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
I'm aware, and it's enormous good fun, but it's in the nature of a capitalist economy that the most successful sport will monopolize attention. You might as well complain about the weather.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
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.
Why? What's your beef with lifeboats?
1. They have more money than they know what to do with already. They scratch their paintwork, they put the vessel in for a £300,000 refit just to use some of it up
2. They take money off poor people who think they are saving the lives of other poor people. Reality is professional seamen are a small percentage of the people they rescue, it's mainly well heeled yachties who should be paying insurance against their own uselessness.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
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.
Confusing to the confusion-susceptible, sure.
It's not confusing, just illogical.
No it isn't, where does logic come in to it at all? It is an empirical question, for any given data set, whether and for how long a trend line is likely to last before reversing. It may be rash to bet the house on a given bull or bear market in anything continuing, but when you are in one you tend to know you are in 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…
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
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.
Why? What's your beef with lifeboats?
1. They have more money than they know what to do with already. They scratch their paintwork, they put the vessel in for a £300,000 refit just to use some of it up
2. They take money off poor people who think they are saving the lives of other poor people. Reality is professional seamen are a small percentage of the people they rescue, it's mainly well heeled yachties who should be paying insurance against their own uselessness.
The RSPCA kill lots of cats. So surely, as a cat hater, you are in favour?
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
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.
Why? What's your beef with lifeboats?
1. They have more money than they know what to do with already. They scratch their paintwork, they put the vessel in for a £300,000 refit just to use some of it up
2. They take money off poor people who think they are saving the lives of other poor people. Reality is professional seamen are a small percentage of the people they rescue, it's mainly well heeled yachties who should be paying insurance against their own uselessness.
The RSPCA kill lots of cats. So surely, as a cat hater, you are in favour?
Why would I be a cat hater? I am not . If I were, why would I be made happy by the thought of them being killed by lethal injection rather than, say, set on fire? The objection is, that killing an unwanted animal is morally neutral, while keeping it alive at huge expense so it can be rehomed to live its best life with its forever human, awwwww, is not an activity which deserves charitable status.
To be fair, I am against unnecessary childhood blindness and the pointless slaughter of small birds, so you have about a quarter of a point.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
No real need to defend yourself against M45.
M45 - a gestalt account made up of seven sisters. Something of an anti-Leon.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
No real need to defend yourself against M45.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, shouts "micropenis syndrome" quite like that sort of third party content-free intervention in a conversation between two other posters in which you have no substantive involvement.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
No real need to defend yourself against M45.
M45 - a gestalt account made up of seven sisters. Something of an anti-Leon.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
No real need to defend yourself against M45.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, shouts "micropenis syndrome" quite like that sort of third party content-free intervention in a conversation between two other posters in which you have no substantive involvement.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
I think you are doing a very kind, societal improving endeavour. Ignore the bitter types and keep it up.
There was plenty of weather model chat back in the summer when the heatwave was approaching.
Anything in the models that confirms or denies the current forecasts that say basically it's super-cold up until around Friday and then it starts to get a bit warmer (not warm per se, but certainly clear above freezing even at night)?
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
I think you are doing a very kind, societal improving endeavour. Ignore the bitter types and keep it up.
Four more nights before the big day! Always good fun.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Tbh we get criticism for mainly collecting in the rich areas. As I said part of the point is Santa for the kids. People moan that the poor kids don’t get a visit. If people don’t want to give, we just say merry Christmas and move on. We get a very low response rate of angry, annoyed people. The float plays loud music a I suspect some know it’s us and don’t answer the door. That’s fine. No one is obliged to donate. I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
No real need to defend yourself against M45.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, shouts "micropenis syndrome" quite like that sort of third party content-free intervention in a conversation between two other posters in which you have no substantive involvement.
Well done.
My goodness, you are angry at the world.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens is a thought that has occurred to me often today during our very pleasant interactions. You are right, vergebens is right, and I am going to watch Get Out on Netflix. Chuggers permitting.
There was plenty of weather model chat back in the summer when the heatwave was approaching.
Anything in the models that confirms or denies the current forecasts that say basically it's super-cold up until around Friday and then it starts to get a bit warmer (not warm per se, but certainly clear above freezing even at night)?
TLDR: when will it sodding warm up a bit?
Sunday, currently, possibly with snow turning to rain. Not set in stone yet.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
The Lions uses 100% of income on good causes, 90% in the local community. I’m the first to criticise a lot of charities, especially with lots of employees buffing their halos in the charity sector and with remarkably poor percentages of income actually going to the causes, but the Lions is not one. And at Christmas we bring Santa to the kids.
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
I didn't have to get out of my chair. A couple of taps on my phone does the job.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
If it's signing up for a standing order, I'm inclined to agree. But the Lions club driving Santa round the streets is utterly charming (mine loved it when they were tiny and Believed) and it's the sort of small battalion localism we're going to need to get through all this.
Chucking a few quid their way seems the least one can do.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
If it's signing up for a standing order, I'm inclined to agree. But the Lions club driving Santa round the streets is utterly charming (mine loved it when they were tiny and Believed) and it's the sort of small battalion localism we're going to need to get through all this.
Chucking a few quid their way seems the least one can do.
That's exactly the point. Chucking a few quid is a rich man's pleasure.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
The Lions uses 100% of income on good causes, 90% in the local community. I’m the first to criticise a lot of charities, especially with lots of employees buffing their halos in the charity sector and with remarkably poor percentages of income actually going to the causes, but the Lions is not one. And at Christmas we bring Santa to the kids.
I am loathe to criticise an honourable PB-er who is raising money for charity. So this is not personal at all: Well done you and the Lions
Maybe I am just in a mildly misanthropic, non-charitable mood having read that remarkable thread about Sistah Space. It is quite shocking: the grift in the charitable sector
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
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.
Hardly relentless. The graphs have plateaued twice. A trend nonetheless.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
I stay in a fairly poor part of my city and I've sometimes had three charity people knock my door in the same day (I once had one try and interrupt the other one who was currently talking to me in fact). Outside of lockdown times it was a regular once or twice a week event to have the door chapped by them.
My friend who stays in a wealthy part of town has had one charity person at their door in the past five years.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
But this sounds like pure snobbery. So a guy who did well for himself and bought a "big new build house" and has a "brand new BMW" cannot ALSO be generous to charities?! So he understandably doesn't want to give any more?
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.
Brexiteer has stuck because it would otherwise be impolite to call Leavers *******.
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.
Brexiteer has stuck because it would otherwise be impolite to call Leavers *******.
Quitters is a reasonable alternative to Brexiteers.
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.
“I really don't understand what you're getting at”
Trend!
Look at how the most recent polling dots have the lower labour dots and higher Tory dots - the media and voters are increasingly seeing Sunak Hunt and Tory government as strong and stable so why should this narrowing trend end anytime soon?
Back in the summer when yougov put Tories just 1 point behind and I was suggesting complete opposite to this and proved right, the Tory polling position as inflated and to worsen against the political narrative, did you criticise me then, was a herd of Labour Rampers piling on me then? No.
The fact is Two things are against you. The political narrative of a strong stable and likeable government managing the crisis well is what is fuelling a closing of the poll gaps, and this moves closer to crossover with the incredible electoral mountain Labour need to climb. Win 120 seats and still not have a majority. As Mike explained, unlike Blair era No help coming from Scotland, it’s all on having to win Albion massively. What’s the first target swing 0.something%? But what’s the hundredth target seat 9% or more? And there is no uniform swing. Up the road 8% needed captured on 10% swing, down the road not far away, 5% needed only 3% Tory hold. What’s the swing needed to take 100-150 seats? These are not just seats on loan to Tory’s, these are Tory seats that don’t go to Labour but they need to in order for Labour to have a majority - this is why this closing of polls right now is important, this trend is important, it’s leaving Labour needing to take traditional Tory seats against backdrop of 2 years of popular and effective and experienced Tory government under Hunt and Sunak.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
If it's signing up for a standing order, I'm inclined to agree. But the Lions club driving Santa round the streets is utterly charming (mine loved it when they were tiny and Believed) and it's the sort of small battalion localism we're going to need to get through all this.
Chucking a few quid their way seems the least one can do.
That's exactly the point. Chucking a few quid is a rich man's pleasure.
As various people, including John Denver and the Muppets have put it,
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat Please do put a penny in the old man's hat If you haven't got a penny, a ha-penny will do If you haven't got a ha-penny than God bless you
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
Good evening
In 1973 our round table decided to do a Christmas float at a time of fuel crisis with regular blackouts and indeed we used a tractor to pull the float and power the generator as we could not get petrol.
As we went along the unlit streets with our colourful float the joy of the parents and children to see us was truly humbling and yes, in some of the poorest areas, the generosity of giving was truly amazing
The float continues to this day and no doubt to the delight of parents and children in the same way and we did not knock on doors, ,just virtually everyone came out onto the street
All 100 % of the money collected was given to the children's homes to make their children's Christmas that much better
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
But this sounds like pure snobbery. So a guy who did well for himself and bought a "big new build house" and has a "brand new BMW" cannot ALSO be generous to charities?! So he understandably doesn't want to give any more?
Tsk
Often find that less well off people can be more generous. Just an observation. As I said, no one is expected to donate. I have great fun being Santa and seeing the kids responses. Although the two six year old girls who proclaimed to the street that I ‘wasn’t the real Santa’ and that my ‘beard was fake’ were alarmingly precocious.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
I don't think it is regarded as socially acceptable any more to go around knocking on peoples doors, unless it is halloween or you are trying to find a lost cat or something. It feels quite intrusive and threatening to people.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
I don't think it is regarded as socially acceptable any more to go around knocking on peoples doors, unless it is halloween or you are trying to find a lost cat or something. It feels quite intrusive and threatening to people.
I don’t believe this is a majority view, and it’s important to note the presence of Santa and the decorated float. It’s not just people knocking on doors and asking for money.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
But this sounds like pure snobbery. So a guy who did well for himself and bought a "big new build house" and has a "brand new BMW" cannot ALSO be generous to charities?! So he understandably doesn't want to give any more?
Tsk
Often find that less well off people can be more generous. Just an observation. As I said, no one is expected to donate. I have great fun being Santa and seeing the kids responses. Although the two six year old girls who proclaimed to the street that I ‘wasn’t the real Santa’ and that my ‘beard was fake’ were alarmingly precocious.
In my experience during the 1970s and early 80's (still young enough to be in round table) every Christmas float season confirmed that the poorest gave the most and the wealthiest the least
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.
“I really don't understand what you're getting at”
Trend!
Look at how the most recent polling dots have the lower labour dots and higher Tory dots - the media and voters are increasingly seeing Sunak Hunt and Tory government as strong and stable so why should this narrowing trend end anytime soon?
Back in the summer when yougov put Tories just 1 point behind and I was suggesting complete opposite to this and proved right, the Tory polling position as inflated and to worsen against the political narrative, did you criticise me then, was a herd of Labour Rampers piling on me then? No.
The fact is Two things are against you. The political narrative of a strong stable and likeable government managing the crisis well is what is fuelling a closing of the poll gaps, and this moves closer to crossover with the incredible electoral mountain Labour need to climb. Win 120 seats and still not have a majority. As Mike explained, unlike Blair era No help coming from Scotland, it’s all on having to win Albion massively. What’s the first target swing 0.something%? But what’s the hundredth target seat 9% or more? And there is no uniform swing. Up the road 8% needed captured on 10% swing, down the road not far away, 5% needed only 3% Tory hold. What’s the swing needed to take 100-150 seats? These are not just seats on loan to Tory’s, these are Tory seats that don’t go to Labour but they need to in order for Labour to have a majority - this is why this closing of polls right now is important, this trend is important, it’s leaving Labour needing to take traditional Tory seats against backdrop of 2 years of popular and effective and experienced Tory government under Hunt and Sunak.
That’s what I’m getting at.
You may well wind up being right. It is just the data evidence behind your narrative at this moment in time is somewhat scant. A trend yes, but not compelling evidence of Labour unwind- yet. On the other hand you might be a whizz at crystal ball gazing.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I listen a bit, interrupt at some point and say I fully support their cause, but am fully committed in my giving and review it annually. If they are still game on, I start talking about the causes I am interested in, inviting them to join in. This never ever goes beyond 10 seconds before they make a run for it.
It's different with regulars like Poppy appeal, but they are far fewer these days.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
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.
What an odd response! I’m not complaining about anything. Rather I’m helping the local Lions charity collection. They put 90% of all donations back into local needs and the remaining 10% to overseas. And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings. Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
No.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I tend to agree. Going round knocking on doors asking for money is out of order
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
I don't think it is regarded as socially acceptable any more to go around knocking on peoples doors, unless it is halloween or you are trying to find a lost cat or something. It feels quite intrusive and threatening to people.
I think you misunderstand the round table/lions Christmas floats as they are very colourfully lit with music playing and Santa on board, often jumping off and greeting adoring children while the parents look overjoyed, and I expect this year it will be even more appreciated by most everyone who can see such joy in children
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
TBF, he would be giving another 20% in percentage points if he wasn't giving it to you, but through Gift Aid.
Edit: Not thinking. I should have said 'another quarter's worth of the donation'.
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.
Put a sign up saying "No canvassers". Problem solved. Or maybe not, because since it appears to be emotional it's likely to manifest somewhere else.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
Hardly in the Christmas spirit and you clearly have no experience of actually being part of a Christmas float and seeing the absolute delight of the children and their parents
In my day the routes were published in the local newspapers and all monies collected were donated to local children's homes for their Christmas
These are not chuggers as you disparagingly suggest
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
But this sounds like pure snobbery. So a guy who did well for himself and bought a "big new build house" and has a "brand new BMW" cannot ALSO be generous to charities?! So he understandably doesn't want to give any more?
Tsk
Often find that less well off people can be more generous. Just an observation. As I said, no one is expected to donate. I have great fun being Santa and seeing the kids responses. Although the two six year old girls who proclaimed to the street that I ‘wasn’t the real Santa’ and that my ‘beard was fake’ were alarmingly precocious.
In my experience during the 1970s and early 80's (still young enough to be in round table) every Christmas float season confirmed that the poorest gave the most and the wealthiest the least
I think that's the common pattern, and highlights the bit of the Thatcher revolution that never happened- she hoped/assumed that the newly rich would be spontaneously generous. Or be effectively shamed into it, like the Victorians. (H/T to whoever said that Maggie wanted a Britain fit for her father but created one safe for her son.)
Maybe it's the downside of meritocracy as a worldview; the more one's success is down to one's own brilliance/virtue, the less inclination there is to be generous to those lower down. The more one thinks "there go I, but for the grace of God", the more sense charity and state redistribution make.
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.
Put a sign up saying "No canvassers". Problem solved. Or maybe not, because since it appears to be emotional it's likely to manifest somewhere else.
But that doesn’t work - I’m happy to give to any amateur collecting door to door, professional chuggers however will result in me adding the charity to the won’t give a penny to ever (because I know the amount of money those firms charge).
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.
Put a sign up saying "No canvassers". Problem solved. Or maybe not, because since it appears to be emotional it's likely to manifest somewhere else.
You are lovely, the major public school boy desperately embracing the Marxist ideal and then blowing it by suggesting the solution adopted by your pitch-up for their Belgravia mansion.
I live in the country, I can't afford individual lighting for my sign and they mostly come after dark. Mostly.
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.
“I really don't understand what you're getting at”
Trend!
Look at how the most recent polling dots have the lower labour dots and higher Tory dots - the media and voters are increasingly seeing Sunak Hunt and Tory government as strong and stable so why should this narrowing trend end anytime soon?
Back in the summer when yougov put Tories just 1 point behind and I was suggesting complete opposite to this and proved right, the Tory polling position as inflated and to worsen against the political narrative, did you criticise me then, was a herd of Labour Rampers piling on me then? No.
The fact is Two things are against you. The political narrative of a strong stable and likeable government managing the crisis well is what is fuelling a closing of the poll gaps, and this moves closer to crossover with the incredible electoral mountain Labour need to climb. Win 120 seats and still not have a majority. As Mike explained, unlike Blair era No help coming from Scotland, it’s all on having to win Albion massively. What’s the first target swing 0.something%? But what’s the hundredth target seat 9% or more? And there is no uniform swing. Up the road 8% needed captured on 10% swing, down the road not far away, 5% needed only 3% Tory hold. What’s the swing needed to take 100-150 seats? These are not just seats on loan to Tory’s, these are Tory seats that don’t go to Labour but they need to in order for Labour to have a majority - this is why this closing of polls right now is important, this trend is important, it’s leaving Labour needing to take traditional Tory seats against backdrop of 2 years of popular and effective and experienced Tory government under Hunt and Sunak.
That’s what I’m getting at.
You may well wind up being right. It is just the data evidence behind your narrative at this moment in time is somewhat scant. A trend yes, but not compelling evidence of Labour unwind- yet. On the other hand you might be a whizz at crystal ball gazing.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
What is the rationale for that bet? Bit common was he?
Reality: you are, I'm guessing, oldish, white, middle class and well heeled. The young, lower class and poor are easily soft-intimidated to giving to you. This bloke had the impertinence not to be.
I am having a tough time here. I am arguing for money to be donated by the rich to poor, hungry, blind children in Africa, not by the poor to yachties and Christmas floats and fucking kittens, and being made to feel bad about it by all and sundry, and by the only Marxist in the village.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
What is the rationale for that bet? Bit common was he?
Reality: you are, I'm guessing, oldish, white, middle class and well heeled. The young, lower class and poor are easily soft-intimidated to giving to you. This bloke had the impertinence not to be.
I am having a tough time here. I am arguing for money to be donated by the rich to poor, hungry, blind children in Africa, not by the poor to yachties and Christmas floats and fucking kittens, and being made to feel bad about it by all and sundry, and by the only Marxist in the village.
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.
“I really don't understand what you're getting at”
Trend!
Look at how the most recent polling dots have the lower labour dots and higher Tory dots - the media and voters are increasingly seeing Sunak Hunt and Tory government as strong and stable so why should this narrowing trend end anytime soon?
Back in the summer when yougov put Tories just 1 point behind and I was suggesting complete opposite to this and proved right, the Tory polling position as inflated and to worsen against the political narrative, did you criticise me then, was a herd of Labour Rampers piling on me then? No.
The fact is Two things are against you. The political narrative of a strong stable and likeable government managing the crisis well is what is fuelling a closing of the poll gaps, and this moves closer to crossover with the incredible electoral mountain Labour need to climb. Win 120 seats and still not have a majority. As Mike explained, unlike Blair era No help coming from Scotland, it’s all on having to win Albion massively. What’s the first target swing 0.something%? But what’s the hundredth target seat 9% or more? And there is no uniform swing. Up the road 8% needed captured on 10% swing, down the road not far away, 5% needed only 3% Tory hold. What’s the swing needed to take 100-150 seats? These are not just seats on loan to Tory’s, these are Tory seats that don’t go to Labour but they need to in order for Labour to have a majority - this is why this closing of polls right now is important, this trend is important, it’s leaving Labour needing to take traditional Tory seats against backdrop of 2 years of popular and effective and experienced Tory government under Hunt and Sunak.
That’s what I’m getting at.
LOL
Every Tory I know isn't going to be voting Tory next time because either:
- Truss really pissed them off - Sunak taking over really pissed them off
I'm talking MEMBERS, let alone average voters....
My current MP is a friend of mine so I expect I'll vote for him; otherwise I think I'd spoil my ballot by scrawling 'LETS STOP EXPANDING THE STATE' all over it.
No snow round here. But it has been brassick for days. Unfortunately, it warmed up just enough to have a Biblical downpour of rain for about an hour Sunday afternoon. Which of course froze. The pavements are about as treacherous as I ever can remember. -5°C right now.
It seems to me that this evening’s most prolific posters are Bah and Humbug.
Because ho ho ho, the poor actually love giving money they can't afford, to charities, when guilt tripped in the right way. Gawd bless 'em.
Top tip: if you accuse other posters of being humbugs and Scrooges, the danger is that they frame large bets about the extent of their charity donations (over a reasonable past history to ensure they are not just faking it) with the loser's payout being 4 figures to, say, UNICEF.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
What is the rationale for that bet? Bit common was he?
Reality: you are, I'm guessing, oldish, white, middle class and well heeled. The young, lower class and poor are easily soft-intimidated to giving to you. This bloke had the impertinence not to be.
I am having a tough time here. I am arguing for money to be donated by the rich to poor, hungry, blind children in Africa, not by the poor to yachties and Christmas floats and fucking kittens, and being made to feel bad about it by all and sundry, and by the only Marxist in the village.
The estate the ‘incident’ occurred on is not home to the lower classes. He was middle aged, white, had spent lots on stuff (as he is totally at liberty to, it’s his money), and I just found it amusing. As I keep saying, Lions money is not going to yachties, it’s going to little old ladies in need and families who can’t afford to buy a new washing machine. They also give weeks holidays to poor families. I’d never criticise anyone for not donating - that’s up to them, no matter what reasons they have. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
Careful now, they’ll just waste it on lifeboats for rich yachties…
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
The misanthropy bit means me, I imagine, and what I am articulating is pro charity misanthropy. It is not a free market, a middle class guy knocking up a poor person's house is exerting social pressure, and you presumably don't dispute the evidence that almost every body is seriously pushed for money at the moment? Door to door collection is, as has been pointed out, tax inefficient, and is mere bullying.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots thought a 33% Labour lead would be replicated at the general election.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
This next GE is going to be the battle of the Charisma free. Poor turnout by the disillusioned on both sides is my tip.
I wasn't expecting Sunak to be quite so poor, hiding away with his spreadsheets. I do hope he isn't planning the holidays in Santa Monica during the strikes and freeze. That would be Truss level.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
This next GE is going to be the battle of the Charisma free. Poor turnout by the disillusioned on both sides is my tip.
I wasn't expecting Sunak to be quite so poor, hiding away with his spreadsheets. I do hope he isn't planning the holidays in Santa Monica during the strikes and freeze. That would be Truss level.
Whenever I think Sunak might pull of a surprise at the next general election I remember HE LOST TO LIZ FUCKING TRUSS, the worst PM since ever.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
Careful now, they’ll just waste it on lifeboats for rich yachties…
In the last few days my son has been on exercises with Llandudno RNLI and believe you me the sea conditions and cold these volunteers have to deal with and the all weather gear they need every penny donated to the RNLI is very gratefully received
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.
Brexiteer has stuck because it would otherwise be impolite to call Leavers *******.
Don't hold back on my account, I couldn't give even the teensiest of farts what you think.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
I always support the RNLI, and the IoW independent lifeboats. They do sterling work, and like Mountain Rescue, you never know when you might need them.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots thought a 33% Labour lead would be replicated at the general election.
Wrong!
Others clearly thought that.
It's not clear what the rewards are for your debagging though - pineaple pizzas seem out!
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
The misanthropy bit means me, I imagine, and what I am articulating is pro charity misanthropy. It is not a free market, a middle class guy knocking up a poor person's house is exerting social pressure, and you presumably don't dispute the evidence that almost every body is seriously pushed for money at the moment? Door to door collection is, as has been pointed out, tax inefficient, and is mere bullying.
People are quite capable of saying "I'm not interested thanks". Stop infantilizing the poor.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots thought a 33% Labour lead would be replicated at the general election.
And I reckon they nobody thinks 20% leads will survive the duration either. The issue is the swingback is starting from a lot further back this time. We are 3 years into this Parliament. Average Labour leads at the equivalent time in May 2013 were 9-10%.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
What is the rationale for that bet? Bit common was he?
Reality: you are, I'm guessing, oldish, white, middle class and well heeled. The young, lower class and poor are easily soft-intimidated to giving to you. This bloke had the impertinence not to be.
I am having a tough time here. I am arguing for money to be donated by the rich to poor, hungry, blind children in Africa, not by the poor to yachties and Christmas floats and fucking kittens, and being made to feel bad about it by all and sundry, and by the only Marxist in the village.
The estate the ‘incident’ occurred on is not home to the lower classes. He was middle aged, white, had spent lots on stuff (as he is totally at liberty to, it’s his money), and I just found it amusing. As I keep saying, Lions money is not going to yachties, it’s going to little old ladies in need and families who can’t afford to buy a new washing machine. They also give weeks holidays to poor families. I’d never criticise anyone for not donating - that’s up to them, no matter what reasons they have. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.
But I spend lots of money on me, and also lots, relatively speaking, on charity. What makes it "amusing" and not believable that this guy refused you money? I just don't get this at all. How does judging people by the car they own make you anything but a snob?
And if you want to imply that I "don't donate" because I don't donate to doorsteppers like you I am very, very happy to frame a bet with you about that, loser to pay 10% net annual income to charity of winners choice.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
Careful now, they’ll just waste it on lifeboats for rich yachties…
In the last few days my son has been on exercises with Llandudno RNLI and believe you me the sea conditions and cold these volunteers have to deal with and the all weather gear they need every penny donated to the RNLI is very gratefully received
I’m full of admiration for all the RNLI volunteers. Love watching the BBC series, and some of the rescues are astonishing. The wife has a standing order donation to RNLI but we hope we never need rescue personally… Your son is a credit.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
The misanthropy bit means me, I imagine, and what I am articulating is pro charity misanthropy. It is not a free market, a middle class guy knocking up a poor person's house is exerting social pressure, and you presumably don't dispute the evidence that almost every body is seriously pushed for money at the moment? Door to door collection is, as has been pointed out, tax inefficient, and is mere bullying.
No, it has been going all day, starting with a rant about Sistah Space.
I give via my CAF account, as it means I can claim back at the higher rate of tax more easily. I occasionally give to collections too, but rarely carry loose change any more.
General Melchett: Is this true, Blackadder? Did Captain Darling pooh-pooh you?
Captain Blackadder: Well, perhaps a little.
General Melchett: Well, then, damn it all! What more evidence do you need? The pooh-poohing alone is a court martial offense!
Captain Blackadder: I can assure you, sir, that the pooh-poohing was purely circumstantial.
General Melchett: Well, I hope so, Blackadder. You know, if there's one thing I've learnt from being in the Army, it's never ignore a pooh-pooh. I knew a Major, who got pooh-poohed, made the mistake of ignoring the pooh-pooh. He pooh-poohed it! Fatal error! 'Cos it turned out all along that the soldier who pooh-poohed him had been pooh-poohing a lot of other officers who pooh-poohed their pooh-poohs. In the end, we had to disband the regiment. Morale totally destroyed... by pooh-pooh!
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots thought a 33% Labour lead would be replicated at the general election.
And I reckon they nobody thinks 20% leads will survive the duration either. The issue is the swingback is starting from a lot further back this time. We are 3 years into this Parliament. Average Labour leads at the equivalent time in May 2013 were 9-10%.
Yup.
I keep on meaning to do a piece where the Labour lead gets bigger even if the Labour VI falls a bit.
The dog that hasn't barked, Reform on the 12% they got in 2015.
Human trials are reportedly planned in six months’ time. (Absolutely no way that’s going to happen.)
I'd love your certainty to be justified but it isn't. Who's to say it isn't already happening in, say, Xinjiang or any of many other possible places?
If "Anthony Fauci", i.e. the US government, was involved in gain of function biowar research in Wuhan, then who'd rule that out?
Paging @Leon. OpenAI and Elon Musk's Neuralink even have their HQs in the same building: the Pioneer Building in San Francisco. Bit of a giveaway. No other company is HQed there AFAIK. It's just the two of them. Neuralink develops machine-brain interfaces, i.e. high-bandwidth chips in yer 'ead, monitoring and influencing and communicating. Whether computer programs if they get superduper enough become conscious, although it's a question with an easy and simple answer ("No"), is a red herring.
"All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control."
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
Careful now, they’ll just waste it on lifeboats for rich yachties…
You are getting silly now. The stats are easily found. But yes, why waste money on African children being cured of blindness and malaria when there's English accountants need a tow back to port?
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
And to take another point, nobody knows for sure what the tactical voting situation will be in 2024. However, it's likely to be reasonably well targetted on getting the Tories out. Not perfectly, but reasonably.
That's different to 2019, when the anti-Jez vote was probably stronger than the anti-Boris one. It's also different to 2015, when the old anti-Tory coalition finally broke down. Forget Scotland for a moment- England saw a swing from Con to Lab in votes, but the Conservatives gaining more seats than Labour.
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.
“I really don't understand what you're getting at”
Trend!
Look at how the most recent polling dots have the lower labour dots and higher Tory dots - the media and voters are increasingly seeing Sunak Hunt and Tory government as strong and stable so why should this narrowing trend end anytime soon?
Back in the summer when yougov put Tories just 1 point behind and I was suggesting complete opposite to this and proved right, the Tory polling position as inflated and to worsen against the political narrative, did you criticise me then, was a herd of Labour Rampers piling on me then? No.
The fact is Two things are against you. The political narrative of a strong stable and likeable government managing the crisis well is what is fuelling a closing of the poll gaps, and this moves closer to crossover with the incredible electoral mountain Labour need to climb. Win 120 seats and still not have a majority. As Mike explained, unlike Blair era No help coming from Scotland, it’s all on having to win Albion massively. What’s the first target swing 0.something%? But what’s the hundredth target seat 9% or more? And there is no uniform swing. Up the road 8% needed captured on 10% swing, down the road not far away, 5% needed only 3% Tory hold. What’s the swing needed to take 100-150 seats? These are not just seats on loan to Tory’s, these are Tory seats that don’t go to Labour but they need to in order for Labour to have a majority - this is why this closing of polls right now is important, this trend is important, it’s leaving Labour needing to take traditional Tory seats against backdrop of 2 years of popular and effective and experienced Tory government under Hunt and Sunak.
That’s what I’m getting at.
LOL
Every Tory I know isn't going to be voting Tory next time because either:
- Truss really pissed them off - Sunak taking over really pissed them off
I'm talking MEMBERS, let alone average voters....
My current MP is a friend of mine so I expect I'll vote for him; otherwise I think I'd spoil my ballot by scrawling 'LETS STOP EXPANDING THE STATE' all over it.
My favourite response one night, as I knocked on the four bed detached new build house, with the brand new BMW outside, was “No thanks mate, I’ve given enough”. No problem from me, he was polite about it! Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
What? That's exactly me, except 2 bed hovel and fucked up Toyota Hilux. I give, by monthly standing order, to carefully researched charities, I am not interested in being pitched to for a tenner by a randomer on my doorstep, and it now turns out that the price of this is being anonymously ridiculed on the internet.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
At which point I would say Merry Christmas and leave you to your evening. I’d suggest you are not representing most people. You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him. But I bet he wasn’t.
What is the rationale for that bet? Bit common was he?
Reality: you are, I'm guessing, oldish, white, middle class and well heeled. The young, lower class and poor are easily soft-intimidated to giving to you. This bloke had the impertinence not to be.
I am having a tough time here. I am arguing for money to be donated by the rich to poor, hungry, blind children in Africa, not by the poor to yachties and Christmas floats and fucking kittens, and being made to feel bad about it by all and sundry, and by the only Marxist in the village.
The estate the ‘incident’ occurred on is not home to the lower classes. He was middle aged, white, had spent lots on stuff (as he is totally at liberty to, it’s his money), and I just found it amusing. As I keep saying, Lions money is not going to yachties, it’s going to little old ladies in need and families who can’t afford to buy a new washing machine. They also give weeks holidays to poor families. I’d never criticise anyone for not donating - that’s up to them, no matter what reasons they have. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.
But I spend lots of money on me, and also lots, relatively speaking, on charity. What makes it "amusing" and not believable that this guy refused you money? I just don't get this at all. How does judging people by the car they own make you anything but a snob?
And if you want to imply that I "don't donate" because I don't donate to doorsteppers like you I am very, very happy to frame a bet with you about that, loser to pay 10% net annual income to charity of winners choice.
You seem to be conflating an incident I had with someone else, with yourself. I’m happy to accept that you are very generous. I also don’t think I ever suggested that YOU don’t donate. The guy didn’t ‘refuse ‘ me money, he said ‘no thanks mate, I’ve given enough’. And that was the end of it. I didn’t scratch his car, or egg his house, I walked off into the night.
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots thought a 33% Labour lead would be replicated at the general election.
And I reckon they nobody thinks 20% leads will survive the duration either. The issue is the swingback is starting from a lot further back this time. We are 3 years into this Parliament. Average Labour leads at the equivalent time in May 2013 were 9-10%.
Yup.
I keep on meaning to do a piece where the Labour lead gets bigger even if the Labour VI falls a bit.
The dog that hasn't barked, Reform on the 12% they got in 2015.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
Careful now, they’ll just waste it on lifeboats for rich yachties…
In the last few days my son has been on exercises with Llandudno RNLI and believe you me the sea conditions and cold these volunteers have to deal with and the all weather gear they need every penny donated to the RNLI is very gratefully received
I’m full of admiration for all the RNLI volunteers. Love watching the BBC series, and some of the rescues are astonishing. The wife has a standing order donation to RNLI but we hope we never need rescue personally… Your son is a credit.
He is carrying on a seafaring tradition in our family, and has been filmed by the BBC for their series on BBC re a rescue he took part in off the Little Orme rescuing a father and son who had capsized their kayak and been in the water for over 40 minutes
General Melchett: Is this true, Blackadder? Did Captain Darling pooh-pooh you?
Captain Blackadder: Well, perhaps a little.
General Melchett: Well, then, damn it all! What more evidence do you need? The pooh-poohing alone is a court martial offense!
Captain Blackadder: I can assure you, sir, that the pooh-poohing was purely circumstantial.
General Melchett: Well, I hope so, Blackadder. You know, if there's one thing I've learnt from being in the Army, it's never ignore a pooh-pooh. I knew a Major, who got pooh-poohed, made the mistake of ignoring the pooh-pooh. He pooh-poohed it! Fatal error! 'Cos it turned out all along that the soldier who pooh-poohed him had been pooh-poohing a lot of other officers who pooh-poohed their pooh-poohs. In the end, we had to disband the regiment. Morale totally destroyed... by pooh-pooh!
That was a damned civil and generous post on the subject. Are you well?
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
The largest ever lead Miliband achieved was 16%, Starmer has bettered that and then some.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
The average lead of polls taken at least partially in December is 20%. So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots thought a 33% Labour lead would be replicated at the general election.
And I reckon they nobody thinks 20% leads will survive the duration either. The issue is the swingback is starting from a lot further back this time. We are 3 years into this Parliament. Average Labour leads at the equivalent time in May 2013 were 9-10%.
Circumstances are different too. Swingback is quite variable from GE to GE, sometimes negligible. Starmer imploding is always possible, but unlikely. I may not like his course, but he is strongly sticking to it. Sunak seems all over the place.
Some weird anti-charity misanthropy on here today.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
I've donated to Amnesty every month since I became student, stopped donating this year when they wrote some utter bollocks about Ukraine.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
Careful now, they’ll just waste it on lifeboats for rich yachties…
You are getting silly now. The stats are easily found. But yes, why waste money on African children being cured of blindness and malaria when there's English accountants need a tow back to port?
All about priorities.
The RNLI rescue lots of people, from all kinds of backgrounds.
Comments
Oh.
And because we are bringing Santa to see the kids with our sleigh, 99% of expletives love it. Makes the kids evenings.
Did you imagine I was a chugger, or something?
2. They take money off poor people who think they are saving the lives of other poor people. Reality is professional seamen are a small percentage of the people they rescue, it's mainly well heeled yachties who should be paying insurance against their own uselessness.
OTOH, if you are knocking up a whole street and it's not in K&C, you are necessarily knocking on the doors of a lot of poor people, many of whom will be guilt tripped into donating what they cannot afford. I mean, how are they meant to refuse you? "I already give" sounds like a lie, "I can't afford to" is humiliating, "Why should I" sounds a tad selfish, and "F*** off and die" is something most find unaccountably difficult to say. So, genuinely, what legitimate exits do you think you leave them?
I suspect the vast majority of people like to see what we are doing, but not everyone will of course.
To be fair, I am against unnecessary childhood blindness and the pointless slaughter of small birds, so you have about a quarter of a point.
Anyone yet identified distinct sister personalities?
Well done.
Bonus fact, Japanese for the pleiades is Subaru, which is why the badge is like that.
Anything in the models that confirms or denies the current forecasts that say basically it's super-cold up until around Friday and then it starts to get a bit warmer (not warm per se, but certainly clear above freezing even at night)?
TLDR: when will it sodding warm up a bit?
And I don't care what charity it is (the entire charity sector is badly tarnished)
Chucking a few quid their way seems the least one can do.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/12/trump-gop-senators-tim-scott-presidential-00073280
Not particularly likely, but far better value than Pompeo, who currently has similar odds.
Maybe I am just in a mildly misanthropic, non-charitable mood having read that remarkable thread about Sistah Space. It is quite shocking: the grift in the charitable sector
No problem from me, he was polite about it!
Sadly in the post covid age, coins are getting scarcer, and this may impact on how we try to collect in future.
My friend who stays in a wealthy part of town has had one charity person at their door in the past five years.
Tsk
Trend!
Look at how the most recent polling dots have the lower labour dots and higher Tory dots - the media and voters are increasingly seeing Sunak Hunt and Tory government as strong and stable so why should this narrowing trend end anytime soon?
Back in the summer when yougov put Tories just 1 point behind and I was suggesting complete opposite to this and proved right, the Tory polling position as inflated and to worsen against the political narrative, did you criticise me then, was a herd of Labour Rampers piling on me then? No.
The fact is Two things are against you. The political narrative of a strong stable and likeable government managing the crisis well is what is fuelling a closing of the poll gaps, and this moves closer to crossover with the incredible electoral mountain Labour need to climb. Win 120 seats and still not have a majority. As Mike explained, unlike Blair era No help coming from Scotland, it’s all on having to win Albion massively. What’s the first target swing 0.something%? But what’s the hundredth target seat 9% or more? And there is no uniform swing. Up the road 8% needed captured on 10% swing, down the road not far away, 5% needed only 3% Tory hold.
What’s the swing needed to take 100-150 seats? These are not just seats on loan to Tory’s, these are Tory seats that don’t go to Labour but they need to in order for Labour to have a majority - this is why this closing of polls right now is important, this trend is important, it’s leaving Labour needing to take traditional Tory seats against backdrop of 2 years of popular and effective and experienced Tory government under Hunt and Sunak.
That’s what I’m getting at.
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please do put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny, a ha-penny will do
If you haven't got a ha-penny than God bless you
In 1973 our round table decided to do a Christmas float at a time of fuel crisis with regular blackouts and indeed we used a tractor to pull the float and power the generator as we could not get petrol.
As we went along the unlit streets with our colourful float the joy of the parents and children to see us was truly humbling and yes, in some of the poorest areas, the generosity of giving was truly amazing
The float continues to this day and no doubt to the delight of parents and children in the same way and we did not knock on doors, ,just virtually everyone came out onto the street
All 100 % of the money collected was given to the children's homes to make their children's Christmas that much better
It's different with regulars like Poppy appeal, but they are far fewer these days.
Which just reinforces my policy of inviting chuggers to f off and die.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63943475
You make a valid point - it’s impossible to know if BMW guy is committing 50% of his income monthly to charities, and my anecdote may be grossly unfair on him.
But I bet he wasn’t.
Edit: Not thinking. I should have said 'another quarter's worth of the donation'.
Or maybe not, because since it appears to be emotional it's likely to manifest somewhere else.
In my day the routes were published in the local newspapers and all monies collected were donated to local children's homes for their Christmas
These are not chuggers as you disparagingly suggest
Maybe it's the downside of meritocracy as a worldview; the more one's success is down to one's own brilliance/virtue, the less inclination there is to be generous to those lower down. The more one thinks "there go I, but for the grace of God", the more sense charity and state redistribution make.
The float, collectors and Santa last night.
I think he’d like that.
I live in the country, I can't afford individual lighting for my sign and they mostly come after dark. Mostly.
Can you not see it, Mex Pex. To be generous back, you and others probably can’t see what I’m seeing because a double digit Labour lead of about 14 or 15 still looks strong and healthy to you? when benchmarked properly it isn’t.
It should be around here at this point anyway, anyway, even milliband got around here at this stage before a losing year. Also you should not see it as a gap to the Tories but benchmark only versus the unique electoral hurdle for Labour - ignore those who Baxter, there wil be no uniform swing. Benchmarked properly like that this lead isn’t all that decisive is it? And, ITS SHRINKING. Sunak’s government is becoming popular - Labour havn’t got at this one, Labour and it’s supporters in media don’t have the killer instinct when it comes to Sunak.
Reality: you are, I'm guessing, oldish, white, middle class and well heeled. The young, lower class and poor are easily soft-intimidated to giving to you. This bloke had the impertinence not to be.
I am having a tough time here. I am arguing for money to be donated by the rich to poor, hungry, blind children in Africa, not by the poor to yachties and Christmas floats and fucking kittens, and being made to feel bad about it by all and sundry, and by the only Marxist in the village.
Every Tory I know isn't going to be voting Tory next time because either:
- Truss really pissed them off
- Sunak taking over really pissed them off
I'm talking MEMBERS, let alone average voters....
My current MP is a friend of mine so I expect I'll vote for him; otherwise I think I'd spoil my ballot by scrawling 'LETS STOP EXPANDING THE STATE' all over it.
But it has been brassick for days. Unfortunately, it warmed up just enough to have a Biblical downpour of rain for about an hour Sunday afternoon. Which of course froze.
The pavements are about as treacherous as I ever can remember.
-5°C right now.
Top tip: if you accuse other posters of being humbugs and Scrooges, the danger is that they frame large bets about the extent of their charity donations (over a reasonable past history to ensure they are not just faking it) with the loser's payout being 4 figures to, say, UNICEF.
I am sure that doesn't worry you.
Fairly sure.
Unlike Miliband, Starmer leads Sunak on quite a few key supplementaries.
Provided the Trustees and Charity Commission are happy with its operations then it is a free market. Charity is by definition voluntary, no one being obliged to give. We each have our favourite causes and others not our cup of tea.
Tomorrow am expensive trip to the garage is on the cards.
For tonight I am glad to be alive - even if my lower back is in agony. So it's bed, tea, ibuprofen and some chocolate for me.
The RNLI are my main charity this year.
So. Yes it is off the peak, but I don't think anyone was claiming that would stay. And, no. It is nowhere near what Miliband had.
I wasn't expecting Sunak to be quite so poor, hiding away with his spreadsheets. I do hope he isn't planning the holidays in Santa Monica during the strikes and freeze. That would be Truss level.
Others clearly thought that.
It's not clear what the rewards are for your debagging though - pineaple pizzas seem out!
And if you want to imply that I "don't donate" because I don't donate to doorsteppers like you I am very, very happy to frame a bet with you about that, loser to pay 10% net annual income to charity of winners choice.
But I’ll always really remember him for The Gay Daleks.
Your son is a credit.
I give via my CAF account, as it means I can claim back at the higher rate of tax more easily. I occasionally give to collections too, but rarely carry loose change any more.
General Melchett: Is this true, Blackadder? Did Captain Darling pooh-pooh you?
Captain Blackadder: Well, perhaps a little.
General Melchett: Well, then, damn it all! What more evidence do you need? The pooh-poohing alone is a court martial offense!
Captain Blackadder: I can assure you, sir, that the pooh-poohing was purely circumstantial.
General Melchett: Well, I hope so, Blackadder. You know, if there's one thing I've learnt from being in the Army, it's never ignore a pooh-pooh. I knew a Major, who got pooh-poohed, made the mistake of ignoring the pooh-pooh. He pooh-poohed it! Fatal error! 'Cos it turned out all along that the soldier who pooh-poohed him had been pooh-poohing a lot of other officers who pooh-poohed their pooh-poohs. In the end, we had to disband the regiment. Morale totally destroyed... by pooh-pooh!
I keep on meaning to do a piece where the Labour lead gets bigger even if the Labour VI falls a bit.
The dog that hasn't barked, Reform on the 12% they got in 2015.
If "Anthony Fauci", i.e. the US government, was involved in gain of function biowar research in Wuhan, then who'd rule that out?
Paging @Leon. OpenAI and Elon Musk's Neuralink even have their HQs in the same building: the Pioneer Building in San Francisco. Bit of a giveaway. No other company is HQed there AFAIK. It's just the two of them. Neuralink develops machine-brain interfaces, i.e. high-bandwidth chips in yer 'ead, monitoring and influencing and communicating. Whether computer programs if they get superduper enough become conscious, although it's a question with an easy and simple answer ("No"), is a red herring.
"All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control."
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."
All about priorities.
That's different to 2019, when the anti-Jez vote was probably stronger than the anti-Boris one. It's also different to 2015, when the old anti-Tory coalition finally broke down. Forget Scotland for a moment- England saw a swing from Con to Lab in votes, but the Conservatives gaining more seats than Labour.
The guy didn’t ‘refuse ‘ me money, he said ‘no thanks mate, I’ve given enough’. And that was the end of it. I didn’t scratch his car, or egg his house, I walked off into the night.