Categories
Can Sunak really win back CON to LAB switchers and retain power? – politicalbetting.com
Can Sunak really win back CON to LAB switchers and retain power? – politicalbetting.com
At the weekend the Indy’s John Rentoul had an analysis under the heading “Here’s how Rishi Sunak can win the next election”. The heading was deliberately provocative and this an area that is worth looking at if only because it is against the prevailing narrative.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
A black swan event (or reverse black swan?) perhaps... WW3, Putin dying, UK winning Eurovision,...
Something outlandish anyway; it's too late for boring competence to save the Tories imho.
The country is done with Tories. Many people voted for Brexit because they thought it would make things better. Certainly in the short term, it is not doing that. Whether longer term it will is moot for the election - what happens in two years time has been determined by the CoL crisis. That much of that is down to the war and covid matters not, just as Gordon Brown didn't cause the 2008 crisis. The Tories managed to pin Labour with that one, unfairly and will now need to suck it up in return. Plus its really hard to be in power for 12 years and say "things have got really bad over the last decade, when we were in power, now give us a chance to fix it". Rightly the electorate will say "no thanks, you broke it in the first place".
As always the narrative is not the truth, but it is what matters.
The aim must be to get above 200 seats.
SKS has nothing like Kinnock's oratory skills but he does come across as a safer pair of hands. Hunt strikes me as a much smarter and smoother operator than Norman Lamont was. Reeves I remain unsure of.
Is it likely? Hell no.
And I'd have said it's not uncharacteristic of him to offer his opponents good advice.
Rishi Sunak is considering blocking Boris Johnson’s plan to elevate four Conservative MPs and loyal supporters to the House of Lords.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-may-block-boris-johnsons-peerages-6fh3flc9j (£££)
Turns out there are constitutional issues. For Boris, rules are for other people
I would say that they shouldn’t be cheering for a regime with no respect for women’s rights, which sets out to violently clamp down on protests, but I guess it’s now something they’re quite used to up there…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-cup/2022/11/21/qatar-protests-world-cup-2022-live-lgbt-england-arm-bands-updates/
Go figure.
The other question I have is whether anyone is tracking the voters who went Conservative for the first time in 2019. The ones who went blue for Boris and his Brexit. It's plausible for them to have peeled off, and Sunak (despite having supported Brexit since the early days) doesn't seem ideal to win them back.
The problem is the party. It has a series of massive rifts; does he have the authority to fix them? Does he have the time to fix them> (Starmer's work on the Labour Party is still ongoing). In addition, the party is stale: it has run out of ideas and is far from fresh.
Doesn't sound too green to me.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/election2001/images/0,9350,449562,00.html
@MikeSmithson is reluctant to accept that Labour will win an outright victory next time because he is pinned to the precedent of swing. But these are unprecedented times. We have been through experiences last felt during the second world war and the economic situation is dire.
But if you really want to fixate on the swing precedent then you should take as your pendulum starting point 2017 NOT 2019. The last General Election was an anomaly, focused on Brexit and against an unelectable Labour leader.
My thesis is that we begin the next General Election from the 2017 hung parliament. The swing to Labour required to secure them an overall majority is small.
The polls are not lying.They will win it resoundingly.
had a more plausible leader in Blair then Major lost heavily in 1997.
Starmer does not attract the sane negativity amongst swing voters Kinnock did and certainly much less than Corbyn did
I wonder what would have happened if the ref (Brazilian) refused to book players for wearing the armband?
Wales 6.25
Draw 4.1
England 1.63
Can anyone point me to a good detailed analysis of the budget documents? As ever, that is where the devil is.
Housing Market Support: I see that Mortgage Support has been changed - the 9 months required on certain benefits before people can request to turn their mortgage interest / capital repayments into a secured loan on part of the property is being reduced to 3 months from Apr 2023. Looks designed to prevent people who start to need benefits this winter being made homeless next year.
I also see that various things are being frozen in cash terms (ie cut by 10% in real terms). Child TAx Credit being one example.
Cheers
Did it close in?
Contrast with the virtue-signalling of the past couple of years, where everyone that mattered was cheering them on.
I do however have some sympathy for Fifa on the particular issue of armbands. If my position is to keep politics out, I don't change my position just because I happen to agree with the issuein question (i.e. not persecuting gay people). And that position isn't dependent on Harry Kane wearing an armband or not.
I did it last World Cup, but that was while in was in Northern Ireland. Not *quite* the same.
So it's a case of needs must on exporting coal-fired electricity to France at the moment. It's a shame the government haven't pulled out all the stops on alternatives.
Have Labour said anything interesting on energy policy?
Edit: Interestingly gridwatch has France producing more wind energy than Britain at the moment, which seems unusual. They must have installed quite a lot of capacity fairly recently.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chancellor-rishi-sunaks-mais-lecture-2022
(I actually am not that critical of the players themselves, major sporting events are restrictive on messaging even ones we like, but it does somewhat show that you shouldn't try to promote things if you are going to be able to be brought in line so easily).
World sporting events drive standards up, yes slowly and over time, but they significantly influence the young globally even in oppressed countries.
I think the footballers have got it about right, wanting to talk about it and push it as far as they can without sporting sanction.
The best option would have been not to go.
I'd say it will be about moving towards more practical measures and booking which benefits can be booked, and leaving a few bombs on the next Govt's lap eg taxation of electric cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1992_United_Kingdom_general_election#1992
Time for y'all to pay attention to the polls. There is NO comeback from here for the tories. Forget it. Reset your minds.
The REAL question is just how much of a shellacking they are going to get. Just how big a majority will Labour get? That's the only remaining question at the next election.
But I think the overwhelmingly likelihood is that Labour will be, with a small but credible chance of an outright majority worth having.
They should consider how a coalition might work, though, and what they'd be willing to negotiate with the Lib Dems.
Is there an opportunity to do this in the 3rd group game, for example, if (praise be) England are already through?
Saudi Arabia has executed 12 people in 10 days for drug offences after a two-year hiatus, according to a human rights organisation.
The spate of executions - most of which are beheadings with a sword - is part of a wider trend that suggests the country is on track for a record year of executions despite Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman previously vowing to reduce the use of such punishments.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/20/saudi-arabia-beheads-people-sword-new-wave-executions/ (£££)
ETA and just where are we buying our non-Russian gas?
Firstly, the economy would have to perform much better than the OBR have forecast. That is certainly possible.
Secondly, SKS would either have to tar his reputation somewhat or go under the proverbial bus. Much less likely.
Thirdly, the government would need to reach better deals with the EU and France in respect of the channel. Possible and very much in hand.
The difference to me seems to come down to SKS being far more electable than Kinnock ever was. Unless that changes the Tories are toast.
If, before entering the field of play at the start of the match, a player or team official commits a sending-off offence, the referee has the authority to prevent the player or team official taking part in the match (see Law 3.6); the referee will report any other misconduct.
https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct
Tough if you need to tie your laces.
I'm of the view that the Tories are well-past the electoral event horizon now, and heading for a crushing defeat, so I'd put the odds of the situation being turned around as very long. 1%, perhaps.
Stop making a false comparison please. It's misleading.
The truth is that this is psepholoically like 1997 but economically FAR WORSE.
Conservatives on here need to prepare for the Dark Night of the Soul.
No Trusster-disaster, but it would have left Sunak the bearer of any fiscal bad news that would have happened anyway, and that fiscal bad news would have been pointed more directly back to his stint as CoTE.
The Tory position may have been better, but not that much better.
NHS Scotland bosses meeting minutes also suggest rift between them and SNP ministers, mentioning a "disconnect from the pressure that [regional NHS] boards are feeling and the message from SG [Scottish Government] that everything is still a priority and to be done within budget"
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1594622093416620033
Ahem.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11451833/Female-TV-reporter-robbed-live-air-Qatar-World-Cup.html
We may all find FIFA self-serving and tasteless (fair enough), but the FIFA boss has a point on the hypocrisy of Western moral posturing, as if the West has always been morally superior. It hasn't.
In Ukraine the moral position the West has taken is good, and on various questions the West is (in our view) genuinely better than eg Arab countries.
On other questions we are perhaps not - eg attitudes to the elderly. And no, I'm not talking about the anti-pensioner prejudice which stalks PB, I'm more talking about what the atomisation of our society has done to the extended family, and what therefore happens to older people.
Listening to the context ignorant self-righteous declarations on Press Reviews yesterday, and from public figures, is embarrassing.
Declarations of the importance of international law, and how other countries must conform to our values, don't really stack up when we have recent history of invading other countries almost on a whim, imperial history, and certain countries failure to sign relevant UN convention to hold themselves to the same standard.
Still in many ways better, but pretending that we are whiter than white and can condemn others quite so sanctimoniously is risible.
IMO.
The new centre-right minority government is struggling, as I predicted. The Liberals and the C&S party the Sweden Democrats are already ripping out each other’s throats. The Liberals in particular are in full panic mode, having fallen below threshold.
Anyhoo, now the polls look worrying for the government. There was zilch honeymoon. Latest numbers (September GE in brackets):
Min centre-right govt coalition: 29% (nc)
Moderates 20% (+1)
Christian Democrats 5% (nc)
Liberals 4% (-1)
Anti-immigration C&S party:
Sweden Democrats 18% (-3)
Centre-left opposition: 52% (+3)
Social Democrats 33% (+3)
Left Party 8% (+1)
Centre Party 6% (-1)
Greens 5% (nc)
The big risk is that the Liberals walk off in a huff. I’d say that is a 50:50 risk within the first 12 months of the new government.
That the Turks are immensely enjoying gaslighting the Swedes and Finns over NATO membership is not helping.
Definitely a groundswell of sorts among Democrats to suggest that Biden think about not running. And ditto his VP.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/joe-biden-age-birthday-wow-hes-old.html
...So what now? You have about a year to just coast—wearing cozy shirts in “candid” nighttime photos, acting as the affectionate grandpa to a party that is enjoying a shocking absence of internal turmoil, making foreign policy decisions of the sort that you can claim unequivocal credit for. But then you need to decide, like Nancy Pelosi just did, whether it is finally time to hand things over to your party’s youth movement, i.e. people who are only in their 50s..
If Biden Runs Again, He Should Pick a New VP
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/kamala-harris-joe-biden-new-vp-2024.html
Can somebody help me to understand the difference between Woke virtue-signalling by spoilt multi-millionaires, and essential gestures that show solidarity with the oppressed?