Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
No, you're wrong. On my last trip to the States I heard this several times. "Oh, I'm travelling to the EU next summer" "Yes she's off to the EU, Slovenia I think" etc etc
Yes it is a bureaucratic shorthand but it is also becoming a THING. The EU is now an entity in people's minds. Closer to a country than not
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
Just been doing that very thing - trying to get books sent by the publisher to a colleague without them getting snarled up in the paperwork (the returns rate is phenomenal even when the customs bumf is filled in). But very much in the sense of your point 1.
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
In which case, it should have been really easy to defeat.
Or just perhaps, there's a lot more behind Brexit than Remainer simpletons ever understood?
There's lots of thick people sadly. Add in the xenophobes, fantasists, shallows and nostalgics, and even eliminating the substantial venn overlap of those you get a winning coalition.
And it wasn't really close. The 52/48 is misleading because the passion was on the Leave side, most of those on the fence or not fussed would have gone with Remain, plus the 48 were highly concentrated in London, the big cities and Scotland.
In FPTP constituency terms - for England - it was a Leave landslide. Maybe there's some rethink going on now but as of the Vote the spirit of England was overwhelmingly Leave.
I'm cool with it now. Just so long as Tory rule ends at the next GE.
I would suggest that far, far more Brexiteers agonised about their vote an were in the somewhat surprised they voted out.
There are few Remainers who were torn over their decision. A group more certain of their position will not be found this side of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Nor their intention to let you know it.
That's because Remain was the status quo and a known quantity. Whereas Leave was a leap in the dark. If I had been minded to vote Leave I would certainly have found it a more anxious decision. We all know that Leave was a more successful campaign because they won, despite having to sell a leap in the dark which on most objective criteria for most people was going to leave them worse off. The Remain campaign was awful. Anyway, well done Leave. We're fucked and your project has run into the sand, but you really own the Remoaners, which seems to be important to you.
Except - Remain wasn't really the status quo. Remain was a continuation of a sneaky acceptance of ever closer union within a federal body that had (has) aspirations to be a European rival to the USA.
For forty years, the Europhile elite had made every effort to portray the biggest change in our status for centuries as the status quo. It was that illusion that came so spectacularly unstuck in 2016 when the voters decided "no further".
Not really, we had an opt out of the Euro and Schengen and ever closer Union. If the EU was heading towards some kind of confederate state (which is possible but unlikely in my lifetime at least) we were clearly never going to be part of it. Instead of that comfortable semi detached berth we have our current isolation and economic self-harm. Well done Brexiteers, how clever.
I don't think I agree with any of the Rentoul predictions apart from independence parties to get less than 50%.
I don't even think DeSantis will be GOP nominee or Badenoch or Rayner next Tory and Labour leaders. Trump again or Pence more likely in my view for the former and Steve Barclay or Wes Street in more likely for the latter
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
No, you're wrong. On my last trip to the States I heard this several times. "Oh, I'm travelling to the EU next summer" "Yes she's off to the EU, Slovenia I think" etc etc
Yes it is a bureaucratic shorthand but it is also becoming a THING. The EU is now an entity in people's minds. Closer to a country than not
Americans have always referred to Yurp as if it's a single country. It's like how people here refer to Africa.
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
No, you're wrong. On my last trip to the States I heard this several times. "Oh, I'm travelling to the EU next summer" "Yes she's off to the EU, Slovenia I think" etc etc
Yes it is a bureaucratic shorthand but it is also becoming a THING. The EU is now an entity in people's minds. Closer to a country than not
Americans have always referred to Yurp as if it's a single country. It's like how people here refer to Africa.
But now they are saying "the EU". Not "Europe"
It's a small but distinct change, and it means something
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
Just been doing that very thing - trying to get books sent by the publisher to a colleague without them getting snarled up in the paperwork (the returns rate is phenomenal even when the customs bumf is filled in). But very much in the sense of your point 1.
A German friend of mine keeps having British bike parts delivered to my house since they can't export to the EU anymore. Let's hope I go to Frankfurt as planned in the spring to drop them with him. If it takes much longer I might have an entire bike to take over.
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
No, you're wrong. On my last trip to the States I heard this several times. "Oh, I'm travelling to the EU next summer" "Yes she's off to the EU, Slovenia I think" etc etc
Yes it is a bureaucratic shorthand but it is also becoming a THING. The EU is now an entity in people's minds. Closer to a country than not
Americans have always referred to Yurp as if it's a single country. It's like how people here refer to Africa.
But now they are saying "the EU". Not "Europe"
It's a small but distinct change, and it means something
It means that they associate Europe with a political organisation that we're not part of anymore. I'm not sure that's a great thing for us.
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
I can imagine people saying it in the sense of "travelling to/selling things to the EU is an utter ballsache since Brexit" as a talking point, but not as a place. Sort of a bureaucratic shorthand.
But there's a gap between that and a Place Called The EU, unless you have a small brain or a smaller degree of honesty.
No, you're wrong. On my last trip to the States I heard this several times. "Oh, I'm travelling to the EU next summer" "Yes she's off to the EU, Slovenia I think" etc etc
Yes it is a bureaucratic shorthand but it is also becoming a THING. The EU is now an entity in people's minds. Closer to a country than not
Americans have always referred to Yurp as if it's a single country. It's like how people here refer to Africa.
But now they are saying "the EU". Not "Europe"
It's a small but distinct change, and it means something
To the traveller a country means no borders, and the currency and language don't change. If it's all euros and de facto English it's one country.
Complete rubbish, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells and the idea I would have been happier growing up in Slough or or Rotherham is ludicrous.
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
Friend of mine used to live there, and was not impressed by it. Far too Hyacinth Bouquet for his taste, apparently. I take Which and I was surprised by your statement, as it would have triggered a double take at the time. I looked it up. It's a few places from the bottom of the Which Magazine, best town in the UK survey 2021 (= your "last year"): below Fort William, even.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
Complete rubbish, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells and the idea I would have been happier growing up in Slough or or Rotherham is ludicrous.
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
Friend of mine used to live there, and was not impressed by it. Far too Hyacinth Bouquet for his taste, apparently. I take Which and I was surprised by your statement, as it would have triggered a double take at the time. I looked it up. It's a few places from the bottom of the Which Magazine, best town in the UK survey 2021 (= your "last year"): below Fort William, even.
Edit: you forgot the "Royal" bit in front of "Tunbridge Wells". My friend's mum was very insistent on that.
It used to be Hyacinth Bouquet and full of retired colonels (see the end of Lawrence of Arabia). Now apart from the rural bits it is mainly full of ex London yuppies, voted Remain and has a LD led Council. Though perhaps that also explains its decline.
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
Your argument that "France would never allow it" merely proves the leavers point.
Really? Which point precisely? If we had still been part of it, we wouldn't have allowed it either, nor the Netherlands, nor Greece, nor Poland, nor probably any of the sovereign nations that make up the 27.
Have you written to Santa this year? By the way, if you have the cash, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is only true if you define the "it" that won't be allowed in a very specific way. There might not be a prospect of a unitary state called Europe, but what's emerging is a state-like confederation.
There's already a linguistic shift where people talk about it the way they would about a state, for example "travelling to the EU". This distinguishes it from the kind of vanilla multilateral organisation that you pretend it is.
I can honestly say I have never heard anyone saying they are "travelling to the EU". I probably never will. The dreams you have been having on that road to Damascus are really quite something.
Are you a UK citizen travelling to the EU? 🇬🇧✈️🇪🇺 👉Check if your passport is valid for the dates you’re travelling! There are two conditions for holders of non-EU passports to enter the EU: 👇
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
That's an awful lot of words to say "come on you Tories - you can do it!".
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
Complete rubbish, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells and the idea I would have been happier growing up in Slough or or Rotherham is ludicrous.
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
Friend of mine used to live there, and was not impressed by it. Far too Hyacinth Bouquet for his taste, apparently. I take Which and I was surprised by your statement, as it would have triggered a double take at the time. I looked it up. It's a few places from the bottom of the Which Magazine, best town in the UK survey 2021 (= your "last year"): below Fort William, even.
Edit: you forgot the "Royal" bit in front of "Tunbridge Wells". My friend's mum was very insistent on that.
It used to be Hyacinth Bouquet and full of retired colonels (see the end of Lawrence of Arabia). Now apart from the rural bits it is mainly full of ex London yuppies, voted Remain and has a LD led Council. Though perhaps that also explains its decline.
Honestly @WillG and @Driver trying to defend the amount on the side of the bus is pathetic. Look you won. The side of the bus was an excellent bit of campaigning. It got Remain up in arms on the amount being inaccurate and hence just highlighted it a bit more. So job done. It's in the past. You don't need to defend it. It was a lie, just like all politicians tell and it worked. Let it go.
The problem is that most opponents of Brexit don't treat it as just a normal piece of political campaigning but as a Goebbelsesque Big Lie that is responsible for opening the gates of hell. It's an example of them trying to delegitimise the outcome of the original referendum rather than accepting it and moving on.
No, it's the banal bovine stupidity of it that rankles.
If it was that banal and stupid, surely the Remain campaign should have been able to counter it effectively?
More people than you think fall for 419 Fraud. And other fraud for that matter. Lies work because they prey on people's insecurity, fear and desire.
Which of the three was responsible for your vote?
Knowledge.
OK I should have added GSOH.
It is one of the three - for you I'm guessing (apropos of nothing in particular) insecurity. You aren't secure enough in your own opinions or your place in the world so you needed to hitch your trailer to other people's cartoon view of what that was to confirm it to you.
amiright?
Very wrong.
What eventually swung it for me is the knowledge that Ever Closer Union is baked into the EU's treaties - therefore a federal United States of Europe is the aim whether we like it or not.
I could have been persuaded that this would be a good thing, but the Remain campaign didn't even try. So I had to believe that they didn't believe it, and if they didn't then I couldn't vote Remain because this was likely to be our only chance.
The sad thing is that most Europhobes dont even understand what "Ever Closer Union" was designed to achieve because they want to see the furriners as those dastardly men who wish to take away our FREEDOMMM.
It is about as fictitious as Mel Gibson's William Wallace. The phrase was designed to be a fudge. Sure there are a few fanatics that would like a genuine United States of Europe, even today, but France will never allow it. It is a bogeyman that is used by crypto-fascists like Farage to scare the swivel-eyed europhobe children. You keep believing in it though if it makes you feel better about voting for self harm lol.
By the way, Father Christmas is fighting to prevent ever closer union with the kingdom of the fairies.
No. Once a common currency is in place the rest follows.
Secondly, the USA shows that a single nation state can embrace real diversity. NY is not Alabama. New Jersey is not Wyoming. The EU can, and I think will, do the same over several decades.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
That's an awful lot of words to say "come on you Tories - you can do it!".
Thank you for supplying exhibit a to prove my argument you are not facing up to the facts here, playing the girl not the football as usual in this discussion.
A couple of wintry observations from downtown East London where we had our first decent snowfall since the last one.
First, and make of this what you will, strange to see young and old alike out staring in wonder at the snow and the snow-covered landscape last evening. Many in my part of London originate from the Indian Sub-Continent and especially from south India and Sri Lanka where snow is unknown. The picture-taking, the sheer incredulity perhaps from those who have settled here since the last big snowfall, was a sight to behold.
Second, the last time I looked, France was similar in population size yet its current electricity demand is nearly 82GW while the UK is at 45GW. Is there any rational explanation for this diversity in electricity demand?
Brexit is widely acknowledged as a fucking disaster, and the next step is simply to clean up the mess, one way or another.
Labour’s inevitable victory at the next election will provide the psychological permission for the country at large to have that next conversation.
This is as good as it gets for Remainers. Right now we are at the tail end of a party that has been in power for a decade, meaning they are unpopular and thus things associated with them are unpopular. With a remainy Labour government the opposite effect will occur. Meanwhile automation and AI will continue to challenge the bottom half of the income distribution and the immigration debate will come back heavily.
Also, the "widely acknowledged" only applies to establishment and Twitterati types. Among the broader public, Brexit is seen as a mild mistake.
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
Complete rubbish, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells and the idea I would have been happier growing up in Slough or or Rotherham is ludicrous.
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
Friend of mine used to live there, and was not impressed by it. Far too Hyacinth Bouquet for his taste, apparently. I take Which and I was surprised by your statement, as it would have triggered a double take at the time. I looked it up. It's a few places from the bottom of the Which Magazine, best town in the UK survey 2021 (= your "last year"): below Fort William, even.
Edit: you forgot the "Royal" bit in front of "Tunbridge Wells". My friend's mum was very insistent on that.
It used to be Hyacinth Bouquet and full of retired colonels (see the end of Lawrence of Arabia). Now apart from the rural bits it is mainly full of ex London yuppies, voted Remain and has a LD led Council. Though perhaps that also explains its decline.
My parents still live there
Does that mean they vote LD?
Tunbridge Wells now has 16 LD councillors and just 13 Tory councillors and the vast majority of the latter are from rural wards, the town itself is almost a Tory free zone now
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
I would not get out of my chair to save 100 watts
Out of interest, how did you manage to measure the energy you're saving by not getting out of your chair?
On topic (if that's OK with you all): As of now, I think the odds are against DeSantis being the Republican nominee. I would agree that he is the current favorite, but see him as having much less than a 51 percent chance of winning the nomination.
Biden? At least a a 95 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination.
(Full disclosure: DeSantis would not be my choice, anyway, for a number of reasons, among them his mishandling of Florida's reponse to COVID.)
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
That's an awful lot of words to say "come on you Tories - you can do it!".
Lot of words for a lot of reasoning. Ok I’ll bullet point it
1. Polls definitely on the move, IF the trend continues at this rate Millbands losing position of just 10% lead will be here very soon now.
2. Government and PM popularity strong and rising during economic and cost of living crisis, that was supposed to have sunk them.
3. In hindsight Tories ruthless and remarkably effective in removing a leader after a month and dismantling everything her government proposed.
4. Polls suggested one thing, but focus groups have consistently stayed with Tories.
5. And, undeniably, as Mike persistently and politely explains, the very simple electoral facts. 125 wins away from a majority of not much. And where does a working majority come from with zero seats from Scotland?
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
We are told once again we have a young side, full of potential, which can only progress. Strange, we were told that after the 2018 Semi-Final loss to Croatia and the Euro 2021 defeat to Italy. We are told we have progressed yet on most measures, we haven't.
How has the team changed since that warm summer night at the Luzhniki Stadium in July 2018?
Back then, the team was Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire across the back. Midfield of Lingard, Henderson, Trippier, Young and Alli and up front Kane and Sterling.
So we played 3-5-2 that night.
On Saturday, it was Pickford with Walker, Shaw, Stones and Maguire as the back four, Rice, Henderson and Bellingham across the middle and Kane, Foden and Saka up front in the classic 4-3-3.
Six of the Eleven who started the 2018 Semi were in the starting line up on Saturday, four and a bit years later. In essence, the core of that team, which got so close in Russia, was in Qatar and yet we went out a round earlier.
Yes, we went out to France and I suppose the argument will be their 2018 winning squad is broadly the core of their team but if we had potential then, why, four years later, are we still talking about potential? We had a team good enough to reach a Euro final and yet we still only have "potential".
Perhaps the wins over Senegal and Iran (for all they are highly ranked) were illusory.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
Could the current team have beaten Portugal, Holland, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina? We can speculate but we're short on hard evidence and our next real chance to play a Latin American country will be in 2026. Sure, we can have all the Friendlies we want but they mean nothing. Qualifying in five team groups where three of the five are cannon fodder means nothing.
Southgate has, in my view, advanced us not a step since 2018 but I don't think he's the problem.
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
In its-pre Budget report, the University of Strathclyde-based Institute says that in the face of high inflation, the UK Government’s Autumn Statement provided some comfort with additional transfers that will more or less offset the impacts of inflation over the next two years.
The Scottish Government now needs to set out how it will use its significant devolved tax powers and whether to use them to generate more revenue for public services, including public sector workers.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
That's an awful lot of words to say "come on you Tories - you can do it!".
Sunak has basically got core Tory voters back on board, but there's a huge difference between that and winning back swing voters. The Chester by-election very much indicates the polls are are right (particularly when you consider there was a below average Lab to Con swing there in 2019).
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
I would not get out of my chair to save 100 watts
Out of interest, how did you manage to measure the energy you're saving by not getting out of your chair?
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
Have to say the SNP are now worse at managing the finances than the Tories, money for anything but what is really needed. The ministers are so thick they just wreck everything they touch, it is a shocking state we are in caught between two lots of no users hosing money down the drains.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
This idea that "the trend" can be projected forward is one of the strangest in political analysis.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I’ve just made this for you. Sept 21 up to today. Clear and relentless Trussterfuck unwind.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I’ve just made this for you. Sept 21 up to today. Clear and relentless Trussterfuck unwind.
But that's what I said. Trussterfuck unwind, mega downtrend resumes.
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
I would not get out of my chair to save 100 watts
Out of interest, how did you manage to measure the energy you're saving by not getting out of your chair?
I care not a jot for measuring it , I just use it
Well, you should care, because we all know energy is currently a joule beyond price.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I’ve just made this for you. Sept 21 up to today. Clear and relentless Trussterfuck unwind.
But that's what I said. Trussterfuck unwind, mega downtrend resumes.
It is also arguable that you are both wrong, and the polls have stabilised around a new normal: a hefty Labour lead - but not as big as it was Peak Trussterfeck
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
Have to say the SNP are now worse at managing the finances than the Tories, money for anything but what is really needed. The ministers are so thick they just wreck everything they touch, it is a shocking state we are in caught between two lots of no users hosing money down the drains.
Malc, you know my opinion of the SNP and the Tories.
But if you want really thick ministers, check out Wales.
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
I would not get out of my chair to save 100 watts
Out of interest, how did you manage to measure the energy you're saving by not getting out of your chair?
I care not a jot for measuring it , I just use it
Well, you should care, because we all know energy is currently a joule beyond price.
To be fair to Malky, as old James Prescot knew very well, the energy spent pumping the water (and light bulbs and so on on the thingy controller) would end up as heat anyway.
What I'm not clear about is when the c/h is actually not running - no pump, no energy consumption surely, except perhaps a little standby on the controller.
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
We are told once again we have a young side, full of potential, which can only progress. Strange, we were told that after the 2018 Semi-Final loss to Croatia and the Euro 2021 defeat to Italy. We are told we have progressed yet on most measures, we haven't.
How has the team changed since that warm summer night at the Luzhniki Stadium in July 2018?
Back then, the team was Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire across the back. Midfield of Lingard, Henderson, Trippier, Young and Alli and up front Kane and Sterling.
So we played 3-5-2 that night.
On Saturday, it was Pickford with Walker, Shaw, Stones and Maguire as the back four, Rice, Henderson and Bellingham across the middle and Kane, Foden and Saka up front in the classic 4-3-3.
Six of the Eleven who started the 2018 Semi were in the starting line up on Saturday, four and a bit years later. In essence, the core of that team, which got so close in Russia, was in Qatar and yet we went out a round earlier.
Yes, we went out to France and I suppose the argument will be their 2018 winning squad is broadly the core of their team but if we had potential then, why, four years later, are we still talking about potential? We had a team good enough to reach a Euro final and yet we still only have "potential".
Perhaps the wins over Senegal and Iran (for all they are highly ranked) were illusory.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
Could the current team have beaten Portugal, Holland, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina? We can speculate but we're short on hard evidence and our next real chance to play a Latin American country will be in 2026. Sure, we can have all the Friendlies we want but they mean nothing. Qualifying in five team groups where three of the five are cannon fodder means nothing.
Southgate has, in my view, advanced us not a step since 2018 but I don't think he's the problem.
That’s utter rubbish, I’m afraid. I like to think I know a bit about football and I don’t care all that much about England losing, so I think I’m fairly impartial.
In my opinion, England were very lucky with the draw in 2018. They struggled to beat Tunisia, scraped through on penalties against Columbia and lost three times.
This time, they had the best record in the group stages and were unlucky with refereeing decisions in the quarter final against a very good France team.
You accurately describe the problem of assessing international football. But it isn’t going to change. In fact, it’s likely to get worse with it being knockout from round of 32 next time.
Saka, Foden and Bellingham are on another level to Lingard and Alli. England have a bright future, though Kane will be pushing 33 in 2026. My one downer is that this may have been their big chance. The conditions were ideal (warm, but not outrageously hot). The 2026 tournament could be awful, especially if they are playing in the middle of the day for European TV. But Euro 24 in Germany before then, so that’s probably a better chance.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I’ve just made this for you. Sept 21 up to today. Clear and relentless Trussterfuck unwind.
But that's what I said. Trussterfuck unwind, mega downtrend resumes.
It is also arguable that you are both wrong, and the polls have stabilised around a new normal: a hefty Labour lead - but not as big as it was Peak Trussterfeck
But that's what I said. Most recent poll Baxters to a landslide, and the truss rebound is over.
Was -10 here this morning. Not at 3am, when we were getting the kids off to school. Forecast for tonight is even colder. We've had very little snow, but the cold is brutal. Most of the day the thermostat is turned down, and the heating comes on anyway because its that sodding cold. last tank of oil was £1,400...
Lot of words for a lot of reasoning. Ok I’ll bullet point it
1. Polls definitely on the move, IF the trend continues at this rate Millbands losing position of just 10% lead will be here very soon now.
2. Government and PM popularity strong and rising during economic and cost of living crisis, that was supposed to have sunk them.
3. In hindsight Tories ruthless and remarkably effective in removing a leader after a month and dismantling everything her government proposed.
4. Polls suggested one thing, but focus groups have consistently stayed with Tories.
5. And, undeniably, as Mike persistently and politely explains, the very simple electoral facts. 125 wins away from a majority of not much. And where does a working majority come from with zero seats from Scotland?
I suspected the Redfield & Wilton poll might have encouraged some of the more pro-Conservative posters.
To pick up the bullet points:
1. To an extent. There's some herding going on and a consolidation around a 15-point Labour lead. We'll see if this continues. Sunak's low profile is probably a wise move but that can't be sustained.
2. "Strong" is overstating it a bit. Sunak's figures are okay but the Government itself remains deeply unpopular. Last figures I saw had the Conservatives ahead on Ukraine but well behind on everything else.
3. "Ruthless and remarkably effective" translates as panic. Everyone could see where a Truss/Kwarteng Government was going - to be fair, the Conservatives removed the equally inept IDS in 2003. The Party has a first class degree in self preservation.
4. I'd like to see some evidence of this. I do accept a lot of 2019 Conservative voters went or have gone into the "Don't Know" column but at least 20% have gone straight to Labour. I presume the theory is every Reform supporter will run back to the Conservatives as soon as an election is called.
5. That's the hardest hurdle for Labour to overcome but the evidence is a significant proportion of Labour and LD voters will vote tactically to defeat an incumbent Conservative. Between that, a drift to Reform and abstention, I think 100 or more losses in England is quite possible and that would be enough.
Was -10 here this morning. Not at 3am, when we were getting the kids off to school. Forecast for tonight is even colder. We've had very little snow, but the cold is brutal. Most of the day the thermostat is turned down, and the heating comes on anyway because its that sodding cold. last tank of oil was £1,400...
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
I would not get out of my chair to save 100 watts
Out of interest, how did you manage to measure the energy you're saving by not getting out of your chair?
I care not a jot for measuring it , I just use it
Well, you should care, because we all know energy is currently a joule beyond price.
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
To be fair, if you haven't been watching it then it's unsurprising you don't understand it!
To be equally fair, I've not watched an England game live. It's a little tradition I have based on England winning when I don't watch. I've watched many of the other matches live.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I’ve just made this for you. Sept 21 up to today. Clear and relentless Trussterfuck unwind.
But that's what I said. Trussterfuck unwind, mega downtrend resumes.
It is also arguable that you are both wrong, and the polls have stabilised around a new normal: a hefty Labour lead - but not as big as it was Peak Trussterfeck
Pretty much my take on the graph. The interesting thing is what happens next. Something to further improve the Conservative standing? (If so, what?) Or the ongoing slow shedding of support that doesn't show up well in weekly polls but is the almost inevitable lot of a newish PM?
Don't make me get out that graph of how PM favourability falls over time, it's too depressing.
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
Have to say the SNP are now worse at managing the finances than the Tories, money for anything but what is really needed. The ministers are so thick they just wreck everything they touch, it is a shocking state we are in caught between two lots of no users hosing money down the drains.
Malc, you know my opinion of the SNP and the Tories.
But if you want really thick ministers, check out Wales.
Must be only place in the world where it is a competition to see who can get the dumbest clucks running the country
Was -10 here this morning. Not at 3am, when we were getting the kids off to school. Forecast for tonight is even colder. We've had very little snow, but the cold is brutal. Most of the day the thermostat is turned down, and the heating comes on anyway because its that sodding cold. last tank of oil was £1,400...
Utterly perishing in London
Geordies thinking about wearing long sleeve shirts.
Complete rubbish, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells and the idea I would have been happier growing up in Slough or or Rotherham is ludicrous.
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
Friend of mine used to live there, and was not impressed by it. Far too Hyacinth Bouquet for his taste, apparently. I take Which and I was surprised by your statement, as it would have triggered a double take at the time. I looked it up. It's a few places from the bottom of the Which Magazine, best town in the UK survey 2021 (= your "last year"): below Fort William, even.
Edit: you forgot the "Royal" bit in front of "Tunbridge Wells". My friend's mum was very insistent on that.
It used to be Hyacinth Bouquet and full of retired colonels (see the end of Lawrence of Arabia). Now apart from the rural bits it is mainly full of ex London yuppies, voted Remain and has a LD led Council. Though perhaps that also explains its decline.
My parents still live there
Does that mean they vote LD?
Tunbridge Wells now has 16 LD councillors and just 13 Tory councillors and the vast majority of the latter are from rural wards, the town itself is almost a Tory free zone now
Was -10 here this morning. Not at 3am, when we were getting the kids off to school. Forecast for tonight is even colder. We've had very little snow, but the cold is brutal. Most of the day the thermostat is turned down, and the heating comes on anyway because its that sodding cold. last tank of oil was £1,400...
Utterly perishing in London
Geordies thinking about wearing long sleeve shirts.
I saw some chat on the previous thread about the energy saving slots. Just wanted to point out that turning your gas heating off doesn't really help as they're only measuring the leccy usage.
Gas central heating requires electricity to power the pump among other things. Switching the gas heating off seems to reduce our total electricity consumption by around 100W.
I would not get out of my chair to save 100 watts
Out of interest, how did you manage to measure the energy you're saving by not getting out of your chair?
I care not a jot for measuring it , I just use it
Well, you should care, because we all know energy is currently a joule beyond price.
To be fair to Malky, as old James Prescot knew very well, the energy spent pumping the water (and light bulbs and so on on the thingy controller) would end up as heat anyway.
What I'm not clear about is when the c/h is actually not running - no pump, no energy consumption surely, except perhaps a little standby on the controller.
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
Have to say the SNP are now worse at managing the finances than the Tories, money for anything but what is really needed. The ministers are so thick they just wreck everything they touch, it is a shocking state we are in caught between two lots of no users hosing money down the drains.
Malc, you know my opinion of the SNP and the Tories.
But if you want really thick ministers, check out Wales.
Must be only place in the world where it is a competition to see who can get the dumbest clucks running the country
This cold snap is going to brutalise people's finances. Not good for Tory prospects.
Interesting (to me at least) observation. I was out charity collecting last night. It definitely seems more house we’re colder than in previous years. Not unseated, but not running at 25 deg C, which is often something we encounter. Lots of families in a lot of clothing too. But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
We are told once again we have a young side, full of potential, which can only progress. Strange, we were told that after the 2018 Semi-Final loss to Croatia and the Euro 2021 defeat to Italy. We are told we have progressed yet on most measures, we haven't.
How has the team changed since that warm summer night at the Luzhniki Stadium in July 2018?
Back then, the team was Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire across the back. Midfield of Lingard, Henderson, Trippier, Young and Alli and up front Kane and Sterling.
So we played 3-5-2 that night.
On Saturday, it was Pickford with Walker, Shaw, Stones and Maguire as the back four, Rice, Henderson and Bellingham across the middle and Kane, Foden and Saka up front in the classic 4-3-3.
Six of the Eleven who started the 2018 Semi were in the starting line up on Saturday, four and a bit years later. In essence, the core of that team, which got so close in Russia, was in Qatar and yet we went out a round earlier.
Yes, we went out to France and I suppose the argument will be their 2018 winning squad is broadly the core of their team but if we had potential then, why, four years later, are we still talking about potential? We had a team good enough to reach a Euro final and yet we still only have "potential".
Perhaps the wins over Senegal and Iran (for all they are highly ranked) were illusory.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
Could the current team have beaten Portugal, Holland, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina? We can speculate but we're short on hard evidence and our next real chance to play a Latin American country will be in 2026. Sure, we can have all the Friendlies we want but they mean nothing. Qualifying in five team groups where three of the five are cannon fodder means nothing.
Southgate has, in my view, advanced us not a step since 2018 but I don't think he's the problem.
That’s utter rubbish, I’m afraid. I like to think I know a bit about football and I don’t care all that much about England losing, so I think I’m fairly impartial.
In my opinion, England were very lucky with the draw in 2018. They struggled to beat Tunisia, scraped through on penalties against Columbia and lost three times.
This time, they had the best record in the group stages and were unlucky with refereeing decisions in the quarter final against a very good France team.
You accurately describe the problem of assessing international football. But it isn’t going to change. In fact, it’s likely to get worse with it being knockout from round of 32 next time.
Saka, Foden and Bellingham are on another level to Lingard and Alli. England have a bright future, though Kane will be pushing 33 in 2026. My one downer is that this may have been their big chance. The conditions were ideal (warm, but not outrageously hot). The 2026 tournament could be awful, especially if they are playing in the middle of the day for European TV. But Euro 24 in Germany before then, so that’s probably a better chance.
Agree with all of this except the "lost three times" thing for 2018. You can't count the glorified friendly the losing semi finalists have to play.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
I’ve just made this for you. Sept 21 up to today. Clear and relentless Trussterfuck unwind.
I really don't understand what you're getting at. Absolutely everybody thought the Trussterfuck would unwind. Absolutely nobody thought that 30 point Labour leads were sustainable. Absolutely everybody thought that Sunak would provide enough stability to win some Tories back. But the Labour lead remains high.
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
We are told once again we have a young side, full of potential, which can only progress. Strange, we were told that after the 2018 Semi-Final loss to Croatia and the Euro 2021 defeat to Italy. We are told we have progressed yet on most measures, we haven't.
How has the team changed since that warm summer night at the Luzhniki Stadium in July 2018?
Back then, the team was Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire across the back. Midfield of Lingard, Henderson, Trippier, Young and Alli and up front Kane and Sterling.
So we played 3-5-2 that night.
On Saturday, it was Pickford with Walker, Shaw, Stones and Maguire as the back four, Rice, Henderson and Bellingham across the middle and Kane, Foden and Saka up front in the classic 4-3-3.
Six of the Eleven who started the 2018 Semi were in the starting line up on Saturday, four and a bit years later. In essence, the core of that team, which got so close in Russia, was in Qatar and yet we went out a round earlier.
Yes, we went out to France and I suppose the argument will be their 2018 winning squad is broadly the core of their team but if we had potential then, why, four years later, are we still talking about potential? We had a team good enough to reach a Euro final and yet we still only have "potential".
Perhaps the wins over Senegal and Iran (for all they are highly ranked) were illusory.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
Could the current team have beaten Portugal, Holland, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina? We can speculate but we're short on hard evidence and our next real chance to play a Latin American country will be in 2026. Sure, we can have all the Friendlies we want but they mean nothing. Qualifying in five team groups where three of the five are cannon fodder means nothing.
Southgate has, in my view, advanced us not aep since 2018 but I don't think he's the problem.
Never listen to pundits. They know less that sfa. Full of bullshit. Opinions are like arses, everyone's got one.
This cold snap is going to brutalise people's finances. Not good for Tory prospects.
Interesting (to me at least) observation. I was out charity collecting last night. It definitely seems more house we’re colder than in previous years. Not unseated, but not running at 25 deg C, which is often something we encounter. Lots of families in a lot of clothing too. But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
Complete rubbish, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells and the idea I would have been happier growing up in Slough or or Rotherham is ludicrous.
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
Friend of mine used to live there, and was not impressed by it. Far too Hyacinth Bouquet for his taste, apparently. I take Which and I was surprised by your statement, as it would have triggered a double take at the time. I looked it up. It's a few places from the bottom of the Which Magazine, best town in the UK survey 2021 (= your "last year"): below Fort William, even.
Edit: you forgot the "Royal" bit in front of "Tunbridge Wells". My friend's mum was very insistent on that.
It used to be Hyacinth Bouquet and full of retired colonels (see the end of Lawrence of Arabia). Now apart from the rural bits it is mainly full of ex London yuppies, voted Remain and has a LD led Council. Though perhaps that also explains its decline.
My parents still live there
Does that mean they vote LD?
Tunbridge Wells now has 16 LD councillors and just 13 Tory councillors and the vast majority of the latter are from rural wards, the town itself is almost a Tory free zone now
Still Leave voting Tories (though my father occasionally votes LD locally).
If it was not for the outlying villages I think Tunbridge Wells would go LD at the next general election. Tunbridge Wells is the LDs 44th target seat and if Greg Clark holds on it will only be because of the rural parts of the constituency, the town itself is now gone for the blues.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
This idea that "the trend" can be projected forward is one of the strangest in political analysis.
Members of two major NHS unions in Scotland have voted to accept an improved pay offer.
This ends the risk of strike action in the health service by members of Unison and Unite but a ballot of Royal College of Nursing members is still under way.
An improved pay offer averaging 7.5% was made to health workers threatening industrial action last month."
I'm old enough to remembewr when PB Tories thought that the SG not reaching pay agreements promptly to stop/halt public sector strikes was SNP BAAAAD.
For some reason, the logic does not seem to apply south of Lamberton Toll.
Bit of a concern as to how they will fund it given the state of the finances, big tax hikes coming up.
Depends also what happens in Westminster/Whitehall (Barnett and all that), obviously.
Have to say the SNP are now worse at managing the finances than the Tories, money for anything but what is really needed. The ministers are so thick they just wreck everything they touch, it is a shocking state we are in caught between two lots of no users hosing money down the drains.
Malc, you know my opinion of the SNP and the Tories.
But if you want really thick ministers, check out Wales.
Must be only place in the world where it is a competition to see who can get the dumbest clucks running the country
< That’s utter rubbish, I’m afraid. I like to think I know a bit about football and I don’t care all that much about England losing, so I think I’m fairly impartial.
In my opinion, England were very lucky with the draw in 2018. They struggled to beat Tunisia, scraped through on penalties against Columbia and lost three times.
This time, they had the best record in the group stages and were unlucky with refereeing decisions in the quarter final against a very good France team.
You accurately describe the problem of assessing international football. But it isn’t going to change. In fact, it’s likely to get worse with it being knockout from round of 32 next time.
Saka, Foden and Bellingham are on another level to Lingard and Alli. England have a bright future, though Kane will be pushing 33 in 2026. My one downer is that this may have been their big chance. The conditions were ideal (warm, but not outrageously hot). The 2026 tournament could be awful, especially if they are playing in the middle of the day for European TV. But Euro 24 in Germany before then, so that’s probably a better chance.
Perhaps it's my frustration but I'd forgotten about 2018. Yes, we were very fortunate that time in the way the cards dropped for us. We wouldn't have beaten France in the Final even if we had got there.
As for this time, I think many of the analysts knew the QF against France was a) the most likely scenario and b) going to be the real test. I'm also reminded like Argentina they were humiliated in their first match but have improved as the tournament progressed. It's a marathon not a sprint.
As for Harry Kane, Giroud is 36 and he still managed to deliver when it mattered. My colleague at work thought France were in third gear for most of the match and would have overrun us in extra time.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
...
This is the same for every other team of course, although the Nation's League has made the situation quite a lot better in that respect. So I don't think it can explain specific English underperformance.
Some people will tell you that Southgate didn't play England's best players enough. Might be true. I tend to think that England simply don't have a player of the quality of an Mbappe, Messi, Modric, et al.
That doesn't mean we can't win. It doesn't mean we might not have done better with different choices. It does mean that we shouldn't be too surprised that we went out to the holders who have arguably the form player of the tournament in Mbappe.
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
We are told once again we have a young side, full of potential, which can only progress. Strange, we were told that after the 2018 Semi-Final loss to Croatia and the Euro 2021 defeat to Italy. We are told we have progressed yet on most measures, we haven't.
How has the team changed since that warm summer night at the Luzhniki Stadium in July 2018?
Back then, the team was Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire across the back. Midfield of Lingard, Henderson, Trippier, Young and Alli and up front Kane and Sterling.
So we played 3-5-2 that night.
On Saturday, it was Pickford with Walker, Shaw, Stones and Maguire as the back four, Rice, Henderson and Bellingham across the middle and Kane, Foden and Saka up front in the classic 4-3-3.
Six of the Eleven who started the 2018 Semi were in the starting line up on Saturday, four and a bit years later. In essence, the core of that team, which got so close in Russia, was in Qatar and yet we went out a round earlier.
Yes, we went out to France and I suppose the argument will be their 2018 winning squad is broadly the core of their team but if we had potential then, why, four years later, are we still talking about potential? We had a team good enough to reach a Euro final and yet we still only have "potential".
Perhaps the wins over Senegal and Iran (for all they are highly ranked) were illusory.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
Could the current team have beaten Portugal, Holland, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina? We can speculate but we're short on hard evidence and our next real chance to play a Latin American country will be in 2026. Sure, we can have all the Friendlies we want but they mean nothing. Qualifying in five team groups where three of the five are cannon fodder means nothing.
Southgate has, in my view, advanced us not aep since 2018 but I don't think he's the problem.
Never listen to pundits. They know less that sfa. Full of bullshit. Opinions are like arses, everyone's got one.
Still can't quite get my head around "not advanced us since 2018". Even ignoring the problem that the starting point is losing to Iceland in 2016...
2018: no surprise to lose to Croatia 2021: quite lucky to go to penalties against Italy 2022: very unlucky not to beat France (the best team in the tournament)
Was -10 here this morning. Not at 3am, when we were getting the kids off to school. Forecast for tonight is even colder. We've had very little snow, but the cold is brutal. Most of the day the thermostat is turned down, and the heating comes on anyway because its that sodding cold. last tank of oil was £1,400...
Utterly perishing in London
Geordies thinking about wearing long sleeve shirts.
Brexit, interesting to think that before the unfulfilled ghost of Grexit, no-one would have thought of such a term.
Now the hard cadences, which sound more saxon than latinate, of "Brexiters", conjure up John Bull.
Brexiteer: Google Hits: 659,000
Brexiter: Google Hits: 85,000
It's BrexitEER. Those who say BrexitER come across as bitterly twisted Remoaners
Brexiteer, ofcourse , more self-serving and Romantic. Sir Nigel Farage with a huge elizabethan moustache-beard, Francis Drake-style.
The Brexiteers really won the lexical game
See also "Remain" and "Remainers", boring and crabbed and cowardly, and with an unpleasant hint of "human remains". Basic fail. Should have gone with the warm, friendly, hospitable STAY. Stay a while for another dram! Awww
I disagree. Leavers should never have allowed themselves to be called Brexiteers (we didn't I suppose), while remain has a 'safe' feeling. This impression has stuck - post-Brexit Government has kept a reputation for being erratic and cavalier (much of it deserved), and the notion of 'remain' remains (hehe) safe and secure feeling. Of course its bullshit. The EU isn't recession insurance. They can't even get vaccines made in a timely fashion. However, stick it has.
So that would be no change while the party is up 3 and Labour down 2.
There isn't usually a strong relationship between intra-poll changes in leader ratings and VI in mid-term. In fact, we always used to be told to look in mid-term at leader ratings as more predictive of the ensuing GE than VI.
Whether this will hold or not this time is a matter of opinion, but -3 in the circumstances looks surprisingly strong for Sunak. Still an awful lot of undecideds, though.
A lot of remainers and Labour supporters have had enough of Tories at the moment, and can’t face the idea the electorate who gave the Tories a landslide may not have have had enough of the Tories yet, making the next election a close run nail biter. Worse - the Trussterfuck in the polls led this herd to believe a change of government was nailed on already, 2 years out from voting, they believed there had been a “sea change” and the Trussterfuck polls would take 12 years to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
There's been a lull, sure, 40 days since the last ministerial resignation and rising. But we're all distracted by Christmas and the footie. PB lefties have their biases but so do you
What do current polls Baxter to?
We can both agree the fact is your feet are currently dry, but do you accept the fact the boat is sinking, or are you still not properly paying attention like I am?
Drunkards walk innit? Why assume the vessel sinks indefinitely rather than stabilises or starts to rise again? My picture is the trend line is downwards from Paterson onwards, with a subsidiary downtick from truss which was always going to correct itself back to the, still downwards, trend.
This idea that "the trend" can be projected forward is one of the strangest in political analysis.
This cold snap is going to brutalise people's finances. Not good for Tory prospects.
Interesting (to me at least) observation. I was out charity collecting last night. It definitely seems more house we’re colder than in previous years. Not unseated, but not running at 25 deg C, which is often something we encounter. Lots of families in a lot of clothing too. But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
Well, don't go charity collecting then. Sorry, but I really, really hate people like you. I whack a reasonable bit of wedge out by monthly standing order to sort out blindness in Africa and hunger in various places, but I am buggered if I am explaining that to a door knocking nuisance when I am trying to watch the telly, so Feck off before I rip your lungs out is my polite and measured response.
Unless it's cats or lifeboats. Then it's straight to the baseball bat.
This cold snap is going to brutalise people's finances. Not good for Tory prospects.
Interesting (to me at least) observation. I was out charity collecting last night. It definitely seems more house we’re colder than in previous years. Not unseated, but not running at 25 deg C, which is often something we encounter. Lots of families in a lot of clothing too. But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
There are other ways to generate heat...
One of those curious but surprisingly common situations where the midpoint (some but not enormous clothing) is much less effective (at staying warm) than either extreme.
Let observers of the post-Brexit debate understand...
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
...
This is the same for every other team of course, although the Nation's League has made the situation quite a lot better in that respect. So I don't think it can explain specific English underperformance.
Some people will tell you that Southgate didn't play England's best players enough. Might be true. I tend to think that England simply don't have a player of the quality of an Mbappe, Messi, Modric, et al.
That doesn't mean we can't win. It doesn't mean we might not have done better with different choices. It does mean that we shouldn't be too surprised that we went out to the holders who have arguably the form player of the tournament in Mbappe.
Meanwhile 90% of the country is blithely unaware that right now we have one of the greatest teams in the history of cricket. And the World Cup holders
This cold snap is going to brutalise people's finances. Not good for Tory prospects.
Interesting (to me at least) observation. I was out charity collecting last night. It definitely seems more house we’re colder than in previous years. Not unseated, but not running at 25 deg C, which is often something we encounter. Lots of families in a lot of clothing too. But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
This cold snap is going to brutalise people's finances. Not good for Tory prospects.
Interesting (to me at least) observation. I was out charity collecting last night. It definitely seems more house we’re colder than in previous years. Not unseated, but not running at 25 deg C, which is often something we encounter. Lots of families in a lot of clothing too. But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
Well, don't go charity collecting then. Sorry, but I really, really hate people like you. I whack a reasonable bit of wedge out by monthly standing order to sort out blindness in Africa and hunger in various places, but I am buggered if I am explaining that to a door knocking nuisance when I am trying to watch the telly, so Feck off before I rip your lungs out is my polite and measured response.
Unless it's cats or lifeboats. Then it's straight to the baseball bat.
Comments
Yes it is a bureaucratic shorthand but it is also becoming a THING. The EU is now an entity in people's minds. Closer to a country than not
Torridge (Devon)
Hambleton (North Yorkshire)
Pendle (Lancs)
Lichfield (Staffs)
Unhappiest places:
Colchester
Tunbridge Wells
Lambeth
Redditch
Norwich
https://news.sky.com/story/colchester-redditch-and-tunbridge-wells-are-uks-unhappiest-areas-according-to-survey-12762111
I don't even think DeSantis will be GOP nominee or Badenoch or Rayner next Tory and Labour leaders. Trump again or Pence more likely in my view for the former and Steve Barclay or Wes Street in more likely for the latter
Brexit - yawn. Can't people move on? I can't be alone in finding the same old arguments and repetitive point-scoring utterly tedious.
It's a small but distinct change, and it means something
It was also named Which magazine's best town only last year. Along with Colchester it also has some of the best state schools in the country
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/uk-destinations/article/the-uks-best-towns-and-villages-aGr5B0m5L2qW#the-bestrated-town-or-village-in-the-uk-avebury-wiltshire-90
Edit: you forgot the "Royal" bit in front of "Tunbridge Wells". My friend's mum was very insistent on that.
But back in the real world it’s looking like the Trussterfuck polls will take 12 weeks to unwind back to 6 or 7 % Labour leads.
What it’s done has made Labour rampers opinions on polling and the next election irrelevant now, until such time they accept over the last two weeks the Tories are going up in the polls, Labour down, on many it’s dramatic very shifts on the recent polls from each firm, and all because the the Sunak and his government are becoming POPULAR during COL crisis and the next election becoming a tight if Tories can be prized from government or not.
The mistake PBs Labour herd have is two fold, they looked at polls but ignored focus groups, in focus groups the voters like the Tories, see experience and leadership in the current government and not from Labour. Even though Labour 20+ 30+ leads were a short lived thing this year, they ignored the truth it has so quickly been falling from 30, to 20, and heading towards 10 and single digits again. Some of us tried to point out, yes your feet are currently dry, but your boat is sinking, but they just piled on these innocent posters with their certain landslide majority nonsense.
Worse - when Mike explained how Blair had working majorities with 40+ seats from Scotland, how do you get working majorities with zero seats from Scotland, they called him wrong and not listening - which was painful and embarrassing to read.
It’s time for the Labour herd on here to apologise now to all those who merely tried to point out electoral facts and direction of travel in the polls to them.
The Trussterfuck polling that supposed to take 12 years to unwind will be unwound in about 12 weeks, because the Tories have been cute, ruthless to dump a leader after just a month, for a leader the MPs support so not going to the membership, and then dismantle all her policy agenda and budget in record time. Like the French football team, the Tories have “the killer instinct”, this Labour Party hasn’t.
My parents still live there
👉Check if your passport is valid for the dates you’re travelling!
There are two conditions for holders of non-EU passports to enter the EU:
👇
https://twitter.com/EUdelegationUK/status/1537338731882901505
"Travel to the EU is a privilege, not a human right."
https://ministraspirmininkas.lrv.lt/en/news/joint-statement-of-the-prime-ministers-of-lithuania-latvia-estonia-and-poland-on-eu-visas-for-russian-citizens-travel-to-the-eu-is-a-privilege-not-a-human-right
What do current polls Baxter to?
Secondly, the USA shows that a single nation state can embrace real diversity. NY is not Alabama. New Jersey is not Wyoming. The EU can, and I think will, do the same over several decades.
Brexit is widely acknowledged as a fucking disaster, and the next step is simply to clean up the mess, one way or another.
Labour’s inevitable victory at the next election will provide the psychological permission for the country at large to have that next conversation.
Reporter: "How important is it to keep warm in these conditions?"
Reply: "It's essential".
Cutting edge journalism.
A couple of wintry observations from downtown East London where we had our first decent snowfall since the last one.
First, and make of this what you will, strange to see young and old alike out staring in wonder at the snow and the snow-covered landscape last evening. Many in my part of London originate from the Indian Sub-Continent and especially from south India and Sri Lanka where snow is unknown. The picture-taking, the sheer incredulity perhaps from those who have settled here since the last big snowfall, was a sight to behold.
Second, the last time I looked, France was similar in population size yet its current electricity demand is nearly 82GW while the UK is at 45GW. Is there any rational explanation for this diversity in electricity demand?
Also, the "widely acknowledged" only applies to establishment and Twitterati types. Among the broader public, Brexit is seen as a mild mistake.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borough_of_Tunbridge_Wells
Biden? At least a a 95 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination.
(Full disclosure: DeSantis would not be my choice, anyway, for a number of reasons, among them his mishandling of Florida's reponse to COVID.)
I suppose this wears off in lands of continuous snow - or perhaps not - maybe life is continually more dream-like , at some level.
1. Polls definitely on the move, IF the trend continues at this rate Millbands losing position of just 10% lead will be here very soon now.
2. Government and PM popularity strong and rising during economic and cost of living crisis, that was supposed to have sunk them.
3. In hindsight Tories ruthless and remarkably effective in removing a leader after a month and dismantling everything her government proposed.
4. Polls suggested one thing, but focus groups have consistently stayed with Tories.
5. And, undeniably, as Mike persistently and politely explains, the very simple electoral facts. 125 wins away from a majority of not much. And where does a working majority come from with zero seats from Scotland?
Football, which I can now start watching with England no longer involved.
We are told once again we have a young side, full of potential, which can only progress. Strange, we were told that after the 2018 Semi-Final loss to Croatia and the Euro 2021 defeat to Italy. We are told we have progressed yet on most measures, we haven't.
How has the team changed since that warm summer night at the Luzhniki Stadium in July 2018?
Back then, the team was Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire across the back. Midfield of Lingard, Henderson, Trippier, Young and Alli and up front Kane and Sterling.
So we played 3-5-2 that night.
On Saturday, it was Pickford with Walker, Shaw, Stones and Maguire as the back four, Rice, Henderson and Bellingham across the middle and Kane, Foden and Saka up front in the classic 4-3-3.
Six of the Eleven who started the 2018 Semi were in the starting line up on Saturday, four and a bit years later. In essence, the core of that team, which got so close in Russia, was in Qatar and yet we went out a round earlier.
Yes, we went out to France and I suppose the argument will be their 2018 winning squad is broadly the core of their team but if we had potential then, why, four years later, are we still talking about potential? We had a team good enough to reach a Euro final and yet we still only have "potential".
Perhaps the wins over Senegal and Iran (for all they are highly ranked) were illusory.
I think the problem is we don't play serious sides in serious competition often enough. Thrashings of Malta, North Macedonia, San Marino and Gibraltar may make us all feel good about ourselves but they tell you nothing about how a team will perform against decent opponents who, man for man, may be better than you.
Could the current team have beaten Portugal, Holland, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina? We can speculate but we're short on hard evidence and our next real chance to play a Latin American country will be in 2026. Sure, we can have all the Friendlies we want but they mean nothing. Qualifying in five team groups where three of the five are cannon fodder means nothing.
Southgate has, in my view, advanced us not a step since 2018 but I don't think he's the problem.
The Scottish Government now needs to set out how it will use its significant devolved tax powers and whether to use them to generate more revenue for public services, including public sector workers.
https://fraserofallander.org/budget-2023-24-scottish-finances-on-a-tightrope-but-choices-are-there-to-be-made/
The Chester by-election very much indicates the polls are are right (particularly when you consider there was a below average Lab to Con swing there in 2019).
But if you want really thick ministers, check out Wales.
What I'm not clear about is when the c/h is actually not running - no pump, no energy consumption surely, except perhaps a little standby on the controller.
In my opinion, England were very lucky with the draw in 2018. They struggled to beat Tunisia, scraped through on penalties against Columbia and lost three times.
This time, they had the best record in the group stages and were unlucky with refereeing decisions in the quarter final against a very good France team.
You accurately describe the problem of assessing international football. But it isn’t going to change. In fact, it’s likely to get worse with it being knockout from round of 32 next time.
Saka, Foden and Bellingham are on another level to Lingard and Alli. England have a bright future, though Kane will be pushing 33 in 2026. My one downer is that this may have been their big chance. The conditions were ideal (warm, but not outrageously hot). The 2026 tournament could be awful, especially if they are playing in the middle of the day for European TV. But Euro 24 in Germany before then, so that’s probably a better chance.
To pick up the bullet points:
1. To an extent. There's some herding going on and a consolidation around a 15-point Labour lead. We'll see if this continues. Sunak's low profile is probably a wise move but that can't be sustained.
2. "Strong" is overstating it a bit. Sunak's figures are okay but the Government itself remains deeply unpopular. Last figures I saw had the Conservatives ahead on Ukraine but well behind on everything else.
3. "Ruthless and remarkably effective" translates as panic. Everyone could see where a Truss/Kwarteng Government was going - to be fair, the Conservatives removed the equally inept IDS in 2003. The Party has a first class degree in self preservation.
4. I'd like to see some evidence of this. I do accept a lot of 2019 Conservative voters went or have gone into the "Don't Know" column but at least 20% have gone straight to Labour. I presume the theory is every Reform supporter will run back to the Conservatives as soon as an election is called.
5. That's the hardest hurdle for Labour to overcome but the evidence is a significant proportion of Labour and LD voters will vote tactically to defeat an incumbent Conservative. Between that, a drift to Reform and abstention, I think 100 or more losses in England is quite possible and that would be enough.
Don't make me get out that graph of how PM favourability falls over time, it's too depressing.
He’s not the first, and won’t be the last, but one of the better ones.
I won’t bury the lede here: I’m leaving Twitter, as of later today.
https://twitter.com/Dereklowe/status/1602307503752187906
But not all. At least one young mum came to the door in skimpy silk shorts and a vest in an obviously warm house. Poor Santa didn’t know where to look…
But the Labour lead remains high.
If it was not for the outlying villages I think Tunbridge Wells would go LD at the next general election. Tunbridge Wells is the LDs 44th target seat and if Greg Clark holds on it will only be because of the rural parts of the constituency, the town itself is now gone for the blues.
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
As for this time, I think many of the analysts knew the QF against France was a) the most likely scenario and b) going to be the real test. I'm also reminded like Argentina they were humiliated in their first match but have improved as the tournament progressed. It's a marathon not a sprint.
As for Harry Kane, Giroud is 36 and he still managed to deliver when it mattered. My colleague at work thought France were in third gear for most of the match and would have overrun us in extra time.
Some people will tell you that Southgate didn't play England's best players enough. Might be true. I tend to think that England simply don't have a player of the quality of an Mbappe, Messi, Modric, et al.
That doesn't mean we can't win. It doesn't mean we might not have done better with different choices. It does mean that we shouldn't be too surprised that we went out to the holders who have arguably the form player of the tournament in Mbappe.
2018: no surprise to lose to Croatia
2021: quite lucky to go to penalties against Italy
2022: very unlucky not to beat France (the best team in the tournament)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001g2yf
Unless it's cats or lifeboats. Then it's straight to the baseball bat.
Let observers of the post-Brexit debate understand...