I don’t know how often the wiki graph is updated, but it currently shows Labour going downwards and the Tories jumping upward quite steeply.
Are you living in an alternate reality? On what planet are the Tories going up?
As I predicted would happen, and did happen, the Tory’s enjoyed a good few weeks polling in early December, right across the board from nearly all pollsters - so not an alternate reality, the factual reality from December. Which I took flak for predicting would happen.
If you want to start a petition banning me from PB I would happily sign it. But I can’t post any more balanced, factual, and honest than I am already doing.
You predicted the polls would narrow actually. And they haven't.
I like you, why would I want you banned?
I just think you're not fooling anyone with this "I'm actually not a Tory honest" stuff lol
I agree. That snippet of a graph posted earlier actually showed the Tories bobbling along at a low poll rating; suggesting it showed a sharp increase was naughty, by the solid standards always maintained (HY excepted, obvs) on this site…
I wasn’t mentioning level but direction on graph. And I was spot on, asking when was this graph last updated, because table underneath doesn’t reflect it, and Sunil replied not recently.
Sorry if it meant anyone choked on their dinner 😤
People on this site ought to do better at reading a simple graph of dots and a moving average.
The Tories have clearly been bobbling along at the same level for some months, having twice recently averaged at the same level as currently. The moving average has dipped a couple of times and has just recovered from such a dip. Until and unless it breaks upwards from its range, there is currently zero evidence in that graph that the Tories are bouncing back, at all.
Stand back from the statistics and listen to the news headlines these last few days, and such a break out seems most unlikely.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
Starmer leads Sunak on ALL attributes bar personal health (tied)
Starmer leads on:
Can bring British people together (45% | 25%) Cares about people like me (42% | 21%) Can build a strong economy (39% | 35%) Knows how to get things done (35% | 31%)
That’s very close on building a strong economy. With recession now not happening, inflation plunging like a stone the coming months, Sunak and Hunt chaired round the room for turning around energy prices, inflation, averting recession, they could climb into a double digit lead on the economy?
I don’t know how often the wiki graph is updated, but it currently shows Labour going downwards and the Tories jumping upward quite steeply.
Are you living in an alternate reality? On what planet are the Tories going up?
As I predicted would happen, and did happen, the Tory’s enjoyed a good few weeks polling in early December, right across the board from nearly all pollsters - so not an alternate reality, the factual reality from December. Which I took flak for predicting would happen.
If you want to start a petition banning me from PB I would happily sign it. But I can’t post any more balanced, factual, and honest than I am already doing.
You predicted the polls would narrow actually. And they haven't.
I like you, why would I want you banned?
I just think you're not fooling anyone with this "I'm actually not a Tory honest" stuff lol
I agree. That snippet of a graph posted earlier actually showed the Tories bobbling along at a low poll rating; suggesting it showed a sharp increase was naughty, by the solid standards always maintained (HY excepted, obvs) on this site…
I wasn’t mentioning level but direction on graph. And I was spot on, asking when was this graph last updated, because table underneath doesn’t reflect it, and Sunil replied not recently.
Sorry if it meant anyone choked on their dinner 😤
The table does reflect the graph, or rather the graph reflects the table. You can clearly see the last three Labour scores 48%, 44% and 50% shown as points on the extreme right of the graph. Similarly, those last three Tory scores 26%, 30%, 24%.
Someone who understands LOESS better than me would have to explain the trend line but I have no reasons to believe it is not up to date with the table too.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
A Labour majority of 64 is not a landslide
Hang on, you say Boris Johnson winning a majority of 80 is a landslide, so winning eight fewer seats isn't a landslide?
I don’t know how often the wiki graph is updated, but it currently shows Labour going downwards and the Tories jumping upward quite steeply.
Are you living in an alternate reality? On what planet are the Tories going up?
As I predicted would happen, and did happen, the Tory’s enjoyed a good few weeks polling in early December, right across the board from nearly all pollsters - so not an alternate reality, the factual reality from December. Which I took flak for predicting would happen.
If you want to start a petition banning me from PB I would happily sign it. But I can’t post any more balanced, factual, and honest than I am already doing.
You predicted the polls would narrow actually. And they haven't.
I like you, why would I want you banned?
I just think you're not fooling anyone with this "I'm actually not a Tory honest" stuff lol
I agree. That snippet of a graph posted earlier actually showed the Tories bobbling along at a low poll rating; suggesting it showed a sharp increase was naughty, by the solid standards always maintained (HY excepted, obvs) on this site…
I wasn’t mentioning level but direction on graph. And I was spot on, asking when was this graph last updated, because table underneath doesn’t reflect it, and Sunil replied not recently.
Sorry if it meant anyone choked on their dinner 😤
The table does reflect the graph, or rather the graph reflects the table. You can clearly see the last three Labour scores 48%, 44% and 50% shown as points on the extreme right of the graph. Similarly, those last three Tory scores 26%, 30%, 24%.
Someone who understands LOESS better than me would have to explain the trend line but I have no reasons to believe it is not up to date with the table too.
Whoever plotted that line through those dots has used a fairly short-span moving average that is quite susceptible to individual outliers in the data. So that dip that has fooled Ms Rabbit into thinking the Tories are bouncing back arises from that single poll weeks back that had the Tories on 19%, which has just fallen out of the moving average.
Aside from that single data point, the very recent Tory poll ratings have fallen within the same range as the slightly less recent ones; one receding outlier a recovery does not make….
I don’t know how often the wiki graph is updated, but it currently shows Labour going downwards and the Tories jumping upward quite steeply.
Are you living in an alternate reality? On what planet are the Tories going up?
As I predicted would happen, and did happen, the Tory’s enjoyed a good few weeks polling in early December, right across the board from nearly all pollsters - so not an alternate reality, the factual reality from December. Which I took flak for predicting would happen.
If you want to start a petition banning me from PB I would happily sign it. But I can’t post any more balanced, factual, and honest than I am already doing.
You predicted the polls would narrow actually. And they haven't.
I like you, why would I want you banned?
I just think you're not fooling anyone with this "I'm actually not a Tory honest" stuff lol
I agree. That snippet of a graph posted earlier actually showed the Tories bobbling along at a low poll rating; suggesting it showed a sharp increase was naughty, by the solid standards always maintained (HY excepted, obvs) on this site…
I wasn’t mentioning level but direction on graph. And I was spot on, asking when was this graph last updated, because table underneath doesn’t reflect it, and Sunil replied not recently.
Sorry if it meant anyone choked on their dinner 😤
People on this site ought to do better at reading a simple graph of dots and a moving average.
The Tories have clearly been bobbling along at the same level for some months, having twice recently averaged at the same level as currently. The moving average has dipped a couple of times and has just recovered from such a dip. Until and unless it breaks upwards from its range, there is currently zero evidence in that graph that the Tories are recovering, at all.
Stand back from the statistics and listen to the news headlines these last few days, and such a break out seems most unlikely.
Nope. Not true at all. The Tories did get a polling honeymoon November, first part of December, rising with most pollsters sometimes by as much as 4 or 5 points. There was enthusiasm for Sunak and his government out there, like 2019 Tory now d/k suddenly became less shy or something. It was a surge not really related to a news narrative, maybe delayed love of the budget by a subsection of voters somewhere?
Next GE has to be no later than two years tomorrow, 24th January 2025.
But since that's a Friday, it probably has to be no later than two years from today: Thursday 23rd January 2025.
Plenty of time for the polls to turn. (They won't.)
The more interesting question is whether Sunak survives to the GE. I have tended to think that he will, simply because the Tories have already tried voters’ patience enough with their puerile infighting, have no solidly convincing leaders in waiting, and surely won’t be dumb enough to return to the clown. But Sunak’s hardly exhibiting strong-footed leadership, so you do begin to wonder…
Sunak is surprising on the downside, I really didn't expect him to be such a dipstick.
Next GE has to be no later than two years tomorrow, 24th January 2025.
But since that's a Friday, it probably has to be no later than two years from today: Thursday 23rd January 2025.
Plenty of time for the polls to turn. (They won't.)
The more interesting question is whether Sunak survives to the GE. I have tended to think that he will, simply because the Tories have already tried voters’ patience enough with their puerile infighting, have no solidly convincing leaders in waiting, and surely won’t be dumb enough to return to the clown. But Sunak’s hardly exhibiting strong-footed leadership, so you do begin to wonder…
Sunak is surprising on the downside, I really didn't expect him to be such a dipstick.
I am beginning to think he won't last the year.
His PM epitaph will be 'not as mad as Truss'
I said he was the better of the two candidates, back in the summer.
Turned out that was an even lower bar than I thought, and he's still barely cleared it.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
A Labour majority of 64 is not a landslide
Hang on, you say Boris Johnson winning a majority of 80 is a landslide, so winning eight fewer seats isn't a landslide?
No, as a majority has to be closer to 100 than 50 to be a landslide in my view.
Obviously a majority of 100+ is a landslide on any definition
Out of 10.4 GW of UK's offshore wind energy capacity 7.3% is owned by UK entities; 92.7% is owned by non-UK entities.
UK's off-shore wind power is not really our wind - it is owned by others. Yet we are told that the UK has a world-beating wind power industry.
The UK sometimes seems like the national equivalent of people who buy an iPhone on an overpriced 3 year contract.
Persuade me I'm wrong.
Try picking up that wind power and taking it somewhere else.
Try picking up the profits of that wind power and taking it somewhere el...
Oh, bye then!
Depends on what you consider its purpose is. Bear in mind many on here would be of the view that it should be nationalised anyway. What happens to the profits in that case? And more importantly what happens to the tax take?
I would posit that the primary purpose of power generation is to provide a reliable power supply for the nation.
After that, viewing it as an industry, once could say that its next purpose, once the first has been achieved is to provide employment locally.
Then its purpose is to provide taxation revenue for the Government.
All of these can be achieved whether the ultimate owner is British or Korean. Yes it would be better to have everything built in Britain by British companies and I would be delighted if that were the case but in a world where we import vast amounts of cheap rubbish from China and where the main purpose of wind generation is to contribute to a sustainable and secure energy supply in as short a time as possible, I would suggest that worrying about who ultimately owns the turbines - especially given they can't just be moved elsewhere - is far down our list of priorities.
Next GE has to be no later than two years tomorrow, 24th January 2025.
But since that's a Friday, it probably has to be no later than two years from today: Thursday 23rd January 2025.
Plenty of time for the polls to turn. (They won't.)
The more interesting question is whether Sunak survives to the GE. I have tended to think that he will, simply because the Tories have already tried voters’ patience enough with their puerile infighting, have no solidly convincing leaders in waiting, and surely won’t be dumb enough to return to the clown. But Sunak’s hardly exhibiting strong-footed leadership, so you do begin to wonder…
Sunak is surprising on the downside, I really didn't expect him to be such a dipstick.
I am beginning to think he won't last the year.
His PM epitaph will be 'not as mad as Truss'
I said he was the better of the two candidates, back in the summer.
Turned out that was an even lower bar than I thought, and he's still barely cleared it.
Next GE has to be no later than two years tomorrow, 24th January 2025.
But since that's a Friday, it probably has to be no later than two years from today: Thursday 23rd January 2025.
Plenty of time for the polls to turn. (They won't.)
The more interesting question is whether Sunak survives to the GE. I have tended to think that he will, simply because the Tories have already tried voters’ patience enough with their puerile infighting, have no solidly convincing leaders in waiting, and surely won’t be dumb enough to return to the clown. But Sunak’s hardly exhibiting strong-footed leadership, so you do begin to wonder…
Sunak is surprising on the downside, I really didn't expect him to be such a dipstick.
I am beginning to think he won't last the year.
His PM epitaph will be 'not as mad as Truss'
I said he was the better of the two candidates, back in the summer.
Turned out that was an even lower bar than I thought, and he's still barely cleared it.
He just seems to have terrible judgement.
He also has no overt fan club. He is supported by the "he surely can't be any worse than the previous two" crowd of MP's. He still has a bit to prove that he actually isn't. If he can't do that, and a credible contender (humongous if) emerges, then his fall could be swift indeed.
In Musk news, it turns out he doesn't even know how many characters a tweet can have:
"Yes, but obviously, there is a limit if you have 240 characters to what you can say. You can obviously be far more verbose in a filing, and everyone on Twitter understands that," Musk answered. (Twitter's character limit is 280 characters, but Musk repeatedly said it was 240 characters during his testimony.)"
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Sigh. How many times do we have to point out to you, Labour had more than 1 seat in Scotland in 2005 before you stop sounding like a scratched record?
205 Tory MPs would be more than the 198 Tory MPs Howard won in 2005
That’s not what you first said. You said Labour would be closer to 2005, as in how much power they will have in the commons.
if Labour get majority of 64 with just a single win in Scotland, surely the Lab v con in England is closer to 2001 than 2005? The point being you see, 2005 is a majority over all other parties, 2024 will be majority over all other parties, but what are the instincts of those other parties in opposition to Labour? minded to side with Tory’s in votes or against Tory amendments in votes?
It’s exactly there where you saying only 64 doesn’t tell the whole truth how powerful a legislative position Labour will be in.
A follow-up on that Nuscale AP license story: "A group of scientists at Oregon State continued the work. They built a test lab at one-third scale and inherited related patents from the university in 2007,[6][7] in exchange for an equity stake.[8] NuScale was founded that year. Its first funding round came in January 2008.[5] It began seeking certification with the NRC in February 2008." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power
So it's been not quite 15 years since they began "seeking certification".
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Sigh. How many times do we have to point out to you, Labour had more than 1 seat in Scotland in 2005 before you stop sounding like a scratched record?
205 Tory MPs would be more than the 198 Tory MPs Howard won in 2005
That’s not what you first said. You said Labour would be closer to 2005, as in how much power they will have in the commons.
if Labour get majority of 64 with just a single win in Scotland, surely the Lab v con in England is closer to 2001 than 2005? The point being you see, 2005 is a majority over all other parties, 2024 will be majority over all other parties, but what are the instincts of those other parties in opposition to Labour? minded to side with Tory’s in votes or against Tory amendments in votes?
It’s exactly there where you saying only 64 doesn’t tell the whole truth how powerful a legislative position Labour will be in.
In 2005 Labour had 62 LD MPs backing them on most issues other than Iraq too
Out of 10.4 GW of UK's offshore wind energy capacity 7.3% is owned by UK entities; 92.7% is owned by non-UK entities.
UK's off-shore wind power is not really our wind - it is owned by others. Yet we are told that the UK has a world-beating wind power industry.
The UK sometimes seems like the national equivalent of people who buy an iPhone on an overpriced 3 year contract.
Persuade me I'm wrong.
Try picking up that wind power and taking it somewhere else.
Try picking up the profits of that wind power and taking it somewhere el...
Oh, bye then!
Depends on what you consider its purpose is. Bear in mind many on here would be of the view that it should be nationalised anyway. What happens to the profits in that case? And more importantly what happens to the tax take?
I would posit that the primary purpose of power generation is to provide a reliable power supply for the nation.
After that, viewing it as an industry, once could say that its next purpose, once the first has been achieved is to provide employment locally.
Then its purpose is to provide taxation revenue for the Government.
All of these can be achieved whether the ultimate owner is British or Korean. Yes it would be better to have everything built in Britain by British companies and I would be delighted if that were the case but in a world where we import vast amounts of cheap rubbish from China and where the main purpose of wind generation is to contribute to a sustainable and secure energy supply in as short a time as possible, I would suggest that worrying about who ultimately owns the turbines - especially given they can't just be moved elsewhere - is far down our list of priorities.
"to provide a reliable power supply for the nation."
You need to add cost to that. We could make power generation much more robust by opening all the coal mines again, and forcing the grid to only buy locally produced energy. But because the cost per tonne would be north of $150, British consumers of electricity would be paying a very high price for greater reliability of supply.
(And would you want to stop a British firm from personally contracting for gas from Norway? The Norwegian government might object for a start.)
I don’t know how often the wiki graph is updated, but it currently shows Labour going downwards and the Tories jumping upward quite steeply.
Are you living in an alternate reality? On what planet are the Tories going up?
As I predicted would happen, and did happen, the Tory’s enjoyed a good few weeks polling in early December, right across the board from nearly all pollsters - so not an alternate reality, the factual reality from December. Which I took flak for predicting would happen.
If you want to start a petition banning me from PB I would happily sign it. But I can’t post any more balanced, factual, and honest than I am already doing.
You predicted the polls would narrow actually. And they haven't.
I like you, why would I want you banned?
I just think you're not fooling anyone with this "I'm actually not a Tory honest" stuff lol
I agree. That snippet of a graph posted earlier actually showed the Tories bobbling along at a low poll rating; suggesting it showed a sharp increase was naughty, by the solid standards always maintained (HY excepted, obvs) on this site…
I wasn’t mentioning level but direction on graph. And I was spot on, asking when was this graph last updated, because table underneath doesn’t reflect it, and Sunil replied not recently.
Sorry if it meant anyone choked on their dinner 😤
People on this site ought to do better at reading a simple graph of dots and a moving average.
The Tories have clearly been bobbling along at the same level for some months, having twice recently averaged at the same level as currently. The moving average has dipped a couple of times and has just recovered from such a dip. Until and unless it breaks upwards from its range, there is currently zero evidence in that graph that the Tories are recovering, at all.
Stand back from the statistics and listen to the news headlines these last few days, and such a break out seems most unlikely.
Nope. Not true at all. The Tories did get a polling honeymoon November, first part of December, rising with most pollsters sometimes by as much as 4 or 5 points. There was enthusiasm for Sunak and his government out there, like 2019 Tory now d/k suddenly became less shy or something. It was a surge not really related to a news narrative, maybe delayed love of the budget by a subsection of voters somewhere?
For about 10 days the Tories went up in nearly every poll, and way above MOE in a few of them - Redfield +3 Omnisis +5 Delta +4 Savanta +5 Yougov, opinium, Techne all up too. Fact.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
A Labour majority of 64 is not a landslide
It would be a miracle nonetheless.
It is over 50 years (1970) since a majority of over 50 went at one election to a majority of 30 the other way.
That is the only time it has happened in a peacetime election since we got a truly mass franchise in 1918.
Even before that it was quite rare. It happened in 1906, 1880, 1874. But I can't think of any other examples.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
A Labour majority of 64 is not a landslide
Hang on, you say Boris Johnson winning a majority of 80 is a landslide, so winning eight fewer seats isn't a landslide?
Which begs the question of whether there is an accepted definition of landslide in GE terms. Certainly the 2019 result was big, but it was shy of a three figure majority, and well shy of those achieved by Blair and Thatcher.
The Government approval and Sunak's approval numbers both down while Starmer's approval goes up and in the "best PM" contest, Starmer moves to a 5-point lead over Sunak (40-35).
Into the entrails and the 2019 Conservative vote splits 53% Conservative, 18% Labour, 14% Don't Know, 8% Reform and 4% LD.
The Conservatives lead 38-37 in the South East but trail 41-34 among over 65s.
Excluding the Don't Knows, the split for England is Labour 51%, Conservative 27%, Lib Dem 11%, Reform 7% and Green 3%. That's a swing of 18.5% from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Amber Valley, the 260th most marginal Conservative seat.
Today's Deltapoll is 205 Conservative seats and a Labour majority of just 64 on the new boundaries, closer to 2005 than 1997
Deltapoll is distinctly the most favourable pollster for the Cons. That doesn't mean that they are wrong of course. However, if your most favourable pollster has you losing by a landslide then maybe you are doing something wrong.
A Labour majority of 64 is not a landslide
It would be a miracle nonetheless.
It is over 50 years (1970) since a majority of over 50 went at one election to a majority of 30 the other way.
That is the only time it has happened in a peacetime election since we got a truly mass franchise in 1918.
Even before that it was quite rare. It happened in 1906, 1880, 1874. But I can't think of any other examples.
The next general election will also be only the 2nd time since 1918 a party in power is seeking a 5th consecutive general election win, the other was 1997
I think LibDems are safe almost nowhere, maybe in places where they have a big lead over Tories, but half their previous voters could go to Starmer next time even if the Tories recover.
I think this is just nonsense where they hold the seat - other than Scotland, they are all yellow-blue fights where they will romp home (by-elections gains aside, which are always tougher). There are also seats where Labour just aren't involved on the ground that they can gain.
Not saying "go back to your constituencies..." or that their polling numbers are good. But they are extremely safe in most of the limited number of places they hold.
Ok, but even in one of their safest seats - say Richmond Park - say a few thousand voters go to Starmer, and a few thousand rich people who hated Brexit and Boris are actually LESS motivated this time because Remain is a lost cause and a proper patrician demi-billionaire is running the country. Suddenly they need to rely on uniform national swing to sink the Tories. Now that is not guaranteed considering that they mostly relied on healthily exceeding UNS in those seats last time. Ok, I think they should win Richmond Park, but if Sunak lands on 34% in the end it'll be places like SW London where he beats UNS.
Out of 10.4 GW of UK's offshore wind energy capacity 7.3% is owned by UK entities; 92.7% is owned by non-UK entities.
UK's off-shore wind power is not really our wind - it is owned by others. Yet we are told that the UK has a world-beating wind power industry.
The UK sometimes seems like the national equivalent of people who buy an iPhone on an overpriced 3 year contract.
Persuade me I'm wrong.
Try picking up that wind power and taking it somewhere else.
Try picking up the profits of that wind power and taking it somewhere el...
Oh, bye then!
Depends on what you consider its purpose is. Bear in mind many on here would be of the view that it should be nationalised anyway. What happens to the profits in that case? And more importantly what happens to the tax take?
I would posit that the primary purpose of power generation is to provide a reliable power supply for the nation.
After that, viewing it as an industry, once could say that its next purpose, once the first has been achieved is to provide employment locally.
Then its purpose is to provide taxation revenue for the Government.
All of these can be achieved whether the ultimate owner is British or Korean. Yes it would be better to have everything built in Britain by British companies and I would be delighted if that were the case but in a world where we import vast amounts of cheap rubbish from China and where the main purpose of wind generation is to contribute to a sustainable and secure energy supply in as short a time as possible, I would suggest that worrying about who ultimately owns the turbines - especially given they can't just be moved elsewhere - is far down our list of priorities.
I'd certainly rather have a 1000 turbines, 100 of which are British-owned, than 200 turbines, all of which are British owned.
I do think we need to look more carefully at the ownership of infrastructure of national importance though.
Because there are posters on this site with a good track record of mostly putting their own views aside to analyse the politics to try and identify good betting opportunities.
Then there are those who have all too evidently allowed their partisan bias to inform what they purport to post as objective, if self-evidently flaky, analysis.
Then there are those in the middle like me who try to aspire to the former but sometimes struggle.
Like CHB, I’d guess that most PB’ers have you in the second camp. If it’s any consolation, CHB is with me in the third camp and for balance there are those like Heathener from the left also the second camp.
HYUFD is an example - probably the best - of somebody who is clearly a Tory but is also good at posting objective analysis. Richard similarly.
Stodge also knows what is going on, as do you Ian.
I think there will be a 30 point Labour lead because things seem to be getting worse not better, Sunak is proving himself to be hilariously incompetent and the public are becoming more in favour of strikes not less - and they are blaming the Government.
A 30 point lead isn't even hugely out there, we've already had such leads in this Parliament.
For what it's worth, I am one of the few who thinks it won't be a Labour majority. I still think it will be a Hung Parliament - and for me I would prefer such an outcome as I want PR implemented.
Next GE has to be no later than two years tomorrow, 24th January 2025.
But since that's a Friday, it probably has to be no later than two years from today: Thursday 23rd January 2025.
Plenty of time for the polls to turn. (They won't.)
The more interesting question is whether Sunak survives to the GE. I have tended to think that he will, simply because the Tories have already tried voters’ patience enough with their puerile infighting, have no solidly convincing leaders in waiting, and surely won’t be dumb enough to return to the clown. But Sunak’s hardly exhibiting strong-footed leadership, so you do begin to wonder…
Sunak is surprising on the downside, I really didn't expect him to be such a dipstick.
I am beginning to think he won't last the year.
I was chatting with a Corbynite friend of mine about Sunak. We both agreed he was alright. He's steadied the ship, boosted capital spending, raised the NI threshold whilst freezing the income tax one, led the way in sending tanks to Ukraine and seems to be actually committed to doing stuff. Not that there aren't downsides and a certain political naivety. But for some of us he still seems a refreshing change compared to his predecessors.
Having perused the thread today I wanted to raise a few points. Firstly 'Cardiff' airport. It's not a white elephant or a vanity project. It's actually Rhoose airport and was re-named Cardiff airport for the purposes of branding. It was an RAF site. There are obvious reasons why the Welsh government would be desperate for an airport with international destinations in Wales. The real question is why they paid so much money to acquire it?
On tax, I find it hard to see how a minister can pay a major penalty to HMRC and brush it off. The numbers involved are themselves enough to make many people uncomfortable. And the rate on CGT is only 18%. Our tax system is probably better than a lot of comparable countries if we gave it some thought.
I don’t know how often the wiki graph is updated, but it currently shows Labour going downwards and the Tories jumping upward quite steeply.
Are you living in an alternate reality? On what planet are the Tories going up?
As I predicted would happen, and did happen, the Tory’s enjoyed a good few weeks polling in early December, right across the board from nearly all pollsters - so not an alternate reality, the factual reality from December. Which I took flak for predicting would happen.
If you want to start a petition banning me from PB I would happily sign it. But I can’t post any more balanced, factual, and honest than I am already doing.
You predicted the polls would narrow actually. And they haven't.
I like you, why would I want you banned?
I just think you're not fooling anyone with this "I'm actually not a Tory honest" stuff lol
I agree. That snippet of a graph posted earlier actually showed the Tories bobbling along at a low poll rating; suggesting it showed a sharp increase was naughty, by the solid standards always maintained (HY excepted, obvs) on this site…
I wasn’t mentioning level but direction on graph. And I was spot on, asking when was this graph last updated, because table underneath doesn’t reflect it, and Sunil replied not recently.
Sorry if it meant anyone choked on their dinner 😤
The table does reflect the graph, or rather the graph reflects the table. You can clearly see the last three Labour scores 48%, 44% and 50% shown as points on the extreme right of the graph. Similarly, those last three Tory scores 26%, 30%, 24%.
Someone who understands LOESS better than me would have to explain the trend line but I have no reasons to believe it is not up to date with the table too.
In fact today's Redfield 48-26 is not yet in the graph.
Seems we are being invited to reduce our peak energy use as the windfarms are becalmed by the cold weather
And yet the demand is for even more windfarms when we really need nuclear and tidal to guarantee constant energy supply if we end gas usage
It could be a very long time until we can dispense with gas
We obviously can't dispense with gas, or coal for that matter. The idea is to vastly reduce it during windy and sunny times, or even storing gas/coal for intermittent use. And yes, developing Nuclear as well. It's called a mixed system. We should never put all our eggs in one basket. Obviously there is a demand for more wind farms, like all other sources!
I am in favour of additional wind generation but it does depend on 'wind' and often in very cold weather the wind is not at all reliable as we are seeing just now
Storage when there is wind?
I would assume storage has a role to play
Interestingly under today’s calm cold conditions we are currently generating 5.3gw of wind power, which is greater than our nuclear generation.
Whilst more wind power doesn’t eliminate the problem of intermittency it certainly reduces it. With 4x the current capacity (perfectly feasible especially with new larger turbines coming on) we’d be generating half of our electricity from wind even on a still, high demand night like tonight.
We need more wind (much much more), more solar with built in battery storage, more nuclear, further progress on energy efficiency, more cross border interconnecters to balance European supply and demand, more grid scale storage of various types, and backup gas generation until such time as it’s no longer needed.
I'm sorry but this post is utter rubbish - both according to basic logic, and current real life. All these wind providers must be paid. They get paid to shut off when their power is too much for the grid - currently hundreds of millions a year. The capacity increase you're proposing would propel constraint payments into the stratosphere, all only for half of electricity supply on a low wind night? It's power generation for the severely numerically-challenged. Your barmy theories are why UK energy production is in its pitiful state.
I’m proud to know that my PB posts have had such a profound and important impact on our power system.
We’ve gone over the subsidy and constraint payment canard dozens of times on here before yet you always end up stating the same assumptions.
Constraint payments are a feature of regional imbalances, not national surplus, and insufficient grid carriage capacity largely because sometimes more wind power is generated in the North and Scotland than the grid capacity able to carry it South. Until recently it had to make its way down the equivalent of narrow b roads. The issue is being actively addressed by investment from national grid. Ie they are building big cables to carry the power to where it’s needed.
A lot of anti wind rhetoric seems to take one little issue (take your pick: planning eyesore birds being hit by blades, what about when it’s calm, constraint payments etc) and conclude the answer is therefore to stop wind power and spend our money on old fossil fuel technologies instead. This ignores the problems with them (climate change aside there is air pollution, geopolitical risk, planning etc) and also ignores the fact that in most case there are solutions to the original issue.
It is not a canard, and my recollection of previous discussions is that when people have dismissed the cost of constraint and subsidy, they have moved on from the discussion pretty quickly after the true figures were brought to the table.
I am aware that in many cases, local grid deficiencies mean wind farms have to constrain - that's why they build them in those locations. The grid can be made more robust, but it will never be a bottomless pit, and the overcapacity you're talking about would result in vastly more problems both locally, and, on windy days, nationally. The UK billpayer would be on the hook for every kw produced, and not produced.
The answer is not to 'stop' wind power, or even 'stop' subsidies (which would have the same effect), but to reorganise the subsidy regime to prevent the worst abuses, and incentivise storage and reselling of power amongst wind providers. Meanwhile, invest in reliable, non-intermittent renewables like tidal, and domestic fossil fuel production to clamp down on imported coal, gas and timber, which add even more carbon to the atmosphere. Not increase the issue four-fold ffs.
24/73 services from Leeds to Manchester showing already as planned cancellations, that will not show up on the cancellation stats.
That's 15 below the full service as 1tph still doesn't run due to reduced timetable.
So 49/88 of the full service running on a normal day, even before the reliability stats and in running cancellations and delays kick in. This is typical and impacts the various fringes to the core route worse.
As a plus, morning rush hour still has most service running.
This is normal.
And, selecting the 0745 on National Rail, the only ticket showing to buy is not the standard walk up return £35 ish, but a £175.20 second class Advanced ticket - the standard fare is not available on National Rail. In fact a £73.60 single Advance fare is the only fare showing for any of the fastest Transpennine trains to Victoria.
I think LibDems are safe almost nowhere, maybe in places where they have a big lead over Tories, but half their previous voters could go to Starmer next time even if the Tories recover.
I think this is just nonsense where they hold the seat - other than Scotland, they are all yellow-blue fights where they will romp home (by-elections gains aside, which are always tougher). There are also seats where Labour just aren't involved on the ground that they can gain.
Not saying "go back to your constituencies..." or that their polling numbers are good. But they are extremely safe in most of the limited number of places they hold.
Ok, but even in one of their safest seats - say Richmond Park - say a few thousand voters go to Starmer, and a few thousand rich people who hated Brexit and Boris are actually LESS motivated this time because Remain is a lost cause and a proper patrician demi-billionaire is running the country. Suddenly they need to rely on uniform national swing to sink the Tories. Now that is not guaranteed considering that they mostly relied on healthily exceeding UNS in those seats last time. Ok, I think they should win Richmond Park, but if Sunak lands on 34% in the end it'll be places like SW London where he beats UNS.
He doesn't need to beat UNS. He needs to break the swingometer.
And even to the extent Sunak wins back some ground from where Johnson arrived by the end, a lot of lasting damage was done. The base he's coming off isn't 2019 but 2022, when the Conservatives were absolutely annihilated in local elections in places like Richmond Park.
The idea he's flipping seats even on 34% is absolutely for the birds.
41 likes to 1.1 million views = a 0.004% like rate. I have no idea what calculation lies behind the continuing silence and inaction from the Labour leadership here, but presumably not this one.
In fairness it’s now 45 likes…..and 1.3 million views…and Labour’s spin doctor has been caught in a lie:
Rosie Duffield, an ex-assistant teacher, single mother and survivor of domestic abuse, won @UKLabour a seat they thought was unwinnable. Post-Corbyn, she was returned to parliament with an increased majority.
This is rumbling on. Couple of inaccurate comments from this chap (unsure how he thinks he knows so much about my constituency as no Labour leader has been there since I became an MP?). Also, no, I haven't been in to see Keir Starmer 'a number of times', once - in September 2021.
Comments
The Tories have clearly been bobbling along at the same level for some months, having twice recently averaged at the same level as currently. The moving average has dipped a couple of times and has just recovered from such a dip. Until and unless it breaks upwards from its range, there is currently zero evidence in that graph that the Tories are bouncing back, at all.
Stand back from the statistics and listen to the news headlines these last few days, and such a break out seems most unlikely.
Someone who understands LOESS better than me would have to explain the trend line but I have no reasons to believe it is not up to date with the table too.
Consider rather the relative positions.
198 seats in 2005 was a net gain of 33.
205 in 2024 would be a net loss of 160, which is not far off how many Major lost in 1997 (172, in raw terms).
But really, the 2nd Amendment's implications here should give us all paws for thought.
Aside from that single data point, the very recent Tory poll ratings have fallen within the same range as the slightly less recent ones; one receding outlier a recovery does not make….
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t38nxiAXwxs
Turned out that was an even lower bar than I thought, and he's still barely cleared it.
He just seems to have terrible judgement.
Obviously a majority of 100+ is a landslide on any definition
I would posit that the primary purpose of power generation is to provide a reliable power supply for the nation.
After that, viewing it as an industry, once could say that its next purpose, once the first has been achieved is to provide employment locally.
Then its purpose is to provide taxation revenue for the Government.
All of these can be achieved whether the ultimate owner is British or Korean. Yes it would be better to have everything built in Britain by British companies and I would be delighted if that were the case but in a world where we import vast amounts of cheap rubbish from China and where the main purpose of wind generation is to contribute to a sustainable and secure energy supply in as short a time as possible, I would suggest that worrying about who ultimately owns the turbines - especially given they can't just be moved elsewhere - is far down our list of priorities.
He is supported by the "he surely can't be any worse than the previous two" crowd of MP's.
He still has a bit to prove that he actually isn't.
If he can't do that, and a credible contender (humongous if) emerges, then his fall could be swift indeed.
if Labour get majority of 64 with just a single win in Scotland, surely the Lab v con in England is closer to 2001 than 2005? The point being you see, 2005 is a majority over all other parties, 2024 will be majority over all other parties, but what are the instincts of those other parties in opposition to Labour? minded to side with Tory’s in votes or against Tory amendments in votes?
It’s exactly there where you saying only 64 doesn’t tell the whole truth how powerful a legislative position Labour will be in.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power
So it's been not quite 15 years since they began "seeking certification".
Edinburgh Trams to Newhaven (ie. Leith)
West Midlands Metro to Wolverhampton station
Blackpool Trams to Blackpool North station
You need to add cost to that. We could make power generation much more robust by opening all the coal mines again, and forcing the grid to only buy locally produced energy. But because the cost per tonne would be north of $150, British consumers of electricity would be paying a very high price for greater reliability of supply.
(And would you want to stop a British firm from personally contracting for gas from Norway? The Norwegian government might object for a start.)
Redfield +3
Omnisis +5
Delta +4
Savanta +5
Yougov, opinium, Techne all up too. Fact.
That is the only time it has happened in a peacetime election since we got a truly mass franchise in 1918.
Even before that it was quite rare. It happened in 1906, 1880, 1874. But I can't think of any other examples.
New thread
This thread eats shoots and leaves. And you have to blame second amendment for that.
I do think we need to look more carefully at the ownership of infrastructure of national importance though.
Stodge also knows what is going on, as do you Ian.
I think there will be a 30 point Labour lead because things seem to be getting worse not better, Sunak is proving himself to be hilariously incompetent and the public are becoming more in favour of strikes not less - and they are blaming the Government.
A 30 point lead isn't even hugely out there, we've already had such leads in this Parliament.
For what it's worth, I am one of the few who thinks it won't be a Labour majority. I still think it will be a Hung Parliament - and for me I would prefer such an outcome as I want PR implemented.
Having perused the thread today I wanted to raise a few points. Firstly 'Cardiff' airport. It's not a white elephant or a vanity project. It's actually Rhoose airport and was re-named Cardiff airport for the purposes of branding. It was an RAF site. There are obvious reasons why the Welsh government would be desperate for an airport with international destinations in Wales. The real question is why they paid so much money to acquire it?
On tax, I find it hard to see how a minister can pay a major penalty to HMRC and brush it off. The numbers involved are themselves enough to make many people uncomfortable. And the rate on CGT is only 18%. Our tax system is probably better than a lot of comparable countries if we gave it some thought.
But all other polls are.
I am aware that in many cases, local grid deficiencies mean wind farms have to constrain - that's why they build them in those locations. The grid can be made more robust, but it will never be a bottomless pit, and the overcapacity you're talking about would result in vastly more problems both locally, and, on windy days, nationally. The UK billpayer would be on the hook for every kw produced, and not produced.
The answer is not to 'stop' wind power, or even 'stop' subsidies (which would have the same effect), but to reorganise the subsidy regime to prevent the worst abuses, and incentivise storage and reselling of power amongst wind providers. Meanwhile, invest in reliable, non-intermittent renewables like tidal, and domestic fossil fuel production to clamp down on imported coal, gas and timber, which add even more carbon to the atmosphere. Not increase the issue four-fold ffs.
24/73 services from Leeds to Manchester showing already as planned cancellations, that will not show up on the cancellation stats.
That's 15 below the full service as 1tph still doesn't run due to reduced timetable.
So 49/88 of the full service running on a normal day, even before the reliability stats and in running cancellations and delays kick in. This is typical and impacts the various fringes to the core route worse.
As a plus, morning rush hour still has most service running.
This is normal.
And, selecting the 0745 on National Rail, the only ticket showing to buy is not the standard walk up return £35 ish, but a £175.20 second class Advanced ticket - the standard fare is not available on National Rail. In fact a £73.60 single Advance fare is the only fare showing for any of the fastest Transpennine trains to Victoria.
And even to the extent Sunak wins back some ground from where Johnson arrived by the end, a lot of lasting damage was done. The base he's coming off isn't 2019 but 2022, when the Conservatives were absolutely annihilated in local elections in places like Richmond Park.
The idea he's flipping seats even on 34% is absolutely for the birds.
41 likes to 1.1 million views = a 0.004% like rate. I have no idea what calculation lies behind the continuing silence and inaction from the Labour leadership here, but presumably not this one.
https://twitter.com/LucyHunterB/status/1617697774442786816
In fairness it’s now 45 likes…..and 1.3 million views…and Labour’s spin doctor has been caught in a lie:
Rosie Duffield, an ex-assistant teacher, single mother and survivor of domestic abuse, won @UKLabour a seat they thought was unwinnable. Post-Corbyn, she was returned to parliament with an increased majority.
This is how Labour repays her.
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1617586725030592520?
This is rumbling on. Couple of inaccurate comments from this chap (unsure how he thinks he knows so much about my constituency as no Labour leader has been there since I became an MP?). Also, no, I haven't been in to see Keir Starmer 'a number of times', once - in September 2021.
https://twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1617499864241426432