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Can Sunak carry over his rating recovery into a new week? – politicalbetting.com
Can Sunak carry over his rating recovery into a new week? – politicalbetting.com
However you look at it Sunak has had a very good couple of weeks which includes of course getting his Northern Ireland deal through and agreed with all the parties in Dublin Belfast and of course Brussels.
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Oh wait sorry, small typo. In the Victorian Parliament, in Australia.
Oh and a member of the “conservative” Liberal Party.
https://twitter.com/therealrukshan/status/1640170562000687105?s=20
Protesters at @ThePosieParker’s Let Women Speak event in New Zealand turned violent - and the police were nowhere to be seen.
My thoughts from tonight’s episode of Free Speech Nation… [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1640082435806310401
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/02/18/leader-and-government-approval-ratings-and-voting-intention-as-a-guide-to-general-election-results/#vanilla-comments
The Health Secretary said bodies including NHS England should report on whether inclusion schemes were value for money, and stop employing full-time diversity and inclusion officers.
Mr Barclay recommended conferring their duties on existing managers
https://www.msn.com/en-GB/news/other/health-secretary-wants-nhs-quangos-to-consider-removing-diversity-officers/ar-AA1964nC?ocid=sprinklr_sch
It's not that he has presented one, and it hasn't convinced as with Major in 97 (remember "Back to Basics"?), it's that he hasn't bothered to try.
What may save him is that Starmer doesn't really have the Vision thing either.
The nerds on this site, of whom I am one, may prefer competence to Vision, but most evidence is that the electorate don't agree.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/25/anti-trans-activist-posie-parker-ends-new-zealand-tour-after-violent-protests-erupt
NICOLA Sturgeon had good intentions and some worthwhile achievements in education. But the verdict is mostly that she failed.….
NICOLA Sturgeon’s interest in policing started with her telling Chief Constable Sir Steve House in 2015 to fetch his coat.
Then came the probe into Alex Salmond and pressure to downplay the pandemic lawbreaking of her Chief Medical Officer, Catherine Calderwood.
Other than that, policing was a stone in her shoe — she knew it was there but couldn’t quite be bothered to do anything about it….
THERE are really only two words to describe Nicola Sturgeon’s legacy on the economy: dismal failure.….
NICOLA Sturgeon’s legacy can be summed up as winning elections but ultimately failing to win more of the public over to the independence cause.…
NICOLA Sturgeon has the right, progressive vision for the NHS.
She’s committed to universal free care — and knows the importance of good public health, particularly in dealing with health inequalities.
But where she has not performed as well is in delivery.….
Politicians are obsessed with their legacies. Nicola Sturgeon is no different.
The Scottish Child Payment and more-generous spending on services than England are worth boasting about.
Ms Sturgeon aimed to persuade Scots this showed she could be trusted with independence.
Yet, arguably, such spending can only be afforded due to us, as part of the UK, getting more money per head than down south.…
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/10424471/inside-nicola-sturgeon-legacy-experts-run-rule/
Has the DUP relocated to the Land of Oz, perhaps?
His personal ratings may recover. The Conservatives won't.
Suella Braverman is accused of secretly backing a backbench rebellion against her own Illegal Migration Bill to push Downing Street into toughening up measures to tackle the small boats crisis.
Senior government sources said the home secretary was a “sock puppet” under the influence of Tory hardliners who believe that Rishi Sunak has not gone far enough to clamp down on Channel crossings.
They said Braverman was trying to use Tory rebels to force No 10 into hardening up the bill, which arrives back in the Commons on Monday.
The rebels, believed to number about 50, have tabled a series of amendments. These would allow ministers to ignore initial rulings from European human rights judges, bar migrants from using any aspect of Britain’s domestic human rights laws to avoid deportation and further restrict their power to lodge legal appeals.
The Times understands that after talks with Braverman at the weekend the rebels have agreed not to push the amendments to a vote this week in return for a promise that the government will consider their concerns before the bill becomes law.
Some figures in government believe Braverman supports the amendments and is using the rebels to put pressure on Downing Street.
“She wants to use it to spook us to offer concessions to get them to drop their amendments because a big rebellion would be embarrassing,” a source said. “She has basically become a sock puppet for the right.”
Several sources confirmed that Braverman had tried to persuade Downing Street to toughen up the bill before it was published this month.
She was overruled by the prime minister, who feared that her plans would prompt an immediate and unnecessary confrontation with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and make it harder to get the bill through the House of Lords.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/suella-braverman-fuelling-rebellion-against-her-own-migrant-bill-s8bgrzb7b
Brexit has damaged UK economic growth by as much as Covid or the energy crisis caused by President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of the government’s economic watchdog has warned.
Richard Hughes, the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, said Britain’s departure from the European Union had reduced economic output by around 4 per cent compared to if the UK had remained in the bloc.
He added that this was a contributing factor to the “biggest squeeze on living standards” that the country had ever faced with household incomes unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels until the late 2020s.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/richard-hughes-brexit-has-hit-the-economy-as-hard-as-covid-or-energy-crisis-xg678m30f
More and more services provided by the State are of such poor quality and scarcity that people are opting out. I don't think that this is by any means just a Scottish phenomenon but it is a very strong trend. We spend more and more on these services but they simply do not deliver.
We are now a maximum of 19 months from the next General Election. End of October 2024 is the practical cut-off.*
* December '19 was a one-off election under exceptional circumstances and will not be repeated. Those thinking this can run until January '25 are, as @TSE has stated, deluded.
Do you think this is a good look?
https://twitter.com/rodemmerson/status/1639721176560975873?s=20
In a country where violence against women is a significant problem:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nz-has-high-female-murder-rate/
However, I suspect that come the General Election proper, the trans issue will burn brightly for a couple of days as the Daily Malicious vents its spleen and then will pass.
Most people will realise that we had all of this nonsense, and exactly the same arguments, with gay rights 40 years ago and that there are FAR more pressing and important matters that we face than whether Steve in the neighbouring town wishes to self-identify as Susan. (I didn't put 'Steve next door' because most people don't have a trans neighbour and never will).
As you were.
Her main achievement is the Scottish Child Payment, now £25 per week for each child in low-income homes.
Relieving poverty can improve school attainment.
But the impact on family income is like the tax credits from the last Labour Government.
The policy is powerful, but not specific to Sturgeon.
There have also been failures. She aimed to close the gap in school attainment caused by poverty.
tudies, comparing schools across the world.
They show that Scottish attainment has slipped. The attainment gap has narrowed only because the standards of affluent pupils have fallen.
Equality through dumbing-down is nothing to be proud of.
This decline is due in part to the new school curriculum.
It’s narrower. It’s less challenging. Class sizes have crept up despite SNP promises to reduce them.
Sturgeon can boast entry to university by students from the poorest areas has grown. But they still have worse chances than in the rest of the UK.
Local colleges are better at widening access than the universities. Yet Sturgeon’s Government has starved them of funds.
It was also unimpressive on Covid’s effect on education. Schools were closed without proper attention to supporting home learning.
So attainment declined and inequality widened. Other countries, including England, handled the impact on education much better.
She's aligned herself with pretty extreme people, people who want the UK and the West to be a white ethno state, she's also praised Tommy Robinson.
Some of the people she knows have a history of launching false flag riots.
Lucky for me, she's planning on standing in Sheffield at the next general election, she's already brought her poison to my part of the world.
Not sure how that's a different take?
But don’t worry. They will be displaced. By some more extreme people.
“Honest” Boris Johnson looks done for
https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1640225471978782720
“While having good intentions is laudable, it’s not enough and is hardly the ringing epitaph that any first minister wants etched on their political gravestone.”
https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1639884953205735424
Is violence against women by trans people a significant problem in New Zealand? If so, why are trans people seen as the biggest threat, and worthy of this much hatred?
As for the cartoon: I had no idea who 'Georgina Beyer' is/was, until you posted it. As such, I have no real idea if it denotes a 'good' or 'bad' look, or indeed the point the cartoon is trying to make, as I'm unsure what the 'spirit' of Georgina Beyer was. It seems she was trans; but I have no idea what her 'spirit' would be in relation to the TERF movement.
So what first attracted you to the Tommy Robinson fan?
Sadly her plans to stand in Sheffield Central do not fill me with joy.
"An earlier appearance in Australia had been attended and supported by white supremacist groups"
"The Green party co-leader Marama Davidson, who was demonstrating in support of trans rights, was hit by a motorcycle at a pedestrian crossing. A convoy of motorcyclists had appeared at the protest in support of Keen-Minshull."
etc.
It's one of the reasons I don't particularly like protests or counter-protests (as I literally ran into on Saturday). *Your* motives and beliefs may be honourable and good, but the same may not be said for too many of the people on 'your' side of the barriers. But that's my personal choice: if others wish to protest legally and civilly so be it.
And then came the polling. Putting GRR third bottom on the list of voters' concerns. Not an issue for an electorate who (shockingly) care about jobs services and prosperity, not gender ID issues.
For the handful of mouthfoamers who are obsessed by fear it is THE issue. For almost everyone else it is a non-issue politically.
She might simply be of the view that the enemy of my enemy is my friend which, whilst politically inadvisable, doesn't make her a white supremacist nor a nazi.
Meanwhile, some of the antifa lot at her rally seemed to have far more in common with the actual fascists that they claim to oppose.
Some men just enjoy violence and hating - they think this gives them an excuse to freely indulge in their basest instincts.
I agree on your final point. It's unfair to say that's the fault of the speaker though or you'd never speak on anything vaguely contentious that might attract them.
The energy cap is about £210 month, but the government discount has cut that to about £140 for the last six months. The cap is continuing, but the flat rate discount isn't.
Council Tax (£100-£200 a month or so) is going up £5 to £10 a month. Because of the bonkers way payments are structured, most people don't pay it at all in February or March. I do wonder if that's a bit of why people feel cheerier about Cost of Living right now.
Judge people by their actions not their words.
She always ends up getting interviewed with some interesting views on white genocide.
There's been an extra hundreds of quids not deducted each month.
Mines £110 pcm on a Band A with single person discount.
No one in Northumberland is paying less.
Council tax benefit has been frozen yet again. You don't qualify on minimum wage.
It's those that are already relatively affluent/comfortable that engage in culture war issues *except* to the extent that it directly affects their lives locally- heavy immigration, teaching policy in schools etc.
It seems habitual protestors and complainers on both sides were doing what they do worst...
Is there video, for example, of the Green Party leader being knocked down ?
As for the 'framing', is that inaccurate ?
I understand your point about women's rights, but her public positions on trans rights seem to go well beyond issues that might directly affect women.
I'd never heard of her before, but she appears to be an unpleasant provocateur. That doesn't excuse violence at rallies, but neither does the violence make her in any way an admirable person.
The idea that the Conservatives would win fewer seats than in 1997 was always fanciful.
The boats won't actually get stopped unless you massively increase the bureaucracy to speed up decisions and find returns agreements to send back those who claims fail. The biggest blocker is travel documentation - no state wants it migrants back so they drag their heels when it comes to issuing a passport for a migrant we want to return. Ultimately, it's supply / demand: there's a massive demand for migration / asylum; but a lack of supply of safe routes. The people smugglers and traffickers are filling that gap and the pull factors once you get here (English speaking country, black economy etc) far outweigh things like Rwanda schemes.
So the Tories actually need to deliver - not seen any evidence yet of that.
Your last sentence affirms Sunak has the right priority on this issue
Indeed Sky have confirmed the rebels have agreed to drop their rebellion
The ERG are finally being marginalised
No, it is a trans issue, because you only ever go on about trans people wrt it. That's a clear indicator that you're not actually interested in safety of women, only in bashing trans. Hence why you drag up a story from New Zealand.
I'd also argue the problem is violence in general, not just against women. There is too much violence in society, and too much acceptance of violence. Quite how we get away from that, I don't know...
(That’s a joke btw.)
But “hit by A motorcycle” is interesting. It sounds bad.
But was the motorcycle really going at speed in a crowd? Or was it nudged forward because she was refusing to get out of the way? Was it deliberate or just a glancing knock with, say, the handlebar in a confirmed space?
You end up covered in mud yourself and the pig enjoys the attention.
To misquote Jeremy Corbyn, Williamson doesn't understand English irony.
Voters do not care about this issue. As demonstrated by the polls The SNP went way off piste and if they elect Forbes today the issue gets quickly dropped. Or if they elect Yousaf it gets slowly dropped.
Either way, voters do not care. It is a non-issue for them.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1640250460081737730
One of the groups there was apparently Extinction Rebellion (I guess as counter-protestors). Quite why XR feel the need to turn up at this sort of event indicates (to me, at least), that it is more about protesting than a cause.
As an aside, the number of police vans about, and police, must have had a significant cost.
(*) Yes, it was a coincidence. I had no idea it was going to be on; it is part of my series of marathon runs from Cambridge to Brighton.
Of course being able to act and being brave and willing enough to act are very different things, and Sunak has the problem that behind the nutters still stand many of the members.
Major after Thatcher is a valid comparison - the other two questions are whether the economy will be visibly past the worst by 2024 (actually looking more likely than it did last year IMO) and whether the other side of the comparison holds - in ‘92 many generally but vaguely admired Kinnock for having taken on his own nutters, but the election was the first time people really looked at him as a possible national leader, and the judgement of the campaign, helped along by Kinnock’s own hubris, was ‘no thanks’ and people went for the safer choice. I’d guess Starmer is very well aware of the risks - Rawnsley just recently reported that the Labour top team are still haunted by 1992.
One thing we can be certain of: Labour won’t be re-enacting the Nuremberg Rally on eve of poll 2024!
But this sentence reminds us of a very large question mark that still hangs over him - his lack of judgement. He appointed Braverman, Williamson and Zahawi to cabinet posts. For Williamson he literally invented one to do it. That was totally unnecessary and indeed incredibly foolish. None of them have shown in their previous posts the slightest sign of administrative ability and all of them have been accused of various criminal actions.
Plus, he's not a good campaigner. He doesn't seem to grasp the importance of consistency of message, or the need to consider what he can and can't sell before he tries to sell it. Which may again link to poor judgement.
This is why although I think he should see the Tories improve it's still very hard to see him winning or even leading the largest party after it.
It would be a resigning matter if the SNP did resignations.
"This is about male privilege"
Oddly, I think it's about removing rights from trans people.
I don't agree with World Athletic's position - if, as I believe is the case, it is a blanket ban. All sports are different, and it should be up to individual sporting bodies to decide, with the default being for inclusion, not exclusion.
In many ways worse than Trump, because he's both smoother and more plausible but also far more radical.
He really was the canary in the coal mine for the populist right in the 1990s, that we see coming to fruition in America, India, Russia, the Philippines, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Britain, Italy...it's a long old list.
But unfortunately his manner and political skill meant most of us didn't see what was coming.
It’s notable that when Netanyahu was in London last week Suella Braverman was the only minister happy to be seen in public with him. Peas in a pod.
News from Corruption Bay (Bae Caerdydd, historically Tiger Bay)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-65064256
Mismanagement of public accounts cost Wales £155.5m at the height of Covid, according to a Senedd committee. The Welsh government failed to spend the extra cash by March 2021 and had to give it back to the UK government.
Meanwhile, Welsh government estimates put the amount of fraud and error in a Covid business grant scheme between £700,000 and £37m in 2020-21.
It is the fact that the fraud estimate is so uncertain that is astonishing.
The trans issue as an issue isn't that important to voters. However, what Sturgeon showed - and Sir Keir has noticed - is that if you let it become perceived as an important part of your political programme, you risk losing credibility quickly, because "you can't even define what a woman is".
Of course, Llafur never admit fraud. That is why Wales (uniquely in the UK) has no proper inquiry into the handling of Covid by its government. It is also why the Senedd (uniquely in the UK) has no register of lobbyists.
No doubt today will be mainly about Scotland.
The real achievement of Salmond & Sturgeon has -- in my opinion -- been to show the Scottish people that an alternative to corrupt and insular Labour rule in Holyrood was possible.
Scotland is in a far, far better place than Wales because of this.
Sturgeon refused to accept anything other than the absolute position. The amendments dealt with the genuine safeguarding issues. She then claimed that anyone would had any concerns was basically a Nazi, then turned around and limited the rights of a trans person by arbitrary fiat.
Everyone has their rights are limited by law.
The limitations of such rights should be in law, rather than the arbitrary whim of a politician.
posts like that always make me wonder why posters never ask why are people voting that way ?
there were enough warnings out there to say things are going awry but the politicians and their supporters who were doing well out if the system didnt want to listen or change anything. Then when it goes wrong it goes wrong big time.
Not only would it have given Welsh Labour much needed time in the wilderness to get rid of dead wood (*shudder* Leighton Andrews *shudder*) but it would have established that Wales could have a transfer of government.
Moreover, it would have made the Liberal Democrats more careful about their behaviour in coalition in London to be seen to be standing up for their values. If they hadn't decided on confidence and supply only.
Finally, no party has ever really replaced Ieuan Wyn Jones as a plausible alternative first minister to the hacks that have succeeded Morgan.
If that coalition had gone ahead it would have helped a lot. Even if it had only last 12-18 months.
As it is Wales is still fecked.
But the real causes ran much deeper and people didn't want to look. Not until the GFC stripped them bare, by which time it was rather too late.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8425
Hagiographic to Caesar - yes. But often explains Late Roman Republic politics better than many other accounts.
The system was broken. Those in charge claimed that The Way Of The Fathers meant that nothing could be changed. They systematically killed (literally) all attempts at reform within the system….
However, the point of course is that the SNP provided a viable alternative.
In Wales, Llafur have been in power since 1999. And the one-party state shows no sign of ending.
That is bad. Bad for Wales and bad for Llafur and bad for competent Government.
What a waste of fecking time.
When they got tired of sucking it up it turned out they did have other places to go.
Mr. Malmesbury, not my period but not so long ago read something on the Late Republic which was of interest.
https://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.com/2021/07/review-concise-history-of-republican.html
Ultimately, the economic and nationalist forces unleashed in the 1980s and amplified by the development of the internet tended to favour (a) the ones who already had wealth, to the considerable disadvantage of those who didn't and (b) demagogues who mastered catchy soundbites and offered simple solutions to all our ills ahead of detailed, reasoned analysis. A toxic mix in the aftermath of an economic contraction.
What's slightly unusual about Netanyahu is how early he was in the field. And that may be due to the peculiar circumstances of Israel, and it may be due to him being rather more plausible and effective than the rest.
Snag is he's actually worse than most of them as well.
Nobody cared. Non-issue, didn't move the polls at all. Politicians can make anything they like into an issue, but if it doesn't motivate people to vote, politically its a non-issue. Voters say what they are concerned about and politicians act accordingly, not the other way round.
No matter how many times a politician might ask "Are you thinking what we're thinking" when the answer is "no" they are sunk. Almost nobody in Scotland is thinking as the SNP were on this issue. They just don't care about it, and wish the government would focus on actual issues.
This is polticalbetting.com
rationalsolutionbetting.com is over there - take a right, then a left, then about 3000 miles….
5th February 2023
"Writing in The Sunday Times, the former SNP deputy leader Jill Sillars says: “It may infuriate Nicola Sturgeon, but it seems that JK Rowling’s political judgment is superior: the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill will be Sturgeon’s poll tax."
Oooh!
https://twitter.com/suzanne_moore/status/1621949934181253120?s=20
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1640255236840226816