Just a reminder: The other statewide Republican candidates won by an average of 7 percent. Mitch McConnell must be grinding his teeth in frustration at seeing Trump -- for a second time -- sabotage McConnell's chances of being Senate majority leader.
Not even that close, really. For a race that Republicans have zero excuse for losing, save their own stupidity, cynicism and (lest we forget) self-delusion.
So how many elections is it, that Trump has pissed away for the GOP? And how many more to come?
Just a reminder: The other statewide Republican candidates won by an average of 7 percent. Mitch McConnell must be grinding his teeth in frustration at seeing Trump -- for a second time -- sabotage McConnell's chances of being Senate majority leader.
Apparently in the November general election, Brian Kemp received more votes from African Americans than did Hershel Walker.
Am not surprised by that at all. For one thing, just more evidence for my thesis that, while nominating a well-know, up-to-then highly popular Black person for the Republican nomination was strategically smart, picking Hershel Walker for the part was tactically dumb. That is, monumentally stupid.
Perhaps the saddest, albeit predictable local result for Hershel Walker:
Clarke Co, seat Athens, location of University of Georgia where HW earned statewide fame & popularity on the football field = Warnock 74% versus Walker 26%
i wonder if it was the first abortion or the second abortion or the first secret child or the second secret child or the assault with a deadly weapon or the affair or the other affair or the other affair that finally sealed herschel walker’s fate https://twitter.com/MarisaKabas/status/1600357811761709056
i wonder if it was the first abortion or the second abortion or the first secret child or the second secret child or the assault with a deadly weapon or the affair or the other affair or the other affair that finally sealed herschel walker’s fate https://twitter.com/MarisaKabas/status/1600357811761709056
Walker's inability to communicate much of anything about anything was far more significant factor re: voting decisions, than his lurid back-, front- and sideways-stories.
He's been a local celebrity for decades, with an image, entourage and rap sheet to match. Much less of a shock to the average Georgian than to the average NYT reporter or (even) Fox News talking head.
I’ve finally read - Ok “skimmed with intent” - the 155 page on reform of UK governance.
It is far too long and convoluted, which is never usually a sign of clear thinking. The prose of leaden bureaucratese. I think there are pointers here to what a Labour administration will be like.
And there are really three topics in here, one on devolution, one on standards in public life, and one on the House of Lords. This ought to have been three separate reports.
Nevertheless, overall this is a serious piece of work, that sets the right direction. Some of this stuff is urgent now, and the report spells out how badly the Tories have bankrupted not just the fiscal condition but also the administrative competence of the country.
There are no obviously bonkers proposals, and many very good ones. I see nothing in here to fear, and much to be welcomed.
Fairly typical of Starmer to make it so stodgy and turgid.
Lawyers will lawyer I suppose.
Gordon Brown, surely? Hardly a surprise that anything he's involved with is turgid and dull,
I'm sure there'll be a PowerPoint summary for those who want to chase thrills.
There are quite a few decent PPT style charts in the first 30 or so pages.
What a pathetically absurd chart cherrypicking 2007 as the change of decade instead of 2010.
Gee, I wonder why?
Try redoing that chart sticking to actual decades. 🤦♂️
That would be even more misleading, given the GFC. Which you know, but don’t care about, because misleading is your madness.
At the moment you include the financial services bubble but not the crash in the middle period.
Basically the middle column was shift because the earlier growth was a mirage and the crash was the chickens roosting
And the third column was anemic due to the overleverage as a result
But the comparison is us against other countries over time not us against us over time.
That’s not the purpose. It’s to show we were a top performer and now we are not.
It does this by artificially boosting the middle column and deflating the last column
It’s utterly specious. All political knockabout so that’s fine, but serious people shouldn’t take it seriously
However you cut it, the UK economy did have a purple patch pre GFC, and after that - and especially since Brexit - not.
And the projections are for this underperformance to continue.
And, as a result, living standards in much of the country now lag peer economies by some way.
The good news (which few have noted) is that there is a lot of catch up that could happen, in theory.
I disagree. The 2000-07 numbers were never real. Basically the risk tolerance numbers were dialled up to 11.
That one of the reasons I am so critical of Brown. He baked in government sending based on the assumption that the tax revenues were sustainable when he should have known better
Brown’s errors, such as they were, were rather small within the broad story of British macro performance since the war.
The idea that he was the profligate loon of Tory myth-making doesn’t withstand serious analysis.
PFI. The myth of investment that is still being paid for at new hospitals throughout the land. And the worst thing is, it's rarely brought up.
Without wanting to defend PFI, at least investment happened.
It's easy to achieve "investment" if you postpone the expenditure into the never never.
Just as its easy to achieve "growth" if you look at a bubble and stop the clock before it bursts.
A balanced overview needs both. What's spent, and how it was funded. Both the growth and the crash that accompanies it. To look at one but exclude the other is pure dishonesty.
If it’s so east to achieve growth, pls send your ideas to Rishi.
However you cut the data - the economy has toileted under the Tories, and so has education, health and public service performance.
What have the Conservatives actually achieved in office this time, what are they actually for now?
There’s Nothing. Except achieved Brexit, must defend Brexit.
No growth, no plan for the future, no consistent Conservative position on any policy area, from economy, environment to crime, liberalism to authoritarianism. No story to tell, no record to defend, with their MPs wandering the Lobby wondering what the point is.
There’s a strong argument Brexit and Boris may have killed the Tory’s for good. Not just a temporary switching from the the old brand that served em well for a century - but being party of Brexit and the party of business and growth at same time, is utterly impossible going forward.
Vote Tory because… What have I missed?
The Tories have b*llsed the country further up, shoved it further down the plughole - that's what they've achieved.
What are they actually for now? Obedience, mostly. False hope among the naive. Greed. "F*** you, I'm all right Jack". Caste. The army. The monarchy. A bit of bureaucratic "let's turn things around" hockeysticks bullsh*t chickenfeed for the administrative middle classes. Does it matter? There's not an election on.
What will they be for in the next election? You seem to think they'll fight it mostly on Brexit but they won't. Bre-what? They will strive to continue to be seen as tougher on immigration than Labour and tougher than all the smaller parties that Labour would supposedly imperil the country by possibly entering into a woky, rainbowy, allow-the-foreigners-to-take-over coalition with - that's what they will do.
Facts about immigration or reasonable arguments about what happens when this or that lever is pulled or not pulled are mostly beside the point. An election isn't a debate.
You’re making a bit of a meal of this.
Whatever they might say or even think, the practical reality is that the Tories’ purpose now is to defend the status quo position of middle class pensioners against people of working age, who are increasingly paying for it.
The rest of their coalition - particularly educated people of working age - they have pushed away with their ideological obsessions - and Johnson’s ‘new’ voters were never going to stick around once they realised that the oil they had been sold came from a snake.
That was never going to end well, but it has kept them going for quite a while.
The Palace of Westminster is falling to pieces. Quite literally. Bits of masonry fall off it, hence the nets. It also has 24/7 fire patrols and some of the wiring is so dodgy that electrical fires - that are missed - is a very strong possibility. The House of Commons has also had a major water leak. The estate is a terrible state and wouldn't even get close to passing modern building standards.
Now, what happens if there is a Notre Dame style conflagration, with fatalities, or someone is killed by falling masonry?
There will be an outcry. And an investigation will be launched with the proclamation that "lessons will be learned".
The lessons are right in front of you, plain as the nose on your face, as you are reading this- right now. This second.
Why isn't the government doing anything about it?
Because, like every government, it follows the path of least resistance rather than doing the right thing. To fix this, right now, would require spending a lot of public money and making a difficult political argument, for very little reward.
It is far easier to just chance it, duck the big decision, and then if a calamity happens blame someone else and then grab the mandate to fix it. Even if people tragically die in the process, possibly lots of people with irreparable damage to a national heritage site, that is what is far easier to do. So that is what will be done.
That is why lessons are never learned; it would require people with the courage to apply them.
But why? Why does Britain keep taking rubbish short-term decisions?
Some of it is fallen human nature, but there's also something that seems distinctive about Britain in my lifetime. It's not just political (see the soon to be ex-department store), but there seems to be a political-cultural aspect.
So in the Palace of Westminster case, anyone who proposes spending money to fix the problems will be howled down by "let's spend it on our NHS instead".
I don't know if the Brown report will help, but something's not working right now.
Yes. Much as I don't want to blame ourselves, the public, since our political leaders do have to bear some responsibility, the problems seem so ingrained I fear we cannot put all the blame on them. Something about our current approach to big decisions is messed up, we seen unable to look more than 5 minutes ahead on anything.
The Palace of Westminster stuff just pisses me off royally, since as its so obvious that no matter what you were to use it for the place needs fixing up, and it will never be popular to spend money on it, so there was never any point to delay, yet supposedly intelligent MPs and Lords seem not to care.
The classic, involving nationalised industry, was steel mill. It was out of date and in the wrong place - needed a bigger port.
So the politicians went -
- You want to close a steel mill in a government constituency? - Open the new one in an opposition constituency? After the next election? - Employee less people?
Strangely, they opted for a subsidy to get them to the next election.
Someone by the name of Rod Crosby was banned permanently a few years back. He'd actually produced a lot of interesting threads on voting systems for the site before that.
Worth adding that he was banned for sustained and continuing Holocaust denial. Not as unfunny joke, either. Quite seriously.
Comments
DeKalb still only 74% counted with Warnock getting 91%. DeKalb should give Warnock another net 30k ish.
Plus likely a few other bits and pieces so looks like Warnock will win by between 80k and 100k.
In contrast Warnock won the 1st round in November by 38k.
So how many elections is it, that Trump has pissed away for the GOP? And how many more to come?
Am not surprised by that at all. For one thing, just more evidence for my thesis that, while nominating a well-know, up-to-then highly popular Black person for the Republican nomination was strategically smart, picking Hershel Walker for the part was tactically dumb. That is, monumentally stupid.
51.2-48.8.
Clarke Co, seat Athens, location of University of Georgia where HW earned statewide fame & popularity on the football field = Warnock 74% versus Walker 26%
https://twitter.com/MarisaKabas/status/1600357811761709056
He's been a local celebrity for decades, with an image, entourage and rap sheet to match. Much less of a shock to the average Georgian than to the average NYT reporter or (even) Fox News talking head.
Whatever they might say or even think, the practical reality is that the Tories’ purpose now is to defend the status quo position of middle class pensioners against people of working age, who are increasingly paying for it.
The rest of their coalition - particularly educated people of working age - they have pushed away with their ideological obsessions - and Johnson’s ‘new’ voters were never going to stick around once they realised that the oil they had been sold came from a snake.
That was never going to end well, but it has kept them going for quite a while.
So the politicians went -
- You want to close a steel mill in a government constituency?
- Open the new one in an opposition constituency? After the next election?
- Employee less people?
Strangely, they opted for a subsidy to get them to the next election.