The Last Days of Saigon By now many of you will have seen last night’s article on Craig Murray’s site, in which a current SNP branch convener revealed how the party machine is setting fire to all its own rules in a desperate attempt to secure the succession of Humza Yousaf. Yousaf is the party establishment’s last hope of keeping all of its misdeeds in the last few years under wraps, and realising the magnitude of what’s at stake if he loses to Ash Regan or Kate Forbes, they’re abandoning all pretence of neutrality or integrity and throwing everything they’ve got at getting him elected. https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-last-days-of-saigon/
That was a really good piece yesterday although the conclusion that Useless should withdraw seemed disproportionate. The Borders MSP misusing the database on the other hand....
It does highlight that they are determined to rig the vote , if Humza gets beaten there will be skeletons by the ton falling from the closets. Nothing is beyond them for sure.
THings have moved on a bit - now livestreamed (and a good thing too).
Australia collapsed from 186/4 to 197 all out this morning.
That's the sort of collapse Labour need to experience for the Tories to get a lead.
22 wickets in less than a day and a half? I don't like easy batting pitches, but in India, they've decided that the pitch should turn square on day 1.
Yes, this is a joke. If even the Indian players are struggling to play the likes of Nathan Lyon there is something very wrong somewhere.
Indian batters were struggling to play the spin of Joe Root a couple of winters ago.
Joe Root is underrated. He has 50 odd test wickets as a part time spinner. That’s a pretty good haul. Of course turning pitches help, but I don’t think I’d take wickets with my gentle tweakers.
I think it probably helps that batsmen don't rate him, so they don't always play the right shot. Mark Waugh used to pick up wickets for much the same reason.
Speaking of wickets, Kemar Roach is really bowling well here.
Saffers doing a good job of handing the match back to the Womens Institute. 76-7 now.
Btw, I don't often advise bets on here now but I think the spread on India 2nd innings is way out. You can sell at 203. Neither side beat 200 in the first innings and the pitch ain't getting any better.
They're at tea so you have a few moments to think about it.
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Australia collapsed from 186/4 to 197 all out this morning.
That's the sort of collapse Labour need to experience for the Tories to get a lead.
22 wickets in less than a day and a half? I don't like easy batting pitches, but in India, they've decided that the pitch should turn square on day 1.
Yes, this is a joke. If even the Indian players are struggling to play the likes of Nathan Lyon there is something very wrong somewhere.
Indian batters were struggling to play the spin of Joe Root a couple of winters ago.
Joe Root is underrated. He has 50 odd test wickets as a part time spinner. That’s a pretty good haul. Of course turning pitches help, but I don’t think I’d take wickets with my gentle tweakers.
I think it probably helps that batsmen don't rate him, so they don't always play the right shot. Mark Waugh used to pick up wickets for much the same reason.
Speaking of wickets, Kemar Roach is really bowling well here.
Saffers doing a good job of handing the match back to the Womens Institute. 76-7 now.
Btw, I don't often advise bets on here now but I think the spread on India 2nd innings is way out. You can sell at 203. Neither side beat 200 in the first innings and the pitch ain't getting any better.
They're at tea so you have a few moments to think about it.
The instant Pujara is out, you would expect India to implode. Unless he does something really special, as in Laxman-style special, you would think 200 is way beyond them.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
What does ending free movement actually mean? What is the motivation behind having less competition for jobs? They didn't do so on principle - they did so because they want to be better off. The primary driver was the allegation that too many migrants means downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on houses / schools / hospitals.
Just removing migrants isn't the end game you describe. That is just the enabler for the end game. And after years of failing to show any prospects of the boost to jobs / services, Sunak is now saying only for NI and not for you.
You won't admit it because ideologue, but your party is going to get absolutely torn to pieces over this. Red wall voters - as I keep pointing out - aren't stupid. Which rather torpedoes your entire political philosophy which assumes they are. And to be fair, with some of the red wall MPs you gained in 2019 I can understand why you assume the voters are mince like them.
Freedom of movement will level out within the EU as the Eastern European countries get wealthier. If we had stayed in, we probably would have ended up a net beneficiary with the constant flow of our elderly for retirement to the south continuing, while many younger people would no longer need to come here because of the opportunities at home.
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
Why do people keep bringing up Tory paedo Jimmy Saville? Who wants to hear about his long standing support for the Tory party, friendship with Margaret Thatcher etc? Seriously, nobody wants to hear about notorious nonce and massive Tory Jimmy Saville. Just leave it, OK?
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
No 1, for a man, sure. For a woman, distinct element of trickiness ...
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Answer WHY they want the things you say they want. Then you will understand why denying them the benefits of those things will screw your party.
Or keep sneering. Its good entertainment either way.
On topic, Mike is right to point out that the gap between pollsters is extraordinary. I cannot recall them ever being larger. The size of the Labour lead is so large that it probably gives more room for variation but even so. We are surely going to see some clustering at some point.
It's not at all unprecedented in my view.
Looking at the polls in 1996 gives even wider Labour lead spreads e.g. between 14% and 39.5% in January, 16% - 31% in Feb, 14% - 34.5% in March.
Interestingly, in periods when the average lead is lower the spread of pollsters leads is also much lower.
Some further analysis might be interesting and if there was a readily downloadable spreadsheet of historic polling I'd be happy to do it. Unfortunately, extracting the, otherwise useful, Wiki tables into a spreadsheet is a complete ball-ache.
If you have excel it is quite easy.
Go to the Data menu. Select Get Data from Web Put in the relevant URL A list of the tables on that web page will appear, select the one you want and proceed from there.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
No 1, for a man, sure. For a woman, distinct element of trickiness ...
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
I’d leave it 3 orbits if I were you..
I went to see the cosmonauts exhibiton in the Science Museum in 2019. It was a revelation to see how small the Soyuz capsule was. About the same size as a lavatory cubicle (except the kind designed by people-hating modern architects). For three people. And you can't even step outside while your colleague does a messy No 2.
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
No 1, for a man, sure. For a woman, distinct element of trickiness ...
The outpouring of positivity about Sunak’s fairly minor agreement on a niche subject took me aback a little. Quite rare that one political event causes such a huge reset.
I think those who say the don’t knows will come back to the Tories are right. Particularly in the middle classes. I get a sense a whole cohort of performatively fed up “former Tory voters” have been hoping for the flimsiest of reasons to come back home now Boris is out of the way, and this provided it.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
The permission for a judicial review was recently refused by a High Court Judge
"construction still cannot commence as TAN have now requested that its application be heard at a High Court oral hearing. "
I don't understand why the article states the judge "refused" a JR. Clearly the end of the (same sentence !) indicates a refusal was not within his powers.
This sort of stuff seems to go on with immigration law too -always another way out...
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
No 1, for a man, sure. For a woman, distinct element of trickiness ...
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Given the troubles space toilets have traditionally had, that's truer than you think.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
Fitting a vacuum pee tube can't be too tricky. No. 2s must be a lumpier problem though.
I’d leave it 3 orbits if I were you..
I went to see the cosmonauts exhibiton in the Science Museum in 2019. It was a revelation to see how small the Soyuz capsule was. About the same size as a lavatory cubicle (except the kind designed by people-hating modern architects). For three people. And you can't even step outside while your colleague does a messy No 2.
Soyuz is incredibly cramped - you see pictures of the cosmonauts in those seats, with cargo squeezed in all between them. In comparison, Dragon 2 is incredibly spacious (I think D2 was designed to carry up to ?seven? people, but currently only has seats for four.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
It's honestly good for single issue campaigners to expand. The world is on fire we must everything possible to stop that is a clear, effective rallying cry. Adding in other worthy causes and realising the need to balance things where those goals may slightly conflict is a positive development when moving from simply rallying people to trying to propose real world options.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Redwall was an abbey, it didn't have voters.
Very questionable from a democratic point of view, with troubling apartheid-like division between the blessed animals and the 'vermin', redolent of pre-civil rights United States.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
On topic, Mike is right to point out that the gap between pollsters is extraordinary. I cannot recall them ever being larger. The size of the Labour lead is so large that it probably gives more room for variation but even so. We are surely going to see some clustering at some point.
It's not at all unprecedented in my view.
Looking at the polls in 1996 gives even wider Labour lead spreads e.g. between 14% and 39.5% in January, 16% - 31% in Feb, 14% - 34.5% in March.
Interestingly, in periods when the average lead is lower the spread of pollsters leads is also much lower.
Some further analysis might be interesting and if there was a readily downloadable spreadsheet of historic polling I'd be happy to do it. Unfortunately, extracting the, otherwise useful, Wiki tables into a spreadsheet is a complete ball-ache.
If you have excel it is quite easy.
Go to the Data menu. Select Get Data from Web Put in the relevant URL A list of the tables on that web page will appear, select the one you want and proceed from there.
I wans't aware of that, very neat trick, I'll have to try it.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
One thing the last few days have taught me is shoehorning the Conservatives out of office is going to be a tall order. The Conservatives client press are creaming themselves over Sunak's deal in the same way they were over Johnson's. There is no real analysis, the narrative is simply black and white. So what of the Richard Sharp BBC, surely they will look at both sides of any argument, just for balance, but no.
With their media masters on side, there is (and with a little justification) a spring in the Conservative step. Record food inflation, don't worry, but the economy grew by a whopping 0.1% in January. Green shoots abound everywhere.
I note on these threads too, the hitherto absent Tory cheerleaders have found their singing voices again. None moreso than HYUFD who is giving it the full 30p.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
The permission for a judicial review was recently refused by a High Court Judge
"construction still cannot commence as TAN have now requested that its application be heard at a High Court oral hearing. "
I don't understand why the article states the judge "refused" a JR. Clearly the end of the (same sentence !) indicates a refusal was not within his powers.
This sort of stuff seems to go on with immigration law too -always another way out...
Yes, that confused me too. I'm not enough of a lawyer to understand it; I took it to mean that a HC judge had refused the application for a JR, but there is still another route (oral hearing) by which they can apply for their JR.
And in the meantime, costs go up. Two or three months delay so far.
If I had my way, I'd recommission Caxton Gibbett for them. (I'm joking, obvs.)
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Only if the benefits of being part of the CPTTP are greater than the benefits of being part of the EU.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Yeah, nobody will mention it ever again and we'll all live torily after.
The outpouring of positivity about Sunak’s fairly minor agreement on a niche subject took me aback a little. Quite rare that one political event causes such a huge reset.
I think those who say the don’t knows will come back to the Tories are right. Particularly in the middle classes. I get a sense a whole cohort of performatively fed up “former Tory voters” have been hoping for the flimsiest of reasons to come back home now Boris is out of the way, and this provided it.
My view is that this shows that when Sunak has the time, he is able to orchestrate an effective political campaign on a specific issue.
That is not the same as having a strategic coherent vision, or managing succinctly the day to day political ephemera.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
Necessity is the mother of invention though. The Ukraine war has shown this. Ask any energy analyst back in January 2022 whether Germany and the rest of Western Europe could entirely overcome its dependence on Russian oil imports in less than 12 months and they'd have said no. It would cause too much hardship and economic pain. Ask anyone in February 2020 whether an effective vaccine for a novel Coronavirus could be developed, approved and rolled out globally in less than a year and again they would have said no way. So there is a lot to be said for holding the flaming torch at the backside of the global economy and forcing change. The ultimate result would be a much richer, healthier and economically efficient world population even if the whole of climate change was an elaborate hoax.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
I notice @hyufd didn't take me up on my challenge yesterday namely:
"Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?"
To be honest he could do because Starmer isn't going to waste his time suing every tom, dick and harry that libels him.
This business of lying about someone, because someone on the other side lied about someone on your side belongs in the primary school playground. hyufd antics are incredibly childish.
The outpouring of positivity about Sunak’s fairly minor agreement on a niche subject took me aback a little. Quite rare that one political event causes such a huge reset.
I think those who say the don’t knows will come back to the Tories are right. Particularly in the middle classes. I get a sense a whole cohort of performatively fed up “former Tory voters” have been hoping for the flimsiest of reasons to come back home now Boris is out of the way, and this provided it.
My view is that this shows that when Sunak has the time, he is able to orchestrate an effective political campaign on a specific issue.
That is not the same as having a strategic coherent vision, or managing succinctly the day to day political ephemera.
I'm just not sure he needs the coherent vision or management skills. All he needs is one or two minor wins and the hordes of congenitally Tory-inclined voters will swarm back home. (Or at least enough of them will do so to deny Labour a workable majority).
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Blimey. Talk about hope over experience Big-G!
Well yes, some will never give up their hope of joining the EU but membership of the CPTTP is not compatible with membership of the EU
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
One thing the last few days have taught me is shoehorning the Conservatives out of office is going to be a tall order. The Conservatives client press are creaming themselves over Sunak's deal in the same way they were over Johnson's. There is no real analysis, the narrative is simply black and white. So what of the Richard Sharp BBC, surely they will look at both sides of any argument, just for balance, but no.
With their media masters on side, there is (and with a little justification) a spring in the Conservative step. Record food inflation, don't worry, but the economy grew by a whopping 0.1% in January. Green shoots abound everywhere.
I note on these threads too, the hitherto absent Tory cheerleaders have found their singing voices again. None moreso than HYUFD who is giving it the full 30p.
As a former Tory I'm happy with what Sunak has achieved in the last few days. The deal is in my eyes a good continuation of what Boris had achieved and is pretty much what I expected when the Protocol Bill came out, and the "unicorn" I wanted even when Theresa May was PM.
However do not for a second let that be taken to mean that I will be voting Tory at the next election. As others have said, most British voters don't actually care much about Northern Ireland and I'll happily admit to being in that majority.
For me I've still not forgiven Sunak for raising National Insurance, even if Truss reversed it, it was a massive betrayal of trust. And I don't forgive Sunak and Hunt for spending our taxes on double-digit pay increases to those who aren't working while cutting working people's pay by 7%+ in real terms.
If the Tories don't stand for those who work for a living and want to get on in life, then they don't stand for me, and I won't vote for them. Brexit or Northern Ireland doesn't change that.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
If the world economy grows at ~3.5% per annum, it doubles in size approximately every twenty years. The unpleasant truth is that if we want to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, we need to pursue degrowth, both of the economy, and of the global population. Not only does that mean an inevitable decline in living standards, it also creates a demographic problem for the future - too many old people and not enough bum wipers, essentially.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Blimey. Talk about hope over experience Big-G!
Well yes, some will never give up their hope of joining the EU but membership of the CPTTP is not compatible with membership of the EU
Nor was membership of the Commonwealth as it was constituted in 1970. But that didn't stop the debate.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Yes, I doubt CPTTP membership will be that much of a game changer. Speaking as an employee of a global company, that market is already supplied by other regions of the company, so won't matter a fig to me. And I suspect it's a similar story across British industry. Europe is still the biggest game in town. You can't wish that away.
The outpouring of positivity about Sunak’s fairly minor agreement on a niche subject took me aback a little. Quite rare that one political event causes such a huge reset.
I think those who say the don’t knows will come back to the Tories are right. Particularly in the middle classes. I get a sense a whole cohort of performatively fed up “former Tory voters” have been hoping for the flimsiest of reasons to come back home now Boris is out of the way, and this provided it.
My view is that this shows that when Sunak has the time, he is able to orchestrate an effective political campaign on a specific issue.
That is not the same as having a strategic coherent vision, or managing succinctly the day to day political ephemera.
I think it shows that there are a lot of powerful people (Murdoch, big donors) who are behind Sunak and are desperate to maintain the power and patronage they obtain from the Tories being in office. Will it feed through into electoral behaviour? For sure. Is it enough for the Tories to form the next government? I doubt it.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Or you tell them that the government has brought them:
1) Full employment - not experienced in those areas since the 1960s 2) Affordable housing - unlike southern England
But I get the impression that for many Conservatives neither full employment nor affordable housing are deemed to be good things and so are not to be praised to those who are benefiting from them.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
I notice @hyufd didn't take me up on my challenge yesterday namely:
"Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?"
To be honest he could do because Starmer isn't going to waste his time suing every tom, dick and harry that libels him.
This business of lying about someone, because someone on the other side lied about someone on your side belongs in the primary school playground. hyufd antics are incredibly childish.
My point Starmer should show some guts as he did when expelling Corbyn and expel Labour for a Republic from any association with the Labour Party after their appalling tweet yesterday however remains
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
Not knowing anything about this (but why should that stop me commenting? )
If the indigneous peoples of Norway are not (and have not been) great users of energy and so haven't contributed to the crisis that needs fixing and are not (a big part) of the requirement for clean energy then I can see the argument. Otherwise, not so much.
I can see that it could be unfair, for example, to cut down a large swathe of forest occupied by indigenous peoples in Brazil to construct a hydro-electric project if the indigenous peoples are not going to benefit from the electricity produced. However, I suspect that's a much clearer cut issue than in Norway - we're talking about the Sámi? The correct approach surely is to to get their consent, provide payment/compensation and look carefully at the impacts on them, rather than a blanket ban.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
Necessity is the mother of invention though. The Ukraine war has shown this. Ask any energy analyst back in January 2022 whether Germany and the rest of Western Europe could entirely overcome its dependence on Russian oil imports in less than 12 months and they'd have said no. It would cause too much hardship and economic pain. Ask anyone in February 2020 whether an effective vaccine for a novel Coronavirus could be developed, approved and rolled out globally in less than a year and again they would have said no way. So there is a lot to be said for holding the flaming torch at the backside of the global economy and forcing change. The ultimate result would be a much richer, healthier and economically efficient world population even if the whole of climate change was an elaborate hoax.
I've argued for the non-climate change benefits of moving to a 'green' economy many times on here.
But the move away from Russian oil and gas, whilst necessary, *has* caused hardship and economic pain. Lots of it, in fact. I'm pleased that we're doing it, but it was a forced move - and I doubt there will be much CO2 reduction because of the change. Indeed, with Germany moving back to coal, there might be increases.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
If the world economy grows at ~3.5% per annum, it doubles in size approximately every twenty years. The unpleasant truth is that if we want to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, we need to pursue degrowth, both of the economy, and of the global population. Not only does that mean an inevitable decline in living standards, it also creates a demographic problem for the future - too many old people and not enough bum wipers, essentially.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
We need to pursue growth via clean technologies. End of story. Any notions of degrowth are ridiculous nonsense, technology is both the cause of and solution to life's problems.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
One former minister as far as I know, appealing to the producer interest lobby, is saying so. He's wrong. And plenty of people agree with me that cheap, high-quality food is good for the consumer, even if producer squealing gets more attention.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Redwall was an abbey, it didn't have voters.
Redwall voters are typically economically centre left but socially conservative and pro Brexit.
They typically voted Labour in 2010, Labour or UKIP in 2015, Labour in 2017 but Conservative in 2019
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Blimey. Talk about hope over experience Big-G!
Well yes, some will never give up their hope of joining the EU but membership of the CPTTP is not compatible with membership of the EU
Depends how you define "membership of the CPTTP" and "the EU". By EU you of course mean EEA - which is not the same thing at all. And will the CPTTP deal mean that our ports are open to free and unchecked trade within the block? As we had to sign a trilateral deal to kill UK farming with AuzNZ imports that seems unlikely.
I think you are getting carried away with your enthusiasm on this one. Basic practicalities mean the Pacific thing won't replace the EEA, not that we are going to get open border unchecked free trade from it in any case. Which means no problem for continued close alignment with the EEA.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
Necessity is the mother of invention though. The Ukraine war has shown this. Ask any energy analyst back in January 2022 whether Germany and the rest of Western Europe could entirely overcome its dependence on Russian oil imports in less than 12 months and they'd have said no. It would cause too much hardship and economic pain. Ask anyone in February 2020 whether an effective vaccine for a novel Coronavirus could be developed, approved and rolled out globally in less than a year and again they would have said no way. So there is a lot to be said for holding the flaming torch at the backside of the global economy and forcing change. The ultimate result would be a much richer, healthier and economically efficient world population even if the whole of climate change was an elaborate hoax.
Yes, the war in Ukraine is a good parallel. Had we not imposed sanctions on Russia, fuel would not have become as expensive as it has over the past year. But very few people would suggest that sanctions were the wrong decision because of the hardship caused by higher prices. Ultimately, we have to accept that success in the long term sometimes necessitates hardship in the short term, though we should of course do our best to mitigate that hardship and ensure that the burden is spread fairly.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Blimey. Talk about hope over experience Big-G!
Well yes, some will never give up their hope of joining the EU but membership of the CPTTP is not compatible with membership of the EU
Probably not in our lifetimes BigG., nonetheless it is not for us to hamstring the hopes and ambitions of our children and grandchildren. Nothing is forever as EU membership demonstrated. Britain as a lone wolf in Europe scavenging for crumbs may not dovetail with our successors' plans.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
If the world economy grows at ~3.5% per annum, it doubles in size approximately every twenty years. The unpleasant truth is that if we want to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, we need to pursue degrowth, both of the economy, and of the global population. Not only does that mean an inevitable decline in living standards, it also creates a demographic problem for the future - too many old people and not enough bum wipers, essentially.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
Absolutely the case. A naturally declining global population will help cool things a bit (with all the demographic problems that brings) but it’s technology that gets us out of this. And technology only develops quickly when there is a strong financial imperative to do so.
The Last Days of Saigon By now many of you will have seen last night’s article on Craig Murray’s site, in which a current SNP branch convener revealed how the party machine is setting fire to all its own rules in a desperate attempt to secure the succession of Humza Yousaf. Yousaf is the party establishment’s last hope of keeping all of its misdeeds in the last few years under wraps, and realising the magnitude of what’s at stake if he loses to Ash Regan or Kate Forbes, they’re abandoning all pretence of neutrality or integrity and throwing everything they’ve got at getting him elected. https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-last-days-of-saigon/
That was a really good piece yesterday although the conclusion that Useless should withdraw seemed disproportionate. The Borders MSP misusing the database on the other hand....
It does highlight that they are determined to rig the vote , if Humza gets beaten there will be skeletons by the ton falling from the closets. Nothing is beyond them for sure.
THings have moved on a bit - now livestreamed (and a good thing too).
Yes but extremely limited and same with media access Carnyx. Fact that they count the votes then it will be like previous ones where they will stuff the votes till Useless wins. No one knows how many members there are other than Murrell and he will be running the vote , counting and proclaiming Humza king unless there are big changes. Banana republic stuff.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
One former minister as far as I know, appealing to the producer interest lobby, is saying so. He's wrong. And plenty of people agree with me that cheap, high-quality food is good for the consumer, even if producer squealing gets more attention.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
We absolutely should be promoting British produce - as the French and Spanish do. Yet we have seen an accelerating decline in production numbers. We saw a capacity squeeze in the EEA mean that the UK was largely cut-off from imports - hence the lack of availability. Has we even as much domestic production as we had a decade ago we would have ridden the gap without much of an issue.
Sadly we have slashed subsidy for our producers and the EEA haven't. We have made farm labour scarce and expensive and the EU haven't. No wonder that even "let them eat Turnips" sneering was met with "we've stopped growing enough of them" from an industry which is truly fucked off with fuckwittery from DEFRA and their keyboard warrior clueless ideologue fanbois like your good self.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Redwall was an abbey, it didn't have voters.
Redwall voters are typically economically centre left but socially conservative and pro Brexit.
They typically voted Labour in 2010, Labour or UKIP in 2015, Labour in 2017 but Conservative in 2019
You have no idea what Redwall, as opposed to the Red Wall, is, do you?
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
Necessity is the mother of invention though. The Ukraine war has shown this. Ask any energy analyst back in January 2022 whether Germany and the rest of Western Europe could entirely overcome its dependence on Russian oil imports in less than 12 months and they'd have said no. It would cause too much hardship and economic pain. Ask anyone in February 2020 whether an effective vaccine for a novel Coronavirus could be developed, approved and rolled out globally in less than a year and again they would have said no way. So there is a lot to be said for holding the flaming torch at the backside of the global economy and forcing change. The ultimate result would be a much richer, healthier and economically efficient world population even if the whole of climate change was an elaborate hoax.
I've argued for the non-climate change benefits of moving to a 'green' economy many times on here.
But the move away from Russian oil and gas, whilst necessary, *has* caused hardship and economic pain. Lots of it, in fact. I'm pleased that we're doing it, but it was a forced move - and I doubt there will be much CO2 reduction because of the change. Indeed, with Germany moving back to coal, there might be increases.
The lesson I took from the struggles this year was that we’d left ourselves over dependent on gas in the first place - the energy transition in domestic heating we are now talking about (and addressing our woeful insulation) could have been started a decade ago and we’d be in a far better position to combat Russia.
Germany on the other hand shouldn’t have insisted on such a contrary position on nuclear power.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
One former minister as far as I know, appealing to the producer interest lobby, is saying so. He's wrong. And plenty of people agree with me that cheap, high-quality food is good for the consumer, even if producer squealing gets more attention.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
We absolutely should be promoting British produce - as the French and Spanish do. Yet we have seen an accelerating decline in production numbers. We saw a capacity squeeze in the EEA mean that the UK was largely cut-off from imports - hence the lack of availability. Has we even as much domestic production as we had a decade ago we would have ridden the gap without much of an issue.
Sadly we have slashed subsidy for our producers and the EEA haven't. We have made farm labour scarce and expensive and the EU haven't. No wonder that even "let them eat Turnips" sneering was met with "we've stopped growing enough of them" from an industry which is truly fucked off with fuckwittery from DEFRA and their keyboard warrior clueless ideologue fanbois like your good self.
Since you're worried about subsidies and worried about competition from New Zealand I propose a compromise. Lets set subsidies at the same level New Zealand does, so we can compete on a level playing field.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Or you tell them that the government has brought them:
1) Full employment - not experienced in those areas since the 1960s 2) Affordable housing - unlike southern England
But I get the impression that for many Conservatives neither full employment nor affordable housing are deemed to be good things and so are not to be praised to those who are benefiting from them.
Pensioners are generally not focused on jobs or on affordable housing. The former does not affect them, the latter is generally against their interests. And, as with the rest of the country, Red Wall Tory voters tend to be older homeowners.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
If the world economy grows at ~3.5% per annum, it doubles in size approximately every twenty years. The unpleasant truth is that if we want to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, we need to pursue degrowth, both of the economy, and of the global population. Not only does that mean an inevitable decline in living standards, it also creates a demographic problem for the future - too many old people and not enough bum wipers, essentially.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
We need to pursue growth via clean technologies. End of story. Any notions of degrowth are ridiculous nonsense, technology is both the cause of and solution to life's problems.
Yep. Improvement in technology is our only way out of this, but it strikes me as extremely unlikely we'll get there in time. And, as you rightly point out, degrowth is completely unpalatable to both western and developing nations. So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, where there is clearly going to be substantial climate change over the next 50 years or so, which is going to present its own problems in the form of mass migration etc.
There was a recent academic paper published in the UK that suggested the way to fix global warming is rationing. Rationing petrol, limiting long haul flights, even giving people a non-tradeable 'carbon allowance' on a credit-card style carbon card. Do that and there *will* be riots, and I'll be out there with the rioters. It's proper "you will eat ze bugs" stuff. It's utterly dystopian, but this is where the bien pensant intelligentsia is starting to coalesce.
Yesterday I said nobody would touch Oakshott with a barge pole again, to which several of you replied 'they said that the last time'. Yep I have looked those up and I have liked each and every one of those posts that I noticed who put me right.
It is difficult to believe people can be so stupid to confide in her.
There is a public interest case sometime and possibly this time, but she is clearly very untrustworthy and a nasty piece of work.
The Chris Huhne/Vicky Price cases is interesting. It is difficult to understand how people get themselves into these positions. I can only assume they think it is a little white lie and its not important and the issue spirals out of their control. Jeffery Archer similarly. I have sympathy in both cases, but if you are going to commit perjury you have to take the consequences. I'm sure both thought at each stage they had to go on with the deception, but if they had their time again would never have started it. In the case of Chris Huhne why the hell didn't he just take the driving ban. He had a bucket load of points already. It was just a matter of time and why did it matter so much. Bonkers.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
Right, the problem here is that (as with pretty much everything we do) the burdens will tend to fall disproportionately on those at the bottom of the heap, both locally and globally. But that doesn't of itself mean we should do nothing or do less -- because that *also* will tend to hit the already-struggling the most.
If you know a workable way of fixing what seems to be an inevitability of human nature, capitalism and power, we should probably take it...
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
There's a strong whiff of Mr Creosote in the "just one more road" argument...
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
It may be 'inconvenience' to you; but for some people the rise in the cost of energy is much more serious.
Just one in 50 applicants for jobs at Pret a Manger are British, its director of human resources told a parliamentary committee.
The high street chain employs 110 different nationalities with 65% of its workforce coming from EU countries other than Britain, Andrea Wareham told the House of Lords economic affairs select committee on Wednesday.
She said the company would find it virtually impossible to find enough staff if it were forced to turn its back on EU nationals after Brexit.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
I notice @hyufd didn't take me up on my challenge yesterday namely:
"Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?"
To be honest he could do because Starmer isn't going to waste his time suing every tom, dick and harry that libels him.
This business of lying about someone, because someone on the other side lied about someone on your side belongs in the primary school playground. hyufd antics are incredibly childish.
My point Starmer should show some guts as he did when expelling Corbyn and expel Labour for a Republic from any association with the Labour Party after their appalling tweet yesterday however remains
Yep that is fine. Don't have an issue with that. But that is not what you said initially is it?
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Redwall was an abbey, it didn't have voters.
Redwall voters are typically economically centre left but socially conservative and pro Brexit.
They typically voted Labour in 2010, Labour or UKIP in 2015, Labour in 2017 but Conservative in 2019
You have no idea what Redwall, as opposed to the Red Wall, is, do you?
However we were discussing the typical Redwall voter ie some who is socially conservative, economically centre left, voted for Brexit, may own their own home which will be cheaper than the national average but will also tend to have a below average income.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
If the world economy grows at ~3.5% per annum, it doubles in size approximately every twenty years. The unpleasant truth is that if we want to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, we need to pursue degrowth, both of the economy, and of the global population. Not only does that mean an inevitable decline in living standards, it also creates a demographic problem for the future - too many old people and not enough bum wipers, essentially.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
We need to pursue growth via clean technologies. End of story. Any notions of degrowth are ridiculous nonsense, technology is both the cause of and solution to life's problems.
Yep. Improvement in technology is our only way out of this, but it strikes me as extremely unlikely we'll get there in time. And, as you rightly point out, degrowth is completely unpalatable to both western and developing nations. So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, where there is clearly going to be substantial climate change over the next 50 years or so, which is going to present its own problems in the form of mass migration etc.
There was a recent academic paper published in the UK that suggested the way to fix global warming is rationing. Rationing petrol, limiting long haul flights, even giving people a non-tradeable 'carbon allowance' on a credit-card style carbon card. Do that and there *will* be riots, and I'll be out there with the rioters. It's proper "you will eat ze bugs" stuff. It's utterly dystopian, but this is where the bien pensant intelligentsia is starting to coalesce.
Squint hard enough at the horizon, and you can see where all of this stuff will lead in twenty, thirty years time.
We aren't struck between a rock and a hard place, because degrowth would never do anything anyway.
Driving a low fuel efficiency 5% less doesn't get you to net zero, as you still have 95% of the emissions being released. Flying a bit less doesn't get you there either, as you still have almost all of the emissions there too. Having fewer children won't get you there, since the overwhelming majority who'd be alive in 2050 are already alive today anyway.
This is where "Green" fanatics are completely ungreen and unscientific. They've got the wrong solution to the right problem. Trying to tackle climate change by consuming less is about as successful as trying to tackle obesity by eating one fewer sweet per week.
We need a wholesale transformation to tackle climate change and the only solution to that is science and technology. Not driving less, but driving clean. Not consuming less, but consuming clean. Not flying less, but flying clean. Clean technologies, not fewer people or fewer commodities.
Wow. Amazing revelations about Matt Hancock. Absolutely unbelievable. You need at least a basic level of judgement and common-sense for a career in politics, esp as a cabinet minister, and this guy clearly never had it. Everyone - literally everyone - knows you don't trust Isabel Oakeshott.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
He even misses the point about hanging. It isn't popular in high crime areas because people want to see public hangings in the village green for a day out. Its because its a high crime area and they want a Big Deterrent to stop the scummers who destroy their communities and their lives.
The solution is to flood police and justice and probation services with resources. Nick the criminals, lock up the criminals, rehabilitate the criminals. Then flood the communities with investment in jobs and services and education. Stop the next generation becoming scummers.
Instead, local Tories are doing the opposite - fewer police on the ground, courts unable to prosecute, a slashed probation service letting lags out, schools and hospitals overwhelmed and crumbling.
Red wall voters can't feed their kids on sovereignty. Can't secure their homes with a bring back hanging poster. They wanted the action they were promised. Yet HY and his party just sneer at them and call them thick.
The only reason Redwall voters would vote Conservative again is to keep free movement ended, stop ECJ jurisdiction in the UK again and maybe bring back hanging for serial killers and to stop gender neutral bathrooms and changing sex without medical approval for under 18s.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
Redwall was an abbey, it didn't have voters.
Redwall voters are typically economically centre left but socially conservative and pro Brexit.
They typically voted Labour in 2010, Labour or UKIP in 2015, Labour in 2017 but Conservative in 2019
You have no idea what Redwall, as opposed to the Red Wall, is, do you?
However we were discussing the typical Redwall voter ie some who is socially conservative, economically centre left, voted for Brexit, may own their own home which will be cheaper than the national average but will also tend to have a below average income.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
There's a strong whiff of Mr Creosote in the "just one more road" argument...
You have a point, but if that "just one more road" could be the M4 Southern link at Newport that would help me immeasurably.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact. The next inflation figures come out on the 22nd and are likely to show that inflation is down to 9% or so. That will psychologically feel better and may move things more.
The annual rate of inflation went up in several Eurozone countries in February. There may be a nasty surprise in the inflation figures.
Food prices are still rising rapidly but the large fuel price increases of early last year will be replaced by falls and that should drag the overall rate down a bit. But we will undoubtedly hear more about individual inflation rates as the remaining increases will be disproportionately hitting the poor. And let's face it, 9% isn't exactly good.
Inflation is hard to push out of economies.
It's a variation on a queuing theory problem - the primary cause of inflation (fuels prices) sets off a series of secondary waves (price rises, wage increases) which in turn set off other waves of inflation. These bounce around the economy, keeping inflation alive, long after the primary cause has passed.
Yesterday I said nobody would touch Oakshott with a barge pole again, to which several of you replied 'they said that the last time'. Yep I have looked those up and I have liked each and every one of those posts that I noticed who put me right.
It is difficult to believe people can be so stupid to confide in her.
There is a public interest case sometime and possibly this time, but she is clearly very untrustworthy and a nasty piece of work.
The Chris Huhne/Vicky Price cases is interesting. It is difficult to understand how people get themselves into these positions. I can only assume they think it is a little white lie and its not important and the issue spirals out of their control. Jeffery Archer similarly. I have sympathy in both cases, but if you are going to commit perjury you have to take the consequences. I'm sure both thought at each stage they had to go on with the deception, but if they had their time again would never have started it. In the case of Chris Huhne why the hell didn't he just take the driving ban. He had a bucket load of points already. It was just a matter of time and why did it matter so much. Bonkers.
Unless, of course, you are the former chief executive of a certain unitary authority, who has committed perjury and naked fraud in a dozen settings over the years and mysteriously never been prosecuted because one of his co-defendants wasn't very well.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
It's probably better to pick a pace that actually avoids disastrous climate change. You don't win a war by dedicating only enough resources that still allow you to "grow and improve as a country and society"; you dedicate enough resources to win it, even if that means some hardship in the short term.
Good. So when people complain about not being able to afford energy bills, or food (growing and transporting food requires energy), you'll accept that these policies have a detrimental effect? Or will it all be the government's fault?
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
Obviously we need to combat climate change in a way that mitigates hardship as far as possible, but in the end the necessary pace needs to be dictated by the desired result rather than the need to avoid inconvenience. Otherwise our epitaph may be, "Sorry we messed up the world kids, but it turned out there was no way that we could stop it without compromising our standard of living." That's not really a good look.
If the world economy grows at ~3.5% per annum, it doubles in size approximately every twenty years. The unpleasant truth is that if we want to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, we need to pursue degrowth, both of the economy, and of the global population. Not only does that mean an inevitable decline in living standards, it also creates a demographic problem for the future - too many old people and not enough bum wipers, essentially.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
AI is going to make all of this irrelevant in good and bad ways. You’re worrying about the rural economy on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution
The outpouring of positivity about Sunak’s fairly minor agreement on a niche subject took me aback a little. Quite rare that one political event causes such a huge reset.
I think those who say the don’t knows will come back to the Tories are right. Particularly in the middle classes. I get a sense a whole cohort of performatively fed up “former Tory voters” have been hoping for the flimsiest of reasons to come back home now Boris is out of the way, and this provided it.
My view is that this shows that when Sunak has the time, he is able to orchestrate an effective political campaign on a specific issue.
That is not the same as having a strategic coherent vision, or managing succinctly the day to day political ephemera.
I think it shows that there are a lot of powerful people (Murdoch, big donors) who are behind Sunak and are desperate to maintain the power and patronage they obtain from the Tories being in office. Will it feed through into electoral behaviour? For sure. Is it enough for the Tories to form the next government? I doubt it.
Very pertinent point, in my adult life, Labour have only ever won, when they had the backing of Murdoch, the cards are always stacked against a Labour victory, the Tories have 80% of the written press, 2 tv channels churning out their garbage, ohh and also the Chairman of the bbc is definitely onside, these forces will do whatever they can to get the Tories re elected, anyone who thinks Labour without the backing of any of these, will come anywhere near 150+ majority, is seriously deluded
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
One former minister as far as I know, appealing to the producer interest lobby, is saying so. He's wrong. And plenty of people agree with me that cheap, high-quality food is good for the consumer, even if producer squealing gets more attention.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
We absolutely should be promoting British produce - as the French and Spanish do. Yet we have seen an accelerating decline in production numbers. We saw a capacity squeeze in the EEA mean that the UK was largely cut-off from imports - hence the lack of availability. Has we even as much domestic production as we had a decade ago we would have ridden the gap without much of an issue.
Sadly we have slashed subsidy for our producers and the EEA haven't. We have made farm labour scarce and expensive and the EU haven't. No wonder that even "let them eat Turnips" sneering was met with "we've stopped growing enough of them" from an industry which is truly fucked off with fuckwittery from DEFRA and their keyboard warrior clueless ideologue fanbois like your good self.
Since you're worried about subsidies and worried about competition from New Zealand I propose a compromise. Lets set subsidies at the same level New Zealand does, so we can compete on a level playing field.
We aren't competing with New Zealand as much as we are with France and Spain etc. They are large, New Zealand is far away..
What has happened to the US (and UK) recession? Basically, the jobs market proved much more resilient than anticipated, just as we have seen in the UK. The tech redundancy wave in the US was more of an outlier and less indicative of a falling demand for labour. Here too, we have seen unemployment remaining stubbornly low. There has been a reduction in vacancies but they remain very high.
I remember Ronald Reagan's old aphorism. A recession is when your neighbour loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And a recovery, he said pointing at Jimmy Carter, is when you lose yours.
If we get through a bumpy year with no real uptick in unemployment that might do the Tories more good than anything else.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
There's a strong whiff of Mr Creosote in the "just one more road" argument...
Yes we don't need just one more road, we need lots more roads. And we need clean vehicles to be able to drive over them cleanly.
Frustrating driving doesn't help climate change and getting people stuck in traffic due to a shortage of infrastructure makes it harder not easier to tackle it. Ensuring that our transportation is clean and emission-free does tackle climate change.
In local news, there's an interesting double by-election in Littlemore & Rose Hill today, one of the more working class parts of Oxford. Both city and county seats are up for election. Both were held by Labour, though by two different councillors (the county one was beyond hopeless and had, I believe, the worst attendance record on the whole council; I don't know the city one at all; it seems curious that they resigned at the same time).
Littlemore has one of Oxford's much-discussed Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes. There's an Independent standing on a platform of opposition to it, and the Tories have come out against it too (even though they pushed LTNs, and implemented several, while in control of the county council).
The LibDems and Greens aren't making much of an effort - Littlemore isn't fertile territory for either of them. As usual for East Oxford there are TUSC candidates too.
I think it'll come down to Labour vs Independent, and if pushed I'd say Labour will hold it, but it's far from a done deal.
So... Greta Thurnberg. Apparently the climate emergency is so vast that we must all change the way we live, at a vast cost to economies and people's welfare.
Yet wind turbines cannot be built on the land of indigenous peoples in Norway, for ... reasons.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can’t happen at the expense of some people,” Thunberg told Reuters on Monday."
Why do only the rights of indigenous people matter? Why should any of us suffer by progressing green energy faster than the economy can sustain?
(Dons flameproof coat)
You feel she's insufficiently fanatical? The consensus view among most people concerned about climate change is that we do need to take substantial action including lifestyle changes, but not that absolutely no other considerations can be made. We can argue about whether indigenous rights are important (I'm not much bothered about them, but Scandinavians do tend to feel differently), but it doesn't invalidate her position to concede the need for some exceptions.
Or Welsh Labour's stupid cancellation of the entire road building program.
I'm not arguing against work to prevent climate change; just that we have to pick a pace that doesn't help send people into food and other types of poverty, and allows us to grow and improve as a country and society.
There's a strong whiff of Mr Creosote in the "just one more road" argument...
Well, I'm also heavily in favour of more rail, too. And more busses.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Blimey. Talk about hope over experience Big-G!
Might, might not. The future isn't ours to tell, after all.
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Blimey. Talk about hope over experience Big-G!
Well yes, some will never give up their hope of joining the EU but membership of the CPTTP is not compatible with membership of the EU
Which, one suspects, is the key attraction for some people. After all, the UK has FTAs with most of the big economies of CPTTP, as does the EU.
However, compared with the great national debate over joining the EEC, then over leaving the EU, this one does seem to be rather sneaking under the radar. And whilst everyone would like a break from Eurotalk, I'm not sure we should cut it off as an option for future Britain quite so quickly. Implying that a vote in 2016 must stand forever doesn't seem like a nice thing to do.
In a democracy, shouldn't we, you know, discuss things a bit? And accept that the possibility of changing our mind is a good thing?
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
One former minister as far as I know, appealing to the producer interest lobby, is saying so. He's wrong. And plenty of people agree with me that cheap, high-quality food is good for the consumer, even if producer squealing gets more attention.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
We absolutely should be promoting British produce - as the French and Spanish do. Yet we have seen an accelerating decline in production numbers. We saw a capacity squeeze in the EEA mean that the UK was largely cut-off from imports - hence the lack of availability. Has we even as much domestic production as we had a decade ago we would have ridden the gap without much of an issue.
Sadly we have slashed subsidy for our producers and the EEA haven't. We have made farm labour scarce and expensive and the EU haven't. No wonder that even "let them eat Turnips" sneering was met with "we've stopped growing enough of them" from an industry which is truly fucked off with fuckwittery from DEFRA and their keyboard warrior clueless ideologue fanbois like your good self.
Since you're worried about subsidies and worried about competition from New Zealand I propose a compromise. Lets set subsidies at the same level New Zealand does, so we can compete on a level playing field.
We aren't competing with New Zealand as much as we are with France and Spain etc. They are large, New Zealand is far away..
If nearby countries are our competitors, should we minimise how much we import from them to avoid giving their economies a boost?
I suspect a lot of Don't Knows will return to the Tories on the back of all the positive headlines. The trick will be keeping them there. I always add the Tory and Reform numbers together. If you do that with the Techne and BMG polls you start getting close to a number that would prevent a Labour majority. That said, tactical voting is the great unknown. With so many people online and with more targeted info available, it is going to be easier than ever to do.
Good morning
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
Confirmation of accession to CPTTP? Could be another handy milestone for him
Yes, thank you I overlooked that news yesterday that agreement is due in the next couple of months and of course that would be a huge story as it would end the debate on rejoining the EU
Or, CPTTP only reminds everyone of the catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal. The direction of travel is back to reality - accepting that the EEA is our biggest market and despite the damage we have done to trade its primacy isn't under threat.
Catastrophic?
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
You are pretty much the only person of that opinion. Even the ministers responsible accept that it is a disaster for British farming and are saying so.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
One former minister as far as I know, appealing to the producer interest lobby, is saying so. He's wrong. And plenty of people agree with me that cheap, high-quality food is good for the consumer, even if producer squealing gets more attention.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
We absolutely should be promoting British produce - as the French and Spanish do. Yet we have seen an accelerating decline in production numbers. We saw a capacity squeeze in the EEA mean that the UK was largely cut-off from imports - hence the lack of availability. Has we even as much domestic production as we had a decade ago we would have ridden the gap without much of an issue.
Sadly we have slashed subsidy for our producers and the EEA haven't. We have made farm labour scarce and expensive and the EU haven't. No wonder that even "let them eat Turnips" sneering was met with "we've stopped growing enough of them" from an industry which is truly fucked off with fuckwittery from DEFRA and their keyboard warrior clueless ideologue fanbois like your good self.
Since you're worried about subsidies and worried about competition from New Zealand I propose a compromise. Lets set subsidies at the same level New Zealand does, so we can compete on a level playing field.
We aren't competing with New Zealand as much as we are with France and Spain etc. They are large, New Zealand is far away..
So you completely disagree then with the person who wrote about "catastrophic Truss AuzNZ farming deal" at the start of this conversation then?
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
I notice @hyufd didn't take me up on my challenge yesterday namely:
"Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?"
To be honest he could do because Starmer isn't going to waste his time suing every tom, dick and harry that libels him.
This business of lying about someone, because someone on the other side lied about someone on your side belongs in the primary school playground. hyufd antics are incredibly childish.
Would HYUFD qualify as a Tom or a Dick or a Harry?
The sad truth is that the vast majority of mainland Brits don't give tuppence about NI and I remain of the view Sunak's success there will have little impact.
I was about to say the same thing.
I can see this affecting the polls in one of two ways, though. First, it could give Sunak the air of competence and order - two qualities notably missing from Johnson and Truss. If the Conservatives are to have any hope of regaining their position, they need to be thought of as competent once again.
Second, it’s equally possible this may reawaken the headbangers. If it leads to yet another bout of Tory backbenchers “banging on about Europe” (tm), the Tory vote share could drop still further.
Third - lets play the scenario where grudgingly the ERG and DUP accept it. It becomes very quickly clear through this year that being both able to trade within the UK and in the EEA is hugely beneficial. "The Prime Minister's brilliant deal has secured a world-beating deal for Northern Ireland" say ministers.
Great - so why can't GB have this deal? When pressed the same ministers flip over and start saying how the world beating deal would be a terrible deal for GB. When pressed why they start obsfucating, then objecting to the question.
Meanwhile, Brexit-voting first time Tories see NI thriving and Fuck All happening in their shitbox red wall town and "I didn't vote Brexit to get poorer" really starts to resonate. Some posters on here over the last few days have almost sneeringly tried to dismiss the idea of GB having the same deal as being impossible. But voters don't know and don't care what you think is possible. Or about how it works. Or detail. They were promised better times ahead, those are now going only to NI and not them.
In that scenario, the Tories are absolutely screwed.
Brexit voting Conservatives in the redwall in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time in their lives then to end free movement and regain Sovereignty. Both have been delivered for them.
They certainly have little reason to vote Tory otherwise, they don't want tighter controls on spending or tax cuts for the rich as well as them.
What do you know of red wall first time Tory voters? They can't eat sovereignty. They didn't want to stop migration because they are EDF. Both were because they wanted to be Better Off. Better jobs, with better pay and conditions. Better schools and hospitals. Investment into their rundown shitbox town.
Brexit was meaningful for them. Good times ahead. And now you are saying good times only in Norniron, and actually the good times would be bad for you actually.
I know Leave voting red wall first time Tories voted Labour at every general election pre 2019 as they are economically pro big government and increased spending and oppose tax cuts for the rich.
Without the end to free movement and regained Sovereignty (including not the ECJ jurisdiction Northern Ireland still has) they have no reason to stay voting Tory at all (except maybe restoring the death penalty for serial killers which most of them also support)
So yesterday you resurrected Savile, and now you are going for hanging to bolster your brand. You are turning into rather an adept populist.
I notice @hyufd didn't take me up on my challenge yesterday namely:
"Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?"
To be honest he could do because Starmer isn't going to waste his time suing every tom, dick and harry that libels him.
This business of lying about someone, because someone on the other side lied about someone on your side belongs in the primary school playground. hyufd antics are incredibly childish.
Would HYUFD qualify as a Tom or a Dick or a Harry?
Wow. Amazing revelations about Matt Hancock. Absolutely unbelievable. You need at least a basic level of judgement and common-sense for a career in politics, esp as a cabinet minister, and this guy clearly never had it. Everyone - literally everyone - knows you don't trust Isabel Oakeshott.
Isn't Isabel regarded as a bit of a stunner to gentlemen of a certain age? Perhaps Matt is one of those chaps who lets his aesthetic judgement rule his brains.
Comments
Btw, I don't often advise bets on here now but I think the spread on India 2nd innings is way out. You can sell at 203. Neither side beat 200 in the first innings and the pitch ain't getting any better.
They're at tea so you have a few moments to think about it.
ISTR that one of the first US female astronauts got bumped up a couple of flights, early in the Shuttle days. She had worked on developing the space toilet, and the first few Shuttle flights had had numerous toilet-related issues. During a pre-flight press conference, she was asked what her role on the mission was. Officially it was something else, but she replied: "Fix the plumbing"
(I don't think it was Sally ride; it may have been Fisher or Sullivan)
In any event it's clearly a massive sartorial shift when TSE transitions to his G Osborne character.
I am not against trying to combat climate change. It's just that we need to balance that with the needs of the people.
If they want higher spending, higher tax for the rich and more regulation they will obviously vote Labour again as they did at most general elections pre 2019
I would ask if we take the same attitude on arms shipments by the Saudis, but I realise it would just be pointless sarcasm.
Any improvement in polling is likely to be slow but as the activities I outlined yesterday come along it would be surprising if a poll bounce did not happen over the late spring
10th March - Sunak travels to France to discuss the boat issue and closer cooperation with Macron then following on to Germany for discussions with Scholz
15th March - Budget day with Hunt addressing the economy and energy help
6th April - 10.1% rise in pensions, benefits plus rise in minimum wage
10th April - Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with possible visit of Biden to UK
6th May - The coronation
Also Sunak needs to resolve the public sector strikes, especially the nurses, pass his Windsor Framework agreement not matter what the ERG and DUP object to and continue to act professionally and put to the sword Johnson and his followers
On Sunak I am very pleased that he is a grown up in the role and while he has a mountain to climb I believe he is the conservative party's only credible leader going into GE 24 and may well mitigate the result
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/tech/spacex-crew-dragon-toilet-crew-2-scn/index.html
Or keep sneering. Its good entertainment either way.
Go to the Data menu.
Select Get Data from Web
Put in the relevant URL
A list of the tables on that web page will appear, select the one you want and proceed from there.
I think those who say the don’t knows will come back to the Tories are right. Particularly in the middle classes. I get a sense a whole cohort of performatively fed up “former Tory voters” have been hoping for the flimsiest of reasons to come back home now Boris is out of the way, and this provided it.
"construction still cannot commence as TAN have now requested that its application be heard at a High Court oral hearing. "
I don't understand why the article states the judge "refused" a JR. Clearly the end of the (same sentence !) indicates a refusal was not within his powers.
This sort of stuff seems to go on with immigration law too -always another way out...
Vermin lives matter! Cancel Redwall!
The Truss AusNZ farming deal is absolutely fantastic. Cheaper, high-quality food for the public and more competition for our farmers to lift their socks . . . what's not to like, unless you're a protectionist who thinks looking after producer interests matters more than the public?
With their media masters on side, there is (and with a little justification) a spring in the Conservative step. Record food inflation, don't worry, but the economy grew by a whopping 0.1% in January. Green shoots abound everywhere.
I note on these threads too, the hitherto absent Tory cheerleaders have found their singing voices again. None moreso than HYUFD who is giving it the full 30p.
And in the meantime, costs go up. Two or three months delay so far.
If I had my way, I'd recommission Caxton Gibbett for them.
That is not the same as having a strategic coherent vision, or managing succinctly the day to day political ephemera.
All other batsmen - 31.
South Africa would have been epically buggered without him.
Edit - it's nearly as bad across two innings. Markram 162, others 219.
"Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?"
To be honest he could do because Starmer isn't going to waste his time suing every tom, dick and harry that libels him.
This business of lying about someone, because someone on the other side lied about someone on your side belongs in the primary school playground. hyufd antics are incredibly childish.
However do not for a second let that be taken to mean that I will be voting Tory at the next election. As others have said, most British voters don't actually care much about Northern Ireland and I'll happily admit to being in that majority.
For me I've still not forgiven Sunak for raising National Insurance, even if Truss reversed it, it was a massive betrayal of trust. And I don't forgive Sunak and Hunt for spending our taxes on double-digit pay increases to those who aren't working while cutting working people's pay by 7%+ in real terms.
If the Tories don't stand for those who work for a living and want to get on in life, then they don't stand for me, and I won't vote for them. Brexit or Northern Ireland doesn't change that.
But moreover, it's also a thoroughly western-centric attitude that says "hey, we got rich burning dead dinosaurs, now, rest of the world, you've got to accept declining living standards even though you never attained western standards of wealth and prosperity". And most of the developing world simply is not going to accept that.
To be honest, the developed world isn't going to accept declining living standards, either. People in democracies aren't going to vote for policies that make them worse off, no matter how well intended.
That leaves technological advancement as our sole route out of this, whether that be carbon capture, fusion technology, even weather control (I know, I stray into the realms of science fiction here). But in any climate change scenario you need to start from the base case that people will not accept declining living standards without voting out / overthrowing their governments, and accept that developing nations will not accept de-growth foisted on them by western powers.
Then again, as you are on record repeatedly posting that farms should close and the land be used for IIRC "more productive" uses, its no wonder you think it absolutely fantastic.
1) Full employment - not experienced in those areas since the 1960s
2) Affordable housing - unlike southern England
But I get the impression that for many Conservatives neither full employment nor affordable housing are deemed to be good things and so are not to be praised to those who are benefiting from them.
If the indigneous peoples of Norway are not (and have not been) great users of energy and so haven't contributed to the crisis that needs fixing and are not (a big part) of the requirement for clean energy then I can see the argument. Otherwise, not so much.
I can see that it could be unfair, for example, to cut down a large swathe of forest occupied by indigenous peoples in Brazil to construct a hydro-electric project if the indigenous peoples are not going to benefit from the electricity produced. However, I suspect that's a much clearer cut issue than in Norway - we're talking about the Sámi? The correct approach surely is to to get their consent, provide payment/compensation and look carefully at the impacts on them, rather than a blanket ban.
But the move away from Russian oil and gas, whilst necessary, *has* caused hardship and economic pain. Lots of it, in fact. I'm pleased that we're doing it, but it was a forced move - and I doubt there will be much CO2 reduction because of the change. Indeed, with Germany moving back to coal, there might be increases.
If you're such a big fan of protectionism why don't we close the Channel Tunnel, put tariffs on European goods, and eat British-farmed tomatoes instead of Spanish-farmed ones? What's the difference between importing food from Britain and importing food from Australia or New Zealand?
They typically voted Labour in 2010, Labour or UKIP in 2015, Labour in 2017 but Conservative in 2019
I think you are getting carried away with your enthusiasm on this one. Basic practicalities mean the Pacific thing won't replace the EEA, not that we are going to get open border unchecked free trade from it in any case. Which means no problem for continued close alignment with the EEA.
Sadly we have slashed subsidy for our producers and the EEA haven't. We have made farm labour scarce and expensive and the EU haven't. No wonder that even "let them eat Turnips" sneering was met with "we've stopped growing enough of them" from an industry which is truly fucked off with fuckwittery from DEFRA and their keyboard warrior clueless ideologue fanbois like your good self.
Germany on the other hand shouldn’t have insisted on such a contrary position on nuclear power.
There was a recent academic paper published in the UK that suggested the way to fix global warming is rationing. Rationing petrol, limiting long haul flights, even giving people a non-tradeable 'carbon allowance' on a credit-card style carbon card. Do that and there *will* be riots, and I'll be out there with the rioters. It's proper "you will eat ze bugs" stuff. It's utterly dystopian, but this is where the bien pensant intelligentsia is starting to coalesce.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-fix-global-warming-bring-back-rationing-kqqnsn9sn
Squint hard enough at the horizon, and you can see where all of this stuff will lead in twenty, thirty years time.
It is difficult to believe people can be so stupid to confide in her.
There is a public interest case sometime and possibly this time, but she is clearly very untrustworthy and a nasty piece of work.
The Chris Huhne/Vicky Price cases is interesting. It is difficult to understand how people get themselves into these positions. I can only assume they think it is a little white lie and its not important and the issue spirals out of their control. Jeffery Archer similarly. I have sympathy in both cases, but if you are going to commit perjury you have to take the consequences. I'm sure both thought at each stage they had to go on with the deception, but if they had their time again would never have started it. In the case of Chris Huhne why the hell didn't he just take the driving ban. He had a bucket load of points already. It was just a matter of time and why did it matter so much. Bonkers.
If you know a workable way of fixing what seems to be an inevitability of human nature, capitalism and power, we should probably take it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLHfjNTldQ
Just one in 50 applicants for jobs at Pret a Manger are British, its director of human resources told a parliamentary committee.
The high street chain employs 110 different nationalities with 65% of its workforce coming from EU countries other than Britain, Andrea Wareham told the House of Lords economic affairs select committee on Wednesday.
She said the company would find it virtually impossible to find enough staff if it were forced to turn its back on EU nationals after Brexit.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/08/pret-a-manger-one-in-50-job-applicants-british-brexit
March 2023:
Pret A Manger will give staff their third pay rise in 12 months, following other firms in boosting wages during a labour shortage.
The coffee chain said the rise, to begin in April, amounts to a 19% bump in year-on-year pay for shop staff.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64815332
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwall
However we were discussing the typical Redwall voter ie some who is socially conservative, economically centre left, voted for Brexit, may own their own home which will be cheaper than the national average but will also tend to have a below average income.
Mostly they are non graduate white working class
Driving a low fuel efficiency 5% less doesn't get you to net zero, as you still have 95% of the emissions being released. Flying a bit less doesn't get you there either, as you still have almost all of the emissions there too. Having fewer children won't get you there, since the overwhelming majority who'd be alive in 2050 are already alive today anyway.
This is where "Green" fanatics are completely ungreen and unscientific. They've got the wrong solution to the right problem. Trying to tackle climate change by consuming less is about as successful as trying to tackle obesity by eating one fewer sweet per week.
We need a wholesale transformation to tackle climate change and the only solution to that is science and technology. Not driving less, but driving clean. Not consuming less, but consuming clean. Not flying less, but flying clean. Clean technologies, not fewer people or fewer commodities.
https://twitter.com/CentreforCities/status/1631202308192190465
It's a variation on a queuing theory problem - the primary cause of inflation (fuels prices) sets off a series of secondary waves (price rises, wage increases) which in turn set off other waves of inflation. These bounce around the economy, keeping inflation alive, long after the primary cause has passed.
What has happened to the US (and UK) recession? Basically, the jobs market proved much more resilient than anticipated, just as we have seen in the UK. The tech redundancy wave in the US was more of an outlier and less indicative of a falling demand for labour. Here too, we have seen unemployment remaining stubbornly low. There has been a reduction in vacancies but they remain very high.
I remember Ronald Reagan's old aphorism. A recession is when your neighbour loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And a recovery, he said pointing at Jimmy Carter, is when you lose yours.
If we get through a bumpy year with no real uptick in unemployment that might do the Tories more good than anything else.
Frustrating driving doesn't help climate change and getting people stuck in traffic due to a shortage of infrastructure makes it harder not easier to tackle it. Ensuring that our transportation is clean and emission-free does tackle climate change.
Littlemore has one of Oxford's much-discussed Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes. There's an Independent standing on a platform of opposition to it, and the Tories have come out against it too (even though they pushed LTNs, and implemented several, while in control of the county council).
The LibDems and Greens aren't making much of an effort - Littlemore isn't fertile territory for either of them. As usual for East Oxford there are TUSC candidates too.
I think it'll come down to Labour vs Independent, and if pushed I'd say Labour will hold it, but it's far from a done deal.
However, compared with the great national debate over joining the EEC, then over leaving the EU, this one does seem to be rather sneaking under the radar. And whilst everyone would like a break from Eurotalk, I'm not sure we should cut it off as an option for future Britain quite so quickly. Implying that a vote in 2016 must stand forever doesn't seem like a nice thing to do.
In a democracy, shouldn't we, you know,
discuss things a bit? And accept that the possibility of changing our mind is a good thing?