I feel sad for him tbh as his (hopefully) pin money job gradually dries up. But they'd be cancelling the delivery service to villages like ours once the old boy retires anyway, I expect.
Also people driving to the shop for their daily newspaper when otherwise they'd use the car less often. The reduction in newsagents, even before covid came, made this more likely.
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
Area people think is 'within the sound of Bow bells?'
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
Over on AlternativeHistory forum, the consensus seems to be that all you needed to have Kinnock win in 1992 was Major's affair come out a week before polling day. Major's hypocrisy and his Back to Basics campaign probably would've sunk him.
Not to be though.......
Strangely, a 1992 Kinnock win probably would've sunk Blair. Kinnock probably would've been a one termer and a Clarke win in 1997 would've seen off Labour for another two terms or so.
Counting one's eggs before they hatched?
You can count your eggs before they've hatched.
Or is that a clever joke?
I'm obviously too subtle for you (or older, anyway). Ms Currie was famous for a brouhaha over eggs, though I forget the details - I think she was at MAFF/DEFRA at the time of a salmonella scare in eggs scare or something of the sort.
Ah, I see. Yes, I was around at the time of salmonella.
But my point was that it is fine to count your eggs before they have hatched - it's counting them before they've been laid that would be foolish.
Quite - or counting them to deduce the final number of chickens. The correct expression is counting chickens before they're hatched, but the Currie-d eggs joke wouldn't be so blatant.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
It's interesting, though - London and the inner Home Counties seem to be diverging politically.
Not that interesting. There is a strong correlation between being left-wing and being desperate to live in overpriced places like London.
I also think it's to do with being able to afford a home. If people are priced out of owning a home in major cities despite having a salary of £35-40k and a partner with a similar salary, they're not likely to vote for a party that's doing nothing to help them get on the housing ladder apart from token stamp duty relief.
Instead, they're going to go for the party that says it'll stand up for renters since they have no medium term hope of being able to get on the property ladder.
The solution for the Conservatives is simple (build houses in places people want to live) but NIMBYism means they won't do it willingly.
The Tories don't need to win London anyway, as 2019 proved when they won a landslide despite losing London
You're right, they don't currently need it, but if the Red Wall turns solid Labour again then they'll need the outskirts of major metropolitan areas and they're only really trending towards Labour currently.
The long term trend in the red wall is very much against it returning to uniform Lab voting. If the Tories dont or cant capitalise ,someone else will
I think it's too early to say that long term trend is locked in based on the events of the previous few years. Some of them might become new ultra marginals but I think places like Wakefield aren't too likely to consider the Tories again until at least the election after next. To sit around and do nothing hoping that long term trend pays off isn't a great strategy in my view.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
Area people think is 'within the sound of Bow bells?'
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
Area people think is 'within the sound of Bow bells?'
For the poshest Londoners the border is anywhere beyond Zone 1
Sunak and Hunt Mugging the energy companies and banks to fill the black hole, so they can keep benefits up with inflation - anyone think that is a bad idea?
What fall in house prices gives rise to a £23bn black hole?
Under Osborne's Help to Buy scheme, banks or building societies lend 75 per cent, and the taxpayer puts up 20 per cent, in a typical 95 per cent mortgage. In the event of the borrower defaulting during a market crash where the forced sale of the house will not raise enough to cover the loan, the taxpayer loses their 20 per cent, and only after that are the banks affected. The total liability would be £23 billion. Not the end of the world even if all borrowers default, which seems unlikely, but not insignificant either.
It's £23bn if ALL borrowers default, and the Government's stake is wiped out?
We've got a rather bigger problem than £23B if that lot happens.
I had assumed that the taxpayers' exposure would be at least £100bn in that scenario, with £23bn the likely cost of a moderate downturn.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
I wonder if 'Brexit Party' or 'Farage' responses go in the column (or are included in the prompts)? Richard Tice by the way
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
GB News. Daily Express.
Probably has a following on Twitter too.
Are those polled prompted by the party names?
If so, is it possible that some of those being polled have no idea what Reform stands for but like the sound of it (as in, the whole lot needs to be reformed)?
Survation with.... you know the drill Tories crawling towards 30 NEW: Westminster Voting Intention
LAB 51% (-1) CON 27% (+4) LD 8% (-3) SNP 5% (+1) GRN 2% (-1) Others 6% (-1)
Changes vs. 18-19 Oct.
30% within a couple of weeks wouldn't be a bad performance from Rishi Sunak. Maybe sooner.
🙂
There’s a PB maxim polls don’t move immediately, there’s a 2-3 week lag for events to seep into the polling fabric, so 2-3 weeks for the honeymoon bounce to still creep the % share upward, so no need for Tories to panic about these terrible twenty’s just yet.
Good to see everyone is now watching that % share progress into the thirties.
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
Over on AlternativeHistory forum, the consensus seems to be that all you needed to have Kinnock win in 1992 was Major's affair come out a week before polling day. Major's hypocrisy and his Back to Basics campaign probably would've sunk him.
Not to be though.......
Strangely, a 1992 Kinnock win probably would've sunk Blair. Kinnock probably would've been a one termer and a Clarke win in 1997 would've seen off Labour for another two terms or so.
Counting one's eggs before they hatched?
You can count your eggs before they've hatched.
Or is that a clever joke?
I'm obviously too subtle for you (or older, anyway). Ms Currie was famous for a brouhaha over eggs, though I forget the details - I think she was at MAFF/DEFRA at the time of a salmonella scare in eggs scare or something of the sort.
Ah, I see. Yes, I was around at the time of salmonella.
But my point was that it is fine to count your eggs before they have hatched - it's counting them before they've been laid that would be foolish.
Not so much foolish as impossible since you can't see them to count before they've been laid.
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
If you let the debts expire and don't replace them it's still QT, just at a slower rate.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
Otoh here is a twitter thread with some testimony on the behaviour of British troops in the C18th in their own words.
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two. Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon. We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks! Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing. We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains... We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot 1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
Survation with.... you know the drill Tories crawling towards 30 NEW: Westminster Voting Intention
LAB 51% (-1) CON 27% (+4) LD 8% (-3) SNP 5% (+1) GRN 2% (-1) Others 6% (-1)
Changes vs. 18-19 Oct.
Given Rish only became PM on Tuesday I would think Conservatives will be very encouraged to see the polls are already starting to move into their direction.
It will take a couple of weeks to find out exactly where this is going but clearly he's stopped the rot that set in the moment Liz took over.
The second wave polls next week should give an indication of whether the bounce is a one trick pony or an 'ongoing event' 35% strategy imo to lock Starmer out of anything more than a wafer thin majority and likely minority government
Do you really think they will get as high as 35% in this honeymoon before they start going down again?
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
It's interesting, though - London and the inner Home Counties seem to be diverging politically.
Not that interesting. There is a strong correlation between being left-wing and being desperate to live in overpriced places like London.
I also think it's to do with being able to afford a home. If people are priced out of owning a home in major cities despite having a salary of £35-40k and a partner with a similar salary, they're not likely to vote for a party that's doing nothing to help them get on the housing ladder apart from token stamp duty relief.
Instead, they're going to go for the party that says it'll stand up for renters since they have no medium term hope of being able to get on the property ladder.
The solution for the Conservatives is simple (build houses in places people want to live) but NIMBYism means they won't do it willingly.
The Tories don't need to win London anyway, as 2019 proved when they won a landslide despite losing London
You're right, they don't currently need it, but if the Red Wall turns solid Labour again then they'll need the outskirts of major metropolitan areas and they're only really trending towards Labour currently.
The long term trend in the red wall is very much against it returning to uniform Lab voting. If the Tories dont or cant capitalise ,someone else will
I think it's too early to say that long term trend is locked in based on the events of the previous few years. Some of them might become new ultra marginals but I think places like Wakefield aren't too likely to consider the Tories again until at least the election after next. To sit around and do nothing hoping that long term trend pays off isn't a great strategy in my view.
Not suggesting it as a stategy, but the long term trend is a shattering of the factors that made the red wall totemically Labour - decline of industry, class structures etc. They cant hold on to it, even if there is a significant reversal this time due to Tory collapse
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
If you let the debts expire and don't replace them it's still QT, just at a slower rate.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
The Bank is so "concerned" that the rate rises its been putting in place have been shockingly puny and less than the Fed's, which is hammering Sterling, and thus making inflation worse.
Moderate QT via natural expirations, which is what other comparable CBs are doing, doesn't cost the taxpayer billions selling at a loss and putting up rates addresses the inflation issue, both imported and internal.
If it was putting up interest rates at a serious rate then perhaps we should be talking about selling bonds, but it hasn't. It is consistently waiting until after the Fed and then doing less than that.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
Reform is the rebranded Brexit Party. Led by Richard Tice who seems to be generally 'not mad' but that is about all I can say about him. I am surprised to see them on 7%. Stuart Dickson's fatuous branding of any nationalist leaning movement other than the SNP as racist is just his normal lazy garbage.
Look at his blink rate when he's being asked the question.....
I could easily see Rishi making mincemeat of him in the debates.
Incidentally, I bet Rishi found it slightly patronising that the first thing he "insisted" on was to congratulate him on being the first PM of British Asian descent.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
Area people think is 'within the sound of Bow bells?'
My late mum would love that, she always claimed to be a cockney. I used to tell her as she was born in Alwyne Road, Islington, she was too far away from Bow Bells. Turns out she may have been right after all.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
I wonder if 'Brexit Party' or 'Farage' responses go in the column (or are included in the prompts)? Richard Tice by the way
Survation with.... you know the drill Tories crawling towards 30 NEW: Westminster Voting Intention
LAB 51% (-1) CON 27% (+4) LD 8% (-3) SNP 5% (+1) GRN 2% (-1) Others 6% (-1)
Changes vs. 18-19 Oct.
Given Rish only became PM on Tuesday I would think Conservatives will be very encouraged to see the polls are already starting to move into their direction.
It will take a couple of weeks to find out exactly where this is going but clearly he's stopped the rot that set in the moment Liz took over.
The second wave polls next week should give an indication of whether the bounce is a one trick pony or an 'ongoing event' 35% strategy imo to lock Starmer out of anything more than a wafer thin majority and likely minority government
Do you really think they will get as high as 35% in this honeymoon before they start going down again?
I've no idea. Thats what they should be aiming for at a GE imo
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
I wonder if 'Brexit Party' or 'Farage' responses go in the column (or are included in the prompts)? Richard Tice by the way
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
I wonder if 'Brexit Party' or 'Farage' responses go in the column (or are included in the prompts)? Richard Tice by the way
Claims it got its best ever day of new sign ups on Monday, the day Rishi got made PM.
Refuk will do well with both Trussites and the racists (separate groups for the avoidance of doubt), so makes sense.
RefUK also ahead of the Greens with Survation today, 3% to 2%.
They would need Farage to come back to get much higher than that though and Sunak being a Leaver means he has not leaked as much to Reform as a Remainer also anti Boris figure like Hunt would have done
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
It's a classic example of history being written by the victors.
By far the most common atrocities committed in the Revolutionary War were undertaken by the "patriots" against the loyalists so as to intimidate them not to resist. This was particularly the case in South Carolina, where executions, rape and burning of property all took place.
These tactics were effective.
The film doesn't mention it at all, of course, as it's solely interested in showing the British as the bad guys.
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 🤷♀️
How long have you got?
I think Gladstone would have thought of Disraeli as an unprincipled adventurer and Disraeli of Gladstone as a sanctimonious hypocrite. The Liberal watchwords in Gladstone’s day were ‘Peace, Retrenchment and Reform’: the Liberal world view at that time was that taxation should be as low as possible so that ‘money is left to fructify in the pockets of the people’ and Gladstone would have been horrified at the high-spending hyper-active state that tends to be associated with much ‘liberal’ thinking today. There is a sternness and severity about Gladstone’s view of the role of the state, whereas the Tories under Disraeli were more pragmatic and accommodating.
Personally I’m very much in the Disraeli camp.
Long time lurker but my first post.
Brilliant first post! Keep posting. 🙂
In fructify you have given us word of the day
make (something) fruitful or productive. "they were sacrificed in order that their blood might fructify the crops" bear fruit or become productive. “it fructified like vegetation in steamy heat"
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Risks a "Labour infighting" story with legs. Best imo to do what he's done. Clear positive unequivocal recognition of the landmark Rishi Sunak represents then concentrate 100% on opposing him.
"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!
Steady, some of us have to work another 20-25 years before we can do that!
Well at 68 I'm not exactly a baby - although my real good fortune was to retire at 54 - I won't give more detail for fear of upsetting everyone.
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
Reform is the rebranded Brexit Party. Led by Richard Tice who seems to be generally 'not mad' but that is about all I can say about him. I am surprised to see them on 7%. Stuart Dickson's fatuous branding of any nationalist leaning movement other than the SNP as racist is just his normal lazy garbage.
Look at his blink rate when he's being asked the question.....
I could easily see Rishi making mincemeat of him in the debates.
Incidentally, I bet Rishi found it slightly patronising that the first thing he "insisted" on was to congratulate him on being the first PM of British Asian descent.
Eye of the beholder stuff.
I watched that linked clip expecting to see a Starmer car-crash but in fact he just did what any other politician would have done in a similar situation - ignore the question and state the message he wanted to get across.
I dislike the way politicians avoid answering questions but they all do it. Most 'car-crash' moments come when they try to answer the question tbh.
Survation with.... you know the drill Tories crawling towards 30 NEW: Westminster Voting Intention
LAB 51% (-1) CON 27% (+4) LD 8% (-3) SNP 5% (+1) GRN 2% (-1) Others 6% (-1)
Changes vs. 18-19 Oct.
Given Rish only became PM on Tuesday I would think Conservatives will be very encouraged to see the polls are already starting to move into their direction.
It will take a couple of weeks to find out exactly where this is going but clearly he's stopped the rot that set in the moment Liz took over.
The second wave polls next week should give an indication of whether the bounce is a one trick pony or an 'ongoing event' 35% strategy imo to lock Starmer out of anything more than a wafer thin majority and likely minority government
Do you really think they will get as high as 35% in this honeymoon before they start going down again?
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
If you let the debts expire and don't replace them it's still QT, just at a slower rate.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
The Bank is so "concerned" that the rate rises its been putting in place have been shockingly puny and less than the Fed's, which is hammering Sterling, and thus making inflation worse.
Moderate QT via natural expirations, which is what other comparable CBs are doing, doesn't cost the taxpayer billions selling at a loss and putting up rates addresses the inflation issue, both imported and internal.
If it was putting up interest rates at a serious rate then perhaps we should be talking about selling bonds, but it hasn't. It is consistently waiting until after the Fed and then doing less than that.
QT and interest rates are both valid ways to control inflation. We might well find out that the Bank's more balanced approach, of using more QT instead of relying solely on interest rates, ends up producing a better outcome.
I don't know. But I'm fairly confident that looking at whether the bonds are sold at a loss or not is the wrong way to work out whether it's the right approach.
Can you imagine Blair doing this when he was LOTO. He will not cope with being PM and the scrutiny that comes with it.
I think he surfs trends, tactically triangulating as he goes, rather than leading anything.
I feel commentators might be reading a bit too much into this. Unless I'm being dim and missing something, this seems to be a classic case of politician awkwardly not answering a question (presumably because he doesn't want to highlight the divisions within his own party at a time when his opposite party is riven).
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).
digging
???
An old 60's expression that means he likes it!
No, I mean trying to rescue a bad argument and making it worse. I expect professional behaviour from everybody, including me, in professional life, whether they are dentists or MPs or carwash workers. And neither I nor most other people give much of a toss about the sex or skin colour of MPs.
(Yes I did understand your meaning. I was being sarcastic but I suppose it wasn't obvious)
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Risks a "Labour infighting" story with legs. Best imo to do what he's done. Clear positive unequivocal recognition of the landmark Rishi Sunak represents then concentrate 100% on opposing him.
Except that the "Labour infighting story" would be a "Sir Keir putting the Corbynites back in their box" story, which isn't a bad thing.
We are a long way from the end of honeymoon period to analyse the whole Height of it, it takes weeks for events to seep fully into polling. Also there is no hard or fast length of a political honeymoon, or how quickly their bounce unwinds.
An early opinion is it looks quite poor, no signs yet of a Rishigasm.
There’s probably lots of reasons for Rishi not improving the polling position. So much more preferable to Liz and Boris, but what does that actual equate to on the scales? How well liked and popular is Rishi with the public these days? The more we see of him the more insincere he seems, and if voters think Tory government since 2019 have been rubbish on the economy, Rishi is hardly a fresh face in it, he’s been central to its economics. And all the faces around him the same tired old volcanoes just sat in different seats.
So why are we expecting a honeymoon bounce for either fresh start (your having a larf) or voter love of Rich Snake Sunak?
The UK and France are allies with cultural links that span centuries. Our cooperation is vital across a huge range of areas, from supporting Ukraine to our own defence and energy security.
It's in that spirit that I am looking forward to working with President @EmmanuelMacron.
"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!
Steady, some of us have to work another 20-25 years before we can do that!
Well at 68 I'm not exactly a baby - although my real good fortune was to retire at 54 - I won't give more detail for fear of upsetting everyone.
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
If you let the debts expire and don't replace them it's still QT, just at a slower rate.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
The Bank is so "concerned" that the rate rises its been putting in place have been shockingly puny and less than the Fed's, which is hammering Sterling, and thus making inflation worse.
Moderate QT via natural expirations, which is what other comparable CBs are doing, doesn't cost the taxpayer billions selling at a loss and putting up rates addresses the inflation issue, both imported and internal.
If it was putting up interest rates at a serious rate then perhaps we should be talking about selling bonds, but it hasn't. It is consistently waiting until after the Fed and then doing less than that.
QT and interest rates are both valid ways to control inflation. We might well find out that the Bank's more balanced approach, of using more QT instead of relying solely on interest rates, ends up producing a better outcome.
I don't know. But I'm fairly confident that looking at whether the bonds are sold at a loss or not is the wrong way to work out whether it's the right approach.
The problem with the Bank's approach is that the overwhelming majority of the inflation is imported, and imported inflation is worse if Sterling falls, better if Sterling rises. Putting up rates by less than the Fed makes Sterling fall which means anything priced in dollars (which is everything significantly affected by inflation) more expensive and increases inflation.
Other than the fact the Bank, alone in the world AFAIK, are actively selling gilts at a cost to taxpayers and putting up rates by less than the Fed - what reason is there to think its a good idea? I can not think of a single other Central Bank, anywhere in the world, that is doing that.
Looking at whether bonds are sold at a loss is relevant but not the only reason to think its a terrible idea. The fact that the inflation is imported and that rate rises sub-Fed levels makes Sterling fall and makes the inflation much worse is the bigger problem.
So the taxpayers are paying to pay for gilts to be sold at a loss, while inflation isn't tackled as rates aren't up as much as Fed rates. Why? How is that good?
The UK and France are allies with cultural links that span centuries. Our cooperation is vital across a huge range of areas, from supporting Ukraine to our own defence and energy security.
It's in that spirit that I am looking forward to working with President @EmmanuelMacron.
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Risks a "Labour infighting" story with legs. Best imo to do what he's done. Clear positive unequivocal recognition of the landmark Rishi Sunak represents then concentrate 100% on opposing him.
Except that the "Labour infighting story" would be a "Sir Keir putting the Corbynites back in their box" story, which isn't a bad thing.
He's done such a lot of that already, I'm not sure he needs it so much now. The urban left isn't his main target for votes at the GE but he doesn't want too many of them seeping away. That's a risk if he overdoes the Hammer.
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Risks a "Labour infighting" story with legs. Best imo to do what he's done. Clear positive unequivocal recognition of the landmark Rishi Sunak represents then concentrate 100% on opposing him.
Except that the "Labour infighting story" would be a "Sir Keir putting the Corbynites back in their box" story, which isn't a bad thing.
He's done such a lot of that already, I'm not sure he needs it so much now. The urban left isn't his main target for votes at the GE but he doesn't want too many of them seeping away. That's a risk if he overdoes the Hammer.
If they keep coming out with nonsense like this, then he does.
1/ Remarkable FOI response here. Scot Gov admits it cannot justify a statement made by Sturgeon at FMQs recently, because the statement wasn’t true. Sturgeon has quietly corrected the Official Report…
2/… but the correction is a bait and switch. Her original statement gave the impression that Scotland’s electricity consumption is entirely renewable.
But the correction sneaks in a critical word - *equivalent* - which completely changes the meaning of what was said.
3/ It’s obvious what is going on here. Senior SNP politicians have been engaged in a systematic campaign of misinformation: trying to confuse voters into believing that Scotland can meet demand entirely from its own renewable electricity.
4/ In fact, recent revisions to Scot Gov data show that Scottish renewable generation was capable of meeting Scottish demand just 37.8% of the time in 2021.
We are a long way from the end of honeymoon period to analyse the whole Height of it, it takes weeks for events to seep fully into polling. Also there is no hard or fast length of a political honeymoon, or how quickly their bounce unwinds.
An early opinion is it looks quite poor, no signs yet of a Rishigasm.
There’s probably lots of reasons for Rishi not improving the polling position. So much more preferable to Liz and Boris, but what does that actual equate to on the scales? How well liked and popular is Rishi with the public these days? The more we see of him the more insincere he seems, and if voters think Tory government since 2019 have been rubbish on the economy, Rishi is hardly a fresh face in it, he’s been central to its economics. And all the faces around him the same tired old volcanoes just sat in different seats.
So why are we expecting a honeymoon bounce for either fresh start (your having a larf) or voter love of Rich Snake Sunak?
Something all parties are prone to is thinking "our policies are great, we just need to present them better". Especially when your figureheads are as flawed as Boris (great man with great flaws to match) and Liz (what were we thinking?), it's really tempting to think a new face at the top is the answer.
The thought that it's a bigger, wider problem, perhaps to do with core policies, is much more traumatic. Especially when coupled with the realisation that the most likely path for the Conservatives from here is two years of doing difficult stuff and being unpopular, followed by at least five years in opposition.
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Risks a "Labour infighting" story with legs. Best imo to do what he's done. Clear positive unequivocal recognition of the landmark Rishi Sunak represents then concentrate 100% on opposing him.
Except that the "Labour infighting story" would be a "Sir Keir putting the Corbynites back in their box" story, which isn't a bad thing.
He's done such a lot of that already, I'm not sure he needs it so much now. The urban left isn't his main target for votes at the GE but he doesn't want too many of them seeping away. That's a risk if he overdoes the Hammer.
Although it isn't really showing yet, Sunak should in theory be the Tory leader with the greatest appeal to urban and London voters since Cameron.
If Corbynites starting going Green then that could give an opportunity for the Tories in wealthy parts of inner London for example like Wandsworth they have been losing post Brexit and Boris even if Starmer regains the redwall
1/ Remarkable FOI response here. Scot Gov admits it cannot justify a statement made by Sturgeon at FMQs recently, because the statement wasn’t true. Sturgeon has quietly corrected the Official Report…
2/… but the correction is a bait and switch. Her original statement gave the impression that Scotland’s electricity consumption is entirely renewable.
But the correction sneaks in a critical word - *equivalent* - which completely changes the meaning of what was said.
3/ It’s obvious what is going on here. Senior SNP politicians have been engaged in a systematic campaign of misinformation: trying to confuse voters into believing that Scotland can meet demand entirely from its own renewable electricity.
4/ In fact, recent revisions to Scot Gov data show that Scottish renewable generation was capable of meeting Scottish demand just 37.8% of the time in 2021.
So Sturgeon is a liar with a terrible memory? No surprise. During covid she took the easy path (getting briefings from the scientific advisors and then speaking to Scotland before the 4 pm UK national briefing. She portrayed a more measured image than Johnson - that's not hard. But ultimately she, in my opinion, lied to that enquiry about 'not recalling' events, or if not a lie, then her memory is truly terrible.
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
Otoh here is a twitter thread with some testimony on the behaviour of British troops in the C18th in their own words.
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two. Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon. We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks! Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing. We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains... We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot 1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
I think that even by the standards of his time, the Duke of Cumberland was a piece of shit.
For example, he had captured Jacobite officers hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Manchester. While the punishment was still on statute books, the norm would have been a soldier's death by firing squad.
But, even he didn't go so far as locking people in a church and setting fire to it.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
That puts me inside an Independent London. No thanks.
Agreed, they can do what Father Jack said to Bishop Brennan.
Can you imagine Blair doing this when he was LOTO. He will not cope with being PM and the scrutiny that comes with it.
I actually can imagine 1995 Blair dodging a question, yes. I can quite easily imagine that. I yield to few in my regard for TB's abilities as a communicator but I do sometimes wonder whether with the passage of time he's assuming a godlike status which isn't truly justified. He seems to be brought up in the main by Conservative inclined pundits as a way to cast Starmer in a poor light by comparison. Blair would have been 80 pts ahead right now. Blair would never have made that mistake. Blair would have sold that message so much better. Blair was ... well damn it he was so intelligent and articulate and reasonable he could almost have been a Tory.
Can you imagine Blair doing this when he was LOTO. He will not cope with being PM and the scrutiny that comes with it.
I actually can imagine 1995 Blair dodging a question, yes. I can quite easily imagine that. I yield to few in my regard for TB's abilities as a communicator but I do sometimes wonder whether with the passage of time he's assuming a godlike status which isn't truly justified. He seems to be brought up in the main by Conservative inclined pundits as a way to cast Starmer in a poor light by comparison. Blair would have been 80 pts ahead right now. Blair would never have made that mistake. Blair would have sold that message so much better. Blair was ... well damn it he was so intelligent and articulate and reasonable he could almost have been a Tory.
I remember one time local radio screwed him up completely on some local amenity that was causing issues and because he hadn't been briefed he made a complete mess of it.
The reason I remember it is because told the story against himself, as a warning to his party of the perils of complacency and inadequate preparation.
"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!
Steady, some of us have to work another 20-25 years before we can do that!
Well at 68 I'm not exactly a baby - although my real good fortune was to retire at 54 - I won't give more detail for fear of upsetting everyone.
I am happy still working and no short term inclination to retire, as long as I remain as fit as a butcher's dog and still enjoy it I will stay. I have about 10 weeks holidays in any case.
1/ Remarkable FOI response here. Scot Gov admits it cannot justify a statement made by Sturgeon at FMQs recently, because the statement wasn’t true. Sturgeon has quietly corrected the Official Report…
2/… but the correction is a bait and switch. Her original statement gave the impression that Scotland’s electricity consumption is entirely renewable.
But the correction sneaks in a critical word - *equivalent* - which completely changes the meaning of what was said.
3/ It’s obvious what is going on here. Senior SNP politicians have been engaged in a systematic campaign of misinformation: trying to confuse voters into believing that Scotland can meet demand entirely from its own renewable electricity.
4/ In fact, recent revisions to Scot Gov data show that Scottish renewable generation was capable of meeting Scottish demand just 37.8% of the time in 2021.
So Sturgeon is a liar with a terrible memory? No surprise. During covid she took the easy path (getting briefings from the scientific advisors and then speaking to Scotland before the 4 pm UK national briefing. She portrayed a more measured image than Johnson - that's not hard. But ultimately she, in my opinion, lied to that enquiry about 'not recalling' events, or if not a lie, then her memory is truly terrible.
Why is she so feted?
One wonders , lots of stupid people about obviously.
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
Over on AlternativeHistory forum, the consensus seems to be that all you needed to have Kinnock win in 1992 was Major's affair come out a week before polling day. Major's hypocrisy and his Back to Basics campaign probably would've sunk him.
Not to be though.......
Strangely, a 1992 Kinnock win probably would've sunk Blair. Kinnock probably would've been a one termer and a Clarke win in 1997 would've seen off Labour for another two terms or so.
Counting one's eggs before they hatched?
You can count your eggs before they've hatched.
Or is that a clever joke?
I'm obviously too subtle for you (or older, anyway). Ms Currie was famous for a brouhaha over eggs, though I forget the details - I think she was at MAFF/DEFRA at the time of a salmonella scare in eggs scare or something of the sort.
Ah, I see. Yes, I was around at the time of salmonella.
But my point was that it is fine to count your eggs before they have hatched - it's counting them before they've been laid that would be foolish.
Quite - or counting them to deduce the final number of chickens. The correct expression is counting chickens before they're hatched, but the Currie-d eggs joke wouldn't be so blatant.
AAAHHHH. Finally the penny drops. Especially dense today.
Hardly "tied himself in knots" - he just avoided the question by saying instead what he wanted to say. Routine technique.
It wasn't a question to avoid though. You either say "yes" or "no, because it was sorted through party processes without needing to come to my attention".
Risks a "Labour infighting" story with legs. Best imo to do what he's done. Clear positive unequivocal recognition of the landmark Rishi Sunak represents then concentrate 100% on opposing him.
Except that the "Labour infighting story" would be a "Sir Keir putting the Corbynites back in their box" story, which isn't a bad thing.
He's done such a lot of that already, I'm not sure he needs it so much now. The urban left isn't his main target for votes at the GE but he doesn't want too many of them seeping away. That's a risk if he overdoes the Hammer.
Although it isn't really showing yet, Sunak should in theory be the Tory leader with the greatest appeal to urban and London voters since Cameron.
If Corbynites starting going Green then that could give an opportunity for the Tories in wealthy parts of inner London for example like Wandsworth they have been losing post Brexit and Boris even if Starmer regains the redwall
Yep, it's mainly about regaining the redwall and becoming the 1st choice of floating voters elsewhere, but he has to watch the urban left liberal flank. That's the new base in a sense, isn't it. And they - we! - are already a touch disappointed with "making Brexit work" rather than "let's go Single Market".
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
Otoh here is a twitter thread with some testimony on the behaviour of British troops in the C18th in their own words.
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two. Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon. We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks! Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing. We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains... We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot 1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
I think that even by the standards of his time, the Duke of Cumberland was a piece of shit.
For example, he had captured Jacobite officers hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Manchester. While the punishment was still on statute books, the norm would have been a soldier's death by firing squad.
But, even he didn't go so far as locking people in a church and setting fire to it.
That we know of , likely had plenty burnt in their homes. A real nasty Tory unionist arse to be sure.
We are a long way from the end of honeymoon period to analyse the whole Height of it, it takes weeks for events to seep fully into polling. Also there is no hard or fast length of a political honeymoon, or how quickly their bounce unwinds.
An early opinion is it looks quite poor, no signs yet of a Rishigasm.
There’s probably lots of reasons for Rishi not improving the polling position. So much more preferable to Liz and Boris, but what does that actual equate to on the scales? How well liked and popular is Rishi with the public these days? The more we see of him the more insincere he seems, and if voters think Tory government since 2019 have been rubbish on the economy, Rishi is hardly a fresh face in it, he’s been central to its economics. And all the faces around him the same tired old volcanoes just sat in different seats.
So why are we expecting a honeymoon bounce for either fresh start (your having a larf) or voter love of Rich Snake Sunak?
Wrong scales, perhaps? It's the grocer's scales and cash register that are more important. It is one thing to believe Rishi is a nice chap but if you can't afford to keep the kids in Cornflakes at the end of the week, and more pertinently at this time of year, Christmas is starting to look expensive. Diwali seemed a bit subdued round here earlier in the week.
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
If you let the debts expire and don't replace them it's still QT, just at a slower rate.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
The Bank is so "concerned" that the rate rises its been putting in place have been shockingly puny and less than the Fed's, which is hammering Sterling, and thus making inflation worse.
Moderate QT via natural expirations, which is what other comparable CBs are doing, doesn't cost the taxpayer billions selling at a loss and putting up rates addresses the inflation issue, both imported and internal.
If it was putting up interest rates at a serious rate then perhaps we should be talking about selling bonds, but it hasn't. It is consistently waiting until after the Fed and then doing less than that.
QT and interest rates are both valid ways to control inflation. We might well find out that the Bank's more balanced approach, of using more QT instead of relying solely on interest rates, ends up producing a better outcome.
I don't know. But I'm fairly confident that looking at whether the bonds are sold at a loss or not is the wrong way to work out whether it's the right approach.
The simple fact is that the Treasury is on the hook for the £10bn loss, and as we're likely to see the axe being swung with fervour by Sunak and Hunt, why aren't they questioning this course of action, and why are the somewhat bipolar BOE activities on this front receiving so little scrutiny? £10bn, if it is that, is still a huge amount of money.
Can any of our finance experts confirm that the Bank of England will lose £10-11bn this year (paid for by the Treasury) because it is selling Government bonds at a lower price than it bought them for? This seems lunacy in the current circumstances.
Whoever you are getting your information from is an unreliable source you should stop listening to.
Luckyguy is (presumably) talking about the APF.
The decision to wind down the APF means selling government bonds. Since gilt rates are higher than during the programme of the APF buying rounds, their sale price is reduced. This is because they are less competitive with present bond issues by the Government (via the DMO), which carry a better yield.
£11bn may or may not be correct, it is a provision in the accounts for this.
I don't see the benefit to selling the bonds at a loss and having the taxpayer pick up the tab on that.
Holding the bonds to maturity but not renewing them would seem the wiser decision which is what other comparable Central Banks are doing.
I don't think it makes any difference to the purpose of selling the bonds, which is to take money out of the economy, whether they are sold at a loss or not.
Then the only question is how much money you want to take out of the economy and how quickly. With inflation at 10% I can see the argument for taking more money out of the economy more quickly, but I guess we'll see in a year or two whether the Bank is acting too quickly or not.
But today's inflation is a supply-side shock of imports costing dramatically more than they did, due to a global supply shock, due to a global shortage of fuel that we need to pay at global rates, not too much money in the local economy chasing too few local goods.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
If you let the debts expire and don't replace them it's still QT, just at a slower rate.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
The Bank is so "concerned" that the rate rises its been putting in place have been shockingly puny and less than the Fed's, which is hammering Sterling, and thus making inflation worse.
Moderate QT via natural expirations, which is what other comparable CBs are doing, doesn't cost the taxpayer billions selling at a loss and putting up rates addresses the inflation issue, both imported and internal.
If it was putting up interest rates at a serious rate then perhaps we should be talking about selling bonds, but it hasn't. It is consistently waiting until after the Fed and then doing less than that.
QT and interest rates are both valid ways to control inflation. We might well find out that the Bank's more balanced approach, of using more QT instead of relying solely on interest rates, ends up producing a better outcome.
I don't know. But I'm fairly confident that looking at whether the bonds are sold at a loss or not is the wrong way to work out whether it's the right approach.
The problem with the Bank's approach is that the overwhelming majority of the inflation is imported, and imported inflation is worse if Sterling falls, better if Sterling rises. Putting up rates by less than the Fed makes Sterling fall which means anything priced in dollars (which is everything significantly affected by inflation) more expensive and increases inflation.
Other than the fact the Bank, alone in the world AFAIK, are actively selling gilts at a cost to taxpayers and putting up rates by less than the Fed - what reason is there to think its a good idea? I can not think of a single other Central Bank, anywhere in the world, that is doing that.
Looking at whether bonds are sold at a loss is relevant but not the only reason to think its a terrible idea. The fact that the inflation is imported and that rate rises sub-Fed levels makes Sterling fall and makes the inflation much worse is the bigger problem.
So the taxpayers are paying to pay for gilts to be sold at a loss, while inflation isn't tackled as rates aren't up as much as Fed rates. Why? How is that good?
To answer your questions. To agree with you, The Sunak government and the BoE are running scared from the consequences of interest rate increases in UK. The markets being nice at the moment is portrayed as Hunt and Sunak as great lion tamers, but the truth is the markets are becalmed because they expect 5% interest rates and higher gilts, the very thing the Sunak government is hiding under the desk scared of - anyone who isn’t expecting shit to hit fan very soon is totally deluded.
A couple of your points I do disagree with. The pound falling is actually inflationary. And all the QE of recent years, it’s impossible to do any of that without it being inflationary - it’s there in our social economy, stock markets, house prices etc
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
Otoh here is a twitter thread with some testimony on the behaviour of British troops in the C18th in their own words.
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two. Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon. We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks! Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing. We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains... We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot 1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
I think that even by the standards of his time, the Duke of Cumberland was a piece of shit.
For example, he had captured Jacobite officers hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Manchester. While the punishment was still on statute books, the norm would have been a soldier's death by firing squad.
But, even he didn't go so far as locking people in a church and setting fire to it.
That we know of , likely had plenty burnt in their homes. A real nasty Tory unionist arse to be sure.
Actually, he was a Whig, and it was the Tories who called him 'Butcher Cumberland' and 'Stinking Billy'.
For balance, my friend…The Prime Minister is WRONG not to go to COP. Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates many 1000s of jobs which is good for the economy. COP in Glasgow was most successful ever… but don’t expect media to report that
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
Otoh here is a twitter thread with some testimony on the behaviour of British troops in the C18th in their own words.
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two. Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon. We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks! Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing. We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains... We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot 1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
I think that even by the standards of his time, the Duke of Cumberland was a piece of shit.
For example, he had captured Jacobite officers hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Manchester. While the punishment was still on statute books, the norm would have been a soldier's death by firing squad.
But, even he didn't go so far as locking people in a church and setting fire to it.
That we know of , likely had plenty burnt in their homes. A real nasty Tory unionist arse to be sure.
For balance, my friend…The Prime Minister is WRONG not to go to COP. Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates many 1000s of jobs which is good for the economy. COP in Glasgow was most successful ever… but don’t expect media to report that
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.
Where do right-wingers hear about Reform? I never see it referred to anywhere but here, and have no idea who leads it or what its main campaigns are about. The bland name doesn't sound especially racist or right-wing, sop it's not spontaneous enthusiasm for something like Britain First. Getting 7% must mean that they are getting significant coverage, surely?
GB news , comments in youtube videos from GB news, Farage , etc .Leader (Richard Tice ) interviewed a lot on these types of shows. Its also not a racist party so would not have a nationalistic name
"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.
Some French commanders behaved like the Nazis towards the Spanish population. They viewed the Spanish as savages and acted accordingly.
In post-war memoirs, French officers were keen to stress that they fought a clean war, whereas all the atrocities were on the part of the guerillas. Rather like the Myth of the Clean Wehrmact, it became the dominant historical narrative for a time.
Without question, the guerillas could be cruel, but they weren't as brutal as the French were.
By contrast, in the toilet of a film that is The Patriot the character modelled on Banastre Tarleton is portrayed burning down a church filled with American civilians - an incident that never took place and is modelled on what Nazi SS soldiers did to a French village in 1944.
Naturally, it's believed though. Film is a very powerful propaganda medium.
Even in the 1770's, that would have been considered a war crime. And, as you say, it's quite untrue.
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
Otoh here is a twitter thread with some testimony on the behaviour of British troops in the C18th in their own words.
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two. Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon. We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks! Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing. We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains... We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot 1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
I think that even by the standards of his time, the Duke of Cumberland was a piece of shit.
For example, he had captured Jacobite officers hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Manchester. While the punishment was still on statute books, the norm would have been a soldier's death by firing squad.
But, even he didn't go so far as locking people in a church and setting fire to it.
That we know of , likely had plenty burnt in their homes. A real nasty Tory unionist arse to be sure.
We appreciate the analysis from someone who scores 60%...
Survation with.... you know the drill Tories crawling towards 30 NEW: Westminster Voting Intention
LAB 51% (-1) CON 27% (+4) LD 8% (-3) SNP 5% (+1) GRN 2% (-1) Others 6% (-1)
Changes vs. 18-19 Oct.
Given Rish only became PM on Tuesday I would think Conservatives will be very encouraged to see the polls are already starting to move into their direction.
It will take a couple of weeks to find out exactly where this is going but clearly he's stopped the rot that set in the moment Liz took over.
The second wave polls next week should give an indication of whether the bounce is a one trick pony or an 'ongoing event' 35% strategy imo to lock Starmer out of anything more than a wafer thin majority and likely minority government
Do you really think they will get as high as 35% in this honeymoon before they start going down again?
I've no idea. Thats what they should be aiming for at a GE imo
Yes 35% PV would be a splendid recovery from this position.
The Labour Government of 1964 - 1970 contained many people of academic distinction - as well as other political heavyweights. In addition to Harold Wilson himself , we had Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey , James Callaghan, Richard Crossman, Anthony Crosland, Barbara Castle, Douglas Jay, Patrick Gordon Walker, Michael Stewart and Peter Shore. It was not,however, judged to have been a particularly successful Administration despite the many talents available to it.
For balance, my friend…The Prime Minister is WRONG not to go to COP. Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates many 1000s of jobs which is good for the economy. COP in Glasgow was most successful ever… but don’t expect media to report that
I can’t see any Northern Ireland Assembly betting odds up yet. Smarkets had most seats available last time, with a grand total of under £13,000 bet. I presume if they get a new market up, the favourite will be Sinn Fein. Maybe there will be value there, particularly if some unionists bet with their hearts and not their heads on the DUP.
For balance, my friend…The Prime Minister is WRONG not to go to COP. Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates many 1000s of jobs which is good for the economy. COP in Glasgow was most successful ever… but don’t expect media to report that
But it was under Boris Johnson, therefore for Dorries was by definition an utter triumph. Not sure we've ever witnessed in political life the degree of sycophancy she displays towards him. Maybe if we had cameras in the Kremlin for some of Putin's interactions.
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!!
Scotland was pro LKabour and anti Torty first - the independence came a little later. So you'd better bloody well hope the border isn't drawn across your kitchen floor.
I hadn't noticed Scotland has become independent overnight.
The SNP have also had MPs for decades, there is no party demanding London independence. Even England has a small English Democrats party that has pushed for English independence in the past and now wants an English parliament
I'm talking about London independence; where will the border go?
Cardiff, Sheffield, Calais?
It's interesting, though - London and the inner Home Counties seem to be diverging politically.
Not that interesting. There is a strong correlation between being left-wing and being desperate to live in overpriced places like London.
I also think it's to do with being able to afford a home. If people are priced out of owning a home in major cities despite having a salary of £35-40k and a partner with a similar salary, they're not likely to vote for a party that's doing nothing to help them get on the housing ladder apart from token stamp duty relief.
Instead, they're going to go for the party that says it'll stand up for renters since they have no medium term hope of being able to get on the property ladder.
The solution for the Conservatives is simple (build houses in places people want to live) but NIMBYism means they won't do it willingly.
The Tories don't need to win London anyway, as 2019 proved when they won a landslide despite losing London
You're right, they don't currently need it, but if the Red Wall turns solid Labour again then they'll need the outskirts of major metropolitan areas and they're only really trending towards Labour currently.
The long term trend in the red wall is very much against it returning to uniform Lab voting. If the Tories dont or cant capitalise ,someone else will
Doesn’t the scale of anti Tory tide at next election wash over “long term trending” and other things this time. 28% nationally it doesn’t matter how it’s been trending over last 5 elections, a lot of things are falling regardless?
There's no way Reform are on 9% in London. Is that a mistake?
Subsamples are meaningless - no idea why Stuart persists with them, particularly given he was banned for several years for advertising ‘Caledonian cross-sections’…
"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!
£250k - gosh that does sound like a bargain.
The plot was just 50k euros and the build costs are relatively cheap here too.
"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!
Steady, some of us have to work another 20-25 years before we can do that!
Well at 68 I'm not exactly a baby - although my real good fortune was to retire at 54 - I won't give more detail for fear of upsetting everyone.
Tell me your secret!
The usual story - teachers' pension and when I was younger a long-term goal with sacrifices and some luck so I was able to make it happen. Oh and of course no kids!
Comments
Probably has a following on Twitter too.
It's not a good electoral strategy to write off areas as unwinnable due to demographics, otherwise the Tories would never have targeted the Red Wall in 2017 and 2019.
Richard Tice by the way
Marshal Suchet, the most successful commander in Spain, drove prisoners before him as human shields, carried out mass executions of male civilians, in retaliation for guerilla killings, and burned villages to the ground. Rape was routine.
By the far the worst aspect of the war for the Spanish, though, was pillage. Napoleon's soldiers lived off the land. In places like Germany, or Northern Italy, that was unpleasant for the population, but bearable. In a places as arid as Spain, it meant that the population starved.
But my point was that it is fine to count your eggs before they have hatched - it's counting them before they've been laid that would be foolish.
In these circumstances, taking money out at a cost to the taxpayer, rather than letting it expire at no cost, and rather than an interest rate rise which would help strengthen Sterling and reduce imported inflation, seems a rather perverse way of either tackling inflation or managing the economy.
https://wi-images.condecdn.net/image/y9pyAV1GGaa/crop/1620/f/bells.jpg
Maybe the PB Tory Optimists will be proved right, who knows?
Claims it got its best ever day of new sign ups on Monday, the day Rishi got made PM.
If so, is it possible that some of those being polled have no idea what Reform stands for but like the sound of it (as in, the whole lot needs to be reformed)?
There’s a PB maxim polls don’t move immediately, there’s a 2-3 week lag for events to seep into the polling fabric, so 2-3 weeks for the honeymoon bounce to still creep the % share upward, so no need for Tories to panic about these terrible twenty’s just yet.
Good to see everyone is now watching that % share progress into the thirties.
The Bank is clearly concerned that the jolt to inflation from the supply shock has rippled through the economy and become entrenched, thus requiring higher interest rates and QT to control. As the year has gone on I've tended more to that view, but who can be sure until we see it all play out?
I also tend to think that the policies implemented by the government to help people deal with the inflation produced by the supply shock is itself inflationary, and this has to be taken into account.
https://twitter.com/R_MacGhilleAnd/status/1574518832584089605?s=20&t=UkpK3x8so0r743kvTY4rhw
'We're encamped near the ruins of Fort Augustus, our tents among the cattle of a thousand hills, for our parties hourly bring in large droves. Every tent has it's goat or two.
Our fellows grow so fat they'll seem like strangers to a campaign soon.
We're amongst hills, some are 7 miles high. Yet daily we erect pyramids higher than those made of smoke. Thirty houses are now burning in my view. Glorious fireworks!
Major Lockart's back from Glenmoriston where he killed 17, hanged some by their heels, burnt 400 houses & drove back 1400 cattle. Lord Sackville does the same in Glenshiel. Glengarry broke his word to turn in his men so his house & land are now blazing.
We have 11 regiments of foot & Kingston's horse. The rest are dispersed through this heathenish country, converting them to Christianity & propagating a new light amongst them. Some of them bring in their arms, others skulk in the mountains...
We take care to leave nothing they can eat, unless they can browse like their goats.
Thomas Ashe Lee
Captain Wolfe's 8th Regiment of Foot
1746 (The 'Pacification' of the Highlands in the aftermath of Culloden)'
Moderate QT via natural expirations, which is what other comparable CBs are doing, doesn't cost the taxpayer billions selling at a loss and putting up rates addresses the inflation issue, both imported and internal.
If it was putting up interest rates at a serious rate then perhaps we should be talking about selling bonds, but it hasn't. It is consistently waiting until after the Fed and then doing less than that.
Incidentally, I bet Rishi found it slightly patronising that the first thing he "insisted" on was to congratulate him on being the first PM of British Asian descent.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/92d1dd96-5628-11ed-a03e-f7ac672386f7?shareToken=8511b55acabaf99af21b9ef81a22afc3
Thoughtful article from Emma Duncan.
They would need Farage to come back to get much higher than that though and Sunak being a Leaver means he has not leaked as much to Reform as a Remainer also anti Boris figure like Hunt would have done
By far the most common atrocities committed in the Revolutionary War were undertaken by the "patriots" against the loyalists so as to intimidate them not to resist. This was particularly the case in South Carolina, where executions, rape and burning of property all took place.
These tactics were effective.
The film doesn't mention it at all, of course, as it's solely interested in showing the British as the bad guys.
In fructify you have given us word of the day
make (something) fruitful or productive.
"they were sacrificed in order that their blood might fructify the crops"
bear fruit or become productive.
“it fructified like vegetation in steamy heat"
I watched that linked clip expecting to see a Starmer car-crash but in fact he just did what any other politician would have done in a similar situation - ignore the question and state the message he wanted to get across.
I dislike the way politicians avoid answering questions but they all do it. Most 'car-crash' moments come when they try to answer the question tbh.
I don't know. But I'm fairly confident that looking at whether the bonds are sold at a loss or not is the wrong way to work out whether it's the right approach.
An early opinion is it looks quite poor, no signs yet of a Rishigasm.
There’s probably lots of reasons for Rishi not improving the polling position. So much more preferable to Liz and Boris, but what does that actual equate to on the scales? How well liked and popular is Rishi with the public these days? The more we see of him the more insincere he seems, and if voters think Tory government since 2019 have been rubbish on the economy, Rishi is hardly a fresh face in it, he’s been central to its economics. And all the faces around him the same tired old volcanoes just sat in different seats.
So why are we expecting a honeymoon bounce for either fresh start (your having a larf) or voter love of Rich Snake Sunak?
It's in that spirit that I am looking forward to working with President
@EmmanuelMacron.
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1585955645219835905
Other than the fact the Bank, alone in the world AFAIK, are actively selling gilts at a cost to taxpayers and putting up rates by less than the Fed - what reason is there to think its a good idea? I can not think of a single other Central Bank, anywhere in the world, that is doing that.
Looking at whether bonds are sold at a loss is relevant but not the only reason to think its a terrible idea. The fact that the inflation is imported and that rate rises sub-Fed levels makes Sterling fall and makes the inflation much worse is the bigger problem.
So the taxpayers are paying to pay for gilts to be sold at a loss, while inflation isn't tackled as rates aren't up as much as Fed rates. Why? How is that good?
https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1584862604945551361?s=20&t=fH5dsT9NTrgmPPJ7DfhUSA
2/… but the correction is a bait and switch. Her original statement gave the impression that Scotland’s electricity consumption is entirely renewable.
But the correction sneaks in a critical word - *equivalent* - which completely changes the meaning of what was said.
3/ It’s obvious what is going on here. Senior SNP politicians have been engaged in a systematic campaign of misinformation: trying to confuse voters into believing that Scotland can meet demand entirely from its own renewable electricity.
4/ In fact, recent revisions to Scot Gov data show that Scottish renewable generation was capable of meeting Scottish demand just 37.8% of the time in 2021.
https://twitter.com/staylorish/status/1585937081817518080
The thought that it's a bigger, wider problem, perhaps to do with core policies, is much more traumatic. Especially when coupled with the realisation that the most likely path for the Conservatives from here is two years of doing difficult stuff and being unpopular, followed by at least five years in opposition.
If Corbynites starting going Green then that could give an opportunity for the Tories in wealthy parts of inner London for example like Wandsworth they have been losing post Brexit and Boris even if Starmer regains the redwall
Why is she so feted?
For example, he had captured Jacobite officers hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Manchester. While the punishment was still on statute books, the norm would have been a soldier's death by firing squad.
But, even he didn't go so far as locking people in a church and setting fire to it.
The reason I remember it is because told the story against himself, as a warning to his party of the perils of complacency and inadequate preparation.
Never liked the man, but boy he was formidable.
A couple of your points I do disagree with. The pound falling is actually inflationary. And all the QE of recent years, it’s impossible to do any of that without it being inflationary - it’s there in our social economy, stock markets, house prices etc
Nadine Dorries
@NadineDorries
For balance, my friend…The Prime Minister is WRONG not to go to COP. Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates many 1000s of jobs which is good for the economy. COP in Glasgow was most successful ever… but don’t expect media to report that
https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1585937881876480001
Woohoo!
(Yes, it's a minor championship in Nascar, but it's still cool.)