Abortion was a 50/50 issue. Now, it’s Republican quicksand.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/08/republican-party-abortion-trap-00091088 … Now, a four-point question probably best measures where Americans sit on the issue: legal in all cases, legal in most, illegal in all and illegal in most. The 2022 national exit poll used this device, finding that 29 percent of voters believed abortion should be “legal in all cases,” while another 30 percent thought it should be “legal in most cases.” That left 26 percent who thought it should be “illegal in most cases” and only 10 percent who said it should be “illegal in all cases.”
That leaves roughly six-in-10 voters supporting legal abortion in most cases — with the median voter supporting some restrictions — and just over a third who want it to be entirely or mostly illegal...
FWIW I don't think the distinction between 'illegal in most' and 'legal in most' can be formulated without going into a lot of detail. My own very centrist view could be described as both of these, depending on what counts as a case.
From talking with actual Americans
Illegal in most - “Stop with the hypotheticals. I don’t like abortion. And we don’t really need it in most cases”
Legal in most - “That hypothetical I’ll give you. But I feel that abortion should a last resort. So apart from…..”
From my American wife - "it's no business of politicians to tell woman what they should do".
So does your wife think that abortion should be allowed a day or an hour before birth ?
If not then she does think it is the business of politicians to tell a woman what they can do.
And the only question being where the time limit is set.
I think the rights of the unborn should be represented somehow.....
Schadenfreude would reach new heights if Labour didn't get a majority or like Wilson.. say a majority of 3. Impotent Labour is the least worst outcome....
WRT China - Is Macron naive or worse. Whilst Von Der Leyen at least seems more of a realist this quote really grates on me.
Von der Leyen: "I encouraged President Xi to reach out to President Zelensky. It was interesting to hear that President Xi reiterated his willingess to speak (to him) when the time and conditions are right"
Interesting??? When the time is right??? It's time we called China out on its peace plan. How can they be taken seriously when they only talk to one side. Enough of the warm words. Even in public. I hope they were a bit more direct in private.
I cannot see any Chinese plan that would be favourable to Ukraine or its partners. The only thing that works is threatening them with sanctions if they support Russia militarily. We might think we're defending Ukraine's right to be a free country determining its own path but in Beijing as well as Moscow Ukraine is just a western proxy. No doubt if he does deign to pick up the phone to Zelensky, they'll be lots of applause from various quarters about how magnanimous of Xi to take the time to speak with a fellow President thousands of miles away. Enough! Stop playing these thugs' game.
It is very interesting to see China step into the role of world diplomat - with the KSA Iran deal etc., now this. It is sheer self interest, as China needs the world economies to continue to be able to afford Chinese exported tat. But that's good. It's very like Britain used to be - enforcing free trade around the world because it suited our economy. By contrast, America was a world hegemon with a primarily domestic economy, and made decisions accordingly. However pure one believes America's ultimate motives to be, there is no doubt that they have been prepared, consistently, to cause disruption to world markets/economies/states to pursue their objectives. I think that augers quite well for the future.
As we saw last year - one of the blowback effects of the Fed's massive hike in interest rates - essentially for domestic political purposes - was that it fuelled inflation in many countries because commodities are priced in dollars.
Exactly, and the vast post-Covid 'stimulus' programme in the States was already causing massive inflation worldwide - building materials costing 3 or 4 times as much. This has always been the way with the US.
So, let me get this right:
If the Fed has loose monetary policy, that stimulates demand, and causes inflation.
And if they have tight monetary policy, that causes the price of commodities to rise, and causes inflation.
Do I have your view correct?
I think the confusion here is that its really a political view not an economic one he's expressing.
The United States is to blame for all the world's problems. Work back from that conclusion to find the economic logic.
As a non-economist I find it odd that the Fed raising rates and reducing demand for oil and the price of oil in dollars would create inflation elsewhere presumably through a strengthening dollar? Don't see it since we're all in the business of raising rates anyway.
You might wish to confine your attempts to be patronising to things you know something about. I studied economic history at degree level - the turbulence caused to the world economy by American policies since assuming the mantel of lender of last resort post WW1 are a matter of public record.
The US has been (although reducing) a massive part of global GDP. Fairly obvious what happens there will affect others. And in simple terms the world has got an awful lot wealthier since then. I'm not a fan of all Uncle Sam's policies but if you think human rights abusing, law disregarding China would be an improvement I suspect you will be disappointed.
Along with 'Starmer is no Blair', it has become commonplace for posters of all stripes to say that if Labour is to seal the deal, Starmer et al need to come up with some big ideas, and have a 'vision' to sell. That's fair enough, and I agree.
However, I'm struggling even more to see the Tories' big ideas, or their 'vision'. What is modern Toryism about, other than 'small boats' type populism? Why should I vote for them? What's Sunak's 'big idea'? I really don't have a clue. I reckon if there's a vacuum in Labour's policy offer, there's at least as large a one in the Tories'.
I'll have a try at this. Most of the electorate is tired after what has been a very hectic 5-6 years - Brexit and its aftermath, straight into Covid and the lockdowns, followed by a major war in Europe and inflation not seen for 40+ years. They don't won't big ideas necessarily, they want things to be stable and for the Government to step in and protect them when they face major difficulties.
FWIW, I think that suits 'Sunak-ism' quite well. He's not one for the Thatcherite bold moves but - to many - he's decent enough and seems competent. That's enough for many.
Labour's problem - and SKS' in particular - is that he has never formulated where Labour will genuinely help people whose main obstacle is trying to deal with a society where the rules seem rigged in favour of big interests and people are resigned to their lives.
Abortion was a 50/50 issue. Now, it’s Republican quicksand.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/08/republican-party-abortion-trap-00091088 … Now, a four-point question probably best measures where Americans sit on the issue: legal in all cases, legal in most, illegal in all and illegal in most. The 2022 national exit poll used this device, finding that 29 percent of voters believed abortion should be “legal in all cases,” while another 30 percent thought it should be “legal in most cases.” That left 26 percent who thought it should be “illegal in most cases” and only 10 percent who said it should be “illegal in all cases.”
That leaves roughly six-in-10 voters supporting legal abortion in most cases — with the median voter supporting some restrictions — and just over a third who want it to be entirely or mostly illegal...
FWIW I don't think the distinction between 'illegal in most' and 'legal in most' can be formulated without going into a lot of detail. My own very centrist view could be described as both of these, depending on what counts as a case.
From talking with actual Americans
Illegal in most - “Stop with the hypotheticals. I don’t like abortion. And we don’t really need it in most cases”
Legal in most - “That hypothetical I’ll give you. But I feel that abortion should a last resort. So apart from…..”
From my American wife - "it's no business of politicians to tell woman what they should do".
So does your wife think that abortion should be allowed a day or an hour before birth ?
If not then she does think it is the business of politicians to tell a woman what they can do.
And the only question being where the time limit is set.
And this is why the questions about 'legal in most cases' or 'illegal in most cases' are vacuous.
The question should be legal up to 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 ... 24 /26 ... 34 / 36 weeks.
Or would that be too likely to produce a 'moderate' result to the outrage of fanatics of both sides ?
Something for the Conservative-inclined to get excited about but we need to see if this is backed up by other polling such as Redfield & Wilton on Tuesday.
The other part is the poll didn’t show a direct 3-point move from Labour to Conservative which makes me think this is more likely to be noise than a direct shift in opinion.
The Tories must be hoping that a local elections projected share of Lab 40%, Con 35% is possible, because Reform UK have put up so few candidates. The Greens, on the other hand, have put up a lot.
Something for the Conservative-inclined to get excited about but we need to see if this is backed up by other polling such as Redfield & Wilton on Tuesday.
The other part is the poll didn’t show a direct 3-point move from Labour to Conservative which makes me think this is more likely to be noise than a direct shift in opinion.
More polls are needed as always…
Always. The other thing to look for is how much (if at all) the shift is specific voters in specific areas working out the most effective anti-Conservative vote in their locality. That light at the end of the tunnel could be an oncoming train. And more Elizabeth Line than Transpennine Express.
The Tories must be hoping that a local elections projected share of Lab 40%, Con 35% is possible, because Reform UK have put up so few candidates. The Greens, on the other hand, have put up a lot.
Which assumes that Green candidates for local councils are eco-zealot communists with a large side serving of woke ideology, and not very well-spoken upper middle class ladies who promise to fight tooth-and-nail against any attempt to build even a single house anywhere in the entire district.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
Careful what you wish for.
Would a Starmer government that was actively or passively dependent on Lib Dem votes, let alone SNP votes really be closer to the type of government you prefer? I rather doubt it.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
The Tories must be hoping that a local elections projected share of Lab 40%, Con 35% is possible, because Reform UK have put up so few candidates. The Greens, on the other hand, have put up a lot.
Which assumes that Green candidates for local councils are eco-zealot communists with a large side serving of woke ideology, and not very well-spoken upper middle class ladies who promise to fight tooth-and-nail against any attempt to build even a single house anywhere in the entire district.
They are majoring on sewage going into the rivers and sea round here. In an area heavily dependent on tourism. It's difficult to disagree that they are right.
Something for the Conservative-inclined to get excited about but we need to see if this is backed up by other polling such as Redfield & Wilton on Tuesday.
The other part is the poll didn’t show a direct 3-point move from Labour to Conservative which makes me think this is more likely to be noise than a direct shift in opinion.
More polls are needed as always…
Always. The other thing to look for is how much (if at all) the shift is specific voters in specific areas working out the most effective anti-Conservative vote in their locality. That light at the end of the tunnel could be an oncoming train. And more Elizabeth Line than Transpennine Express.
We’ll need to see if we can glean specifics if we see a trend develop. Are Labour losing support among particular groups and in particular areas? At the moment we have one poll which is getting some Conservatives so excited they actually believe Sunak will lead the party to victory.
Abortion was a 50/50 issue. Now, it’s Republican quicksand.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/08/republican-party-abortion-trap-00091088 … Now, a four-point question probably best measures where Americans sit on the issue: legal in all cases, legal in most, illegal in all and illegal in most. The 2022 national exit poll used this device, finding that 29 percent of voters believed abortion should be “legal in all cases,” while another 30 percent thought it should be “legal in most cases.” That left 26 percent who thought it should be “illegal in most cases” and only 10 percent who said it should be “illegal in all cases.”
That leaves roughly six-in-10 voters supporting legal abortion in most cases — with the median voter supporting some restrictions — and just over a third who want it to be entirely or mostly illegal...
FWIW I don't think the distinction between 'illegal in most' and 'legal in most' can be formulated without going into a lot of detail. My own very centrist view could be described as both of these, depending on what counts as a case.
From talking with actual Americans
Illegal in most - “Stop with the hypotheticals. I don’t like abortion. And we don’t really need it in most cases”
Legal in most - “That hypothetical I’ll give you. But I feel that abortion should a last resort. So apart from…..”
From my American wife - "it's no business of politicians to tell woman what they should do".
So does your wife think that abortion should be allowed a day or an hour before birth ?
If not then she does think it is the business of politicians to tell a woman what they can do.
And the only question being where the time limit is set.
I think the rights of the unborn should be represented somehow.....
Hence the science of the 24 week limit. The point at which the unborn child is capable of independent survival.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
Your regular reminder that the largest single poll lead obtained by Ed Miliband was 16 points. Once. Labour is still besting that in at least half of them. There's a lot more swingback needed yet.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
Labour's real problem isn't a trickle of people with very conservative views on immigration being coaxed back to the Tories by Suella - it's a flood giving up on them because they're so frightened of scaring the horses that they offer nothing that will improve most people's lives. A few extra wind turbines paid for by abolishing tax breaks for private schools - whilst leaving the entire framework that serves to redistribute wealth upwards completely intact - is not liable to result in a triumph for the ages.
As I alluded to further down thread, whilst one has to assume that Labour will finally realise that they need to offer their likely supporters something better than more of the same under different management, there is a non-negligible possibility that this assumption will prove to be unfounded. Therein lies the space for a Tory victory.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
I'm guessing 1992, as without checking I find it hard to imagine the Tories got 20 points ahead after 1997.
Your regular reminder that the largest single poll lead obtained by Ed Miliband was 16 points. Once. Labour is still besting that in at least half of them. There's a lot more swingback needed yet.
Yes, but if the election isn't until say 17th October 2024 theres a lot of time left for a lot of swingback...
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
That if is doing a lot of work. It'd have to be going gangbusters to make up for the fall in real wages this year. And we know the government won't want anyone getting a real terms pay rise to make up for it.
Your regular reminder that the largest single poll lead obtained by Ed Miliband was 16 points. Once. Labour is still besting that in at least half of them. There's a lot more swingback needed yet.
Yes, but if the election isn't until say 17th October 2024 there a lot of time left for a lot of swingback...
Your regular reminder that the largest single poll lead obtained by Ed Miliband was 16 points. Once. Labour is still besting that in at least half of them. There's a lot more swingback needed yet.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Tories still frowning in April:
Sunak is seeing a surge in approval however. Too early to say if it is a trend
But he does seem competent and quite likeable. And not quite as boring as Starmer
That grotesque ad will not have helped Labour
Someone said earlier that Sunak does Starmer's brand, but better and less boringly
So, now, all he really has to draw upon is exhaustion with the Tory party.
Most elections come down to a choice between change or more of the same.
I find it hard to see why people would choose more of the same after an unprecedented decline in living standards, but then it's hard to see what change Starmer is offering, and yet he's the only change available.
Your regular reminder that the largest single poll lead obtained by Ed Miliband was 16 points. Once. Labour is still besting that in at least half of them. There's a lot more swingback needed yet.
Yes, but if the election isn't until say 17th October 2024 there a lot of time left for a lot of swingback...
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
On the very general topic of elections: Yesterday, I received my ballot for an April 25th special election. Briefly, King County is asking voters to approve a tax increase to fund: ". . . behavioral health services and capital facilities, including a countywide crisis care centers network, increased residential treatment; mobile crisis care; post-discharge stabilization; and workforce supports." source: https://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/Vote/contests/ballotmeasures.aspx?lang=en-US&cid=100765&groupname=County
I haven't decided how I'll vote on this yet. It addresses serious problems, but elected officials here have not persuaded me that they are competent to deal with them. And much of the money appears to be for "harm reduction", rather than, say, "prevention". That may be the best approach in the circumstances, but I would like to see more of the argument.
The Tories must be hoping that a local elections projected share of Lab 40%, Con 35% is possible, because Reform UK have put up so few candidates. The Greens, on the other hand, have put up a lot.
Which assumes that Green candidates for local councils are eco-zealot communists with a large side serving of woke ideology, and not very well-spoken upper middle class ladies who promise to fight tooth-and-nail against any attempt to build even a single house anywhere in the entire district.
They are majoring on sewage going into the rivers and sea round here. In an area heavily dependent on tourism. It's difficult to disagree that they are right.
Greens focusing on an environmental issue. What's got in to them? Shouldn't they be wibbling on about blokes in dresses or people fleeing France or some such? They'll get themselves expelled if they persist with this sort of thing.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
Labour's real problem isn't a trickle of people with very conservative views on immigration being coaxed back to the Tories by Suella - it's a flood giving up on them because they're so frightened of scaring the horses that they offer nothing that will improve most people's lives. A few extra wind turbines paid for by abolishing tax breaks for private schools - whilst leaving the entire framework that serves to redistribute wealth upwards completely intact - is not liable to result in a triumph for the ages.
As I alluded to further down thread, whilst one has to assume that Labour will finally realise that they need to offer their likely supporters something better than more of the same under different management, there is a non-negligible possibility that this assumption will prove to be unfounded. Therein lies the space for a Tory victory.
I would agree with that. There is a hell of a lot Labour could be doing - for example, 'boring' areas like siding with consumers against companies that keep the former waiting for hours on end with poor service or telling Banks that a condition of their banking licences is that they maintain a set number of branches - but where they are not.
I don't think Starmer will do this though. I have mentioned before that having Mandelson and Campbell advise Labour is not necessarily a good thing. The Britain of 2023 is different from that of 1997.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
Cameron didn't lose it but he didn't win a majority.
However, there is a difference. Labour's lead seems to be entirely down to people not liking the Tories. With Cameron, some at least saw him as a fresh face.
Labour's issue is that, if it is dislike of the Tories driving their poll share, that can reverse. We re 12++ months out from an election.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
1992 enters the chat.
*checks Wiki*
All the massive Labour leads in the '87-'92 period came *before* Maggie was defenestrated. The polls flipped over to a Tory lead the moment she fell on her sword - quite remarkable really.
There were plenty of smaller Labour leads spread through the remainder of that Parliament but they never recovered a commanding lead.
The Conservatives have, of course, already played the trump card of getting rid of their unwanted leader this time. Twice.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
Will it be enough to make people forget how difficult 2022 and early 2023 were?
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
I'm guessing 1992, as without checking I find it hard to imagine the Tories got 20 points ahead after 1997.
One is that we now all know that the polls were systematically wrong in the early 90's, and we roughly understand why. Shy Tories and whatnot.
The other is that Labour only touched a twenty point lead for a fairly brief time- nearly all the individual polls with a twentysomething point lead were in April 1990; even then the Wikiworm maxed out at L51C33. (Admittedly, there were many fewer polls, so the average doesn't pick out short term spikes at all well.)
The current Wikiworm average is L45C28, so the gap is almost as big as the Poll Tax summer.
One way or another, something striking is about to happen.
I think that there is also another boring chap fronting another party, but I could be mistaken.
Sadly, that’s exactly right. The Tories are the norm. The Lego. Labour is the exception - the “Lego Friends” of politics. There is Lego and Lego Friends. There is government and Labour government. That’s the weird way British politics works.
I think that there is also another boring chap fronting another party, but I could be mistaken.
I don't buy the argument, but I don't think that is exactly what people are saying - surely they are saying both being boring could blunt the effectiveness of Starmer making an appeal on that basis, since both are using it? Which if anything is suggesting it is a vote winner for him, and that's why Sunak doing the same thing hurts a little.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
Will it be enough to make people forget how difficult 2022 and early 2023 were?
No. People will have long memories on how these middle years have felt, I believe. Not seen anything like it in the last 10-12 years at least - even when things were supposed to be pretty bad, it didn't feel like this. That will stick in the mind.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
Will it be enough to make people forget how difficult 2022 and early 2023 were?
Potentially yes.
Sunak comes in, takes a bit of time to turn things round but, come early 24, the benefits are coming through.
For many, that will be enough to get him their vote again.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
We keep forgetting that support for Ukraine has been carefully calibrated to be just as much as they need but no more. We also should consider the position of the Russian economy and whether they can actually keep this going for that long.
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
North and South Korea are still formally in a state of war, so an indefinite war didn't necessarily prevent Ukraine from being rebuilt and developing as a prosperous democracy.
While Ukraine can't march on Moscow and topple the Putin regime, because of nuclear deterrence, it's still within their power - given sufficient Western support - to push Russian forces to the internationally-recognised border. Then all Russia has left is a diminishing ability to fire missiles and artillery shells across the border, while Ukraine's capacity to degrade and defend against that ability increases over time.
If Ukraine can regain all its lost territory it doesn't matter so much that Russia refuses to accept defeat - except insofar as it would make EU and NATO membership more complicated.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Personally, I think that article is overdoing it. Russia knows exactly what is happening and that is clear from their actions - if they thought they weren't losing, they wouldn't be rotating senior commanders so often for example You also have the likes of Girkin regularly pointing out their failure to advance.
This looks like a Nixon-style tactic, namely look as though I am mad enough to do anything so you have to give me some sort of escape route. It is the only thing they have left.
I think that there is also another boring chap fronting another party, but I could be mistaken.
I don't buy the argument, but I don't think that is exactly what people are saying - surely they are saying both being boring could blunt the effectiveness of Starmer making an appeal on that basis, since both are using it? Which if anything is suggesting it is a vote winner for him, and that's why Sunak doing the same thing hurts a little.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
1992 enters the chat.
*checks Wiki*
All the massive Labour leads in the '87-'92 period came *before* Maggie was defenestrated. The polls flipped over to a Tory lead the moment she fell on her sword - quite remarkable really.
There were plenty of smaller Labour leads spread through the remainder of that Parliament but they never recovered a commanding lead.
The Conservatives have, of course, already played the trump card of getting rid of their unwanted leader this time. Twice.
There was the (outlery even at the time) 27 point lead the Alliance had over Labour with the Conservatives in a close third place in December 1981;
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
He's trying to cover off all possible attacks, eg that they are soft on Law and Order. But you don't need to be strong in all areas to win (and are they even seen as that soft at the moment anyway?).
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
That F16 training would have to be going on for quite some time already, if it can be completed in 6 weeks.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
Well that would be nice but I’m realistic that we don’t have the ammunition or equipment to enable Ukraine to roll over a country prepared to throw hundreds of thousands of its own people into a meat grinder because it’s an organised crime syndicate masquerading as a country.
I think there’s a lot more we could do on sanctions to blunt Russia’s firepower too.
Then of course we have the US 2024 general election where a Trump or De Santis victory means a swift Russian victory thereafter. The US MAGA right is now to all intents and purposes a Russian ally.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
That F16 training would have to be going on for quite some time already, if it can be completed in 6 weeks.
I don't think that is what was meant. 6 weeks for a Mig pilot to train on the F-16 from scratch.
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
More spending requires more money which requires taking it from someone.
Alternatively you can increase productivity but that's a lot harder to do than to promise.
And an increase in productivity in labour intensive sectors means an increase in output without an increase in pay.
Which, I suspect, is the opposite of what most public sector workers would like from a Labour government.
Rather scraping the barrel to use Jim Sillars. He hasn't had an elected seat or party position for 30+ years IIRC. And more recently he was funding a Labour MSP.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
Will it be enough to make people forget how difficult 2022 and early 2023 were?
Potentially yes.
Sunak comes in, takes a bit of time to turn things round but, come early 24, the benefits are coming through.
For many, that will be enough to get him their vote again.
I used to argue that I could foresee Johnson increasing the Tory majority at the next election, but my view is that the Truss Calamity was a Black Wednesday type event that will hang around the Tories' necks for a political generation. That it coincides with high inflation and declining living standards means that the Tories own that economic damage in a way that wasn't inevitable.
If I'm right then the Tories could give everyone a free owl and they wouldn't get any credit for it.
The only path to a Tory victory would then lie in doing a thorough job on destroying Starmer's credibility, most likely requiring his active participation. It's not impossible, but I'd suggest that the fortunes of the economy will have nothing to do with it.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
Well that would be nice but I’m realistic that we don’t have the ammunition or equipment to enable Ukraine to roll over a country prepared to throw hundreds of thousands of its own people into a meat grinder because it’s an organised crime syndicate masquerading as a country.
I think there’s a lot more we could do on sanctions to blunt Russia’s firepower too.
Then of course we have the US 2024 general election where a Trump or De Santis victory means a swift Russian victory thereafter. The US MAGA right is now to all intents and purposes a Russian ally.
Actually De Santis rolled back from his territorial dispute quote, didn't he? And how is Russia going to win? Unless you regard a ceasefire on current lines of engagement as a victory?
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
On a very personal selfish level I have done very well under the coalition and then the Tories.
But as I am not a 'stard they have to go.
But if red wall scummers voter to kick themselves in the bollocks and re-elect the likes of Lee Anderson, I will howl laughing all the way to the bank.
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
More spending requires more money which requires taking it from someone.
Alternatively you can increase productivity but that's a lot harder to do than to promise.
And an increase in productivity in labour intensive sectors means an increase in output without an increase in pay.
Which, I suspect, is the opposite of what most public sector workers would like from a Labour government.
There are important choices to make. The conservatives want to cut tax as soon as they can. Indeed the last budget included quite a lot of expensive tax cuts, the biggest being the ruinously expensive freeze on fuel duty which keeps being extended (and now also the supposedly one off 5p cut from last Autumn).
If public finances are a little better in 2024, which the Sunak revivalists seem to be agreed on, then Labour can make the choice to use that extra headroom to invest in public services. Indeed Sunak’s own health and social care levy which was cancelled by Kwarteng was never reinstated.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
Well that would be nice but I’m realistic that we don’t have the ammunition or equipment to enable Ukraine to roll over a country prepared to throw hundreds of thousands of its own people into a meat grinder because it’s an organised crime syndicate masquerading as a country.
I think there’s a lot more we could do on sanctions to blunt Russia’s firepower too.
Then of course we have the US 2024 general election where a Trump or De Santis victory means a swift Russian victory thereafter. The US MAGA right is now to all intents and purposes a Russian ally.
Actually De Santis rolled back from his territorial dispute quote, didn't he? And how is Russia going to win? Unless you regard a ceasefire on current lines of engagement as a victory?
That would be a stunning Russian Victory, as would anything a centimetre beyond the armistice lines of 2014 given the sheer scale of financial and geopolitical power ranged against it. That cannot be allowed to happen or it will just encourage the next imperial adventure.
I don't think Starmer will do this though. I have mentioned before that having Mandelson and Campbell advise Labour is not necessarily a good thing. The Britain of 2023 is different from that of 1997.
*Is* Campbell advising Labour? The impression I get from his podcast is otherwise -- he obviously has opinions -- he doesn't think Labour are doing enough positive policy right now, in fact -- and if he was actively part of the current Labour team I don't think he'd be critiquing their strategy in public. Plus he's not even a member of the party...
I think that there is also another boring chap fronting another party, but I could be mistaken.
Sir Ed Nice is so boring that he gets forgotten. I have for a long time advocated more umph in politics. Ed is a Good Guy. But had his umph surgically snipped a long time ago...
I’m really missing the hot take on all thing Scotch from a Scandinavian perspective.
Sad times.
No shortage of hot takes on all things Scotch on here, particularly from a non Scotch perspective.
You should petition your PB overlords if you’re really missing that Scandinavian slant.
Talking about PBUnionists and their pontifications, this story in the DT is interesting re tactical voting for Labout in Scotland. Don't have a sub so can only see the headline here.
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
Because if he's going to undertake a radical overhaul of the state then he has to explain where all the money is going to come from.
Labour can't do it all through borrowing without opening itself up to unflattering comparisons with the Corbyn experiment. It can't do it through taxing the shit out of low and middle income workers because (a) the Tories have already done this, and they therefore have nothing left to give, and (b) all those turkeys won't vote for Christmas. And it's terrified of executing a raid on assets because it'll consolidate the huge wealthy grey vote (elderly outright owners of massively overpriced houses, along with their expectant heirs) behind the Tories again.
I would argue at this juncture that Labour are best off trying to rally the poorer third of pensioners and virtually everyone under the age of 45 behind the banner of redistribution - better services and lower taxes on earnings, paid for by bleeding the Tory core vote white - but, as others have pointed out, they seem intent on re-fighting the battles of 1997 and trying to coax the Tory core into their camp through reassurances and an image of cuddly, centrist Dad, beige cardigan safety. Of course, Blair could afford to do this because there were fewer old people to pay for and vastly better economic prospects at the time, so he could shell out for changey hopey hospitals, sure start centres and such like without having to be really very horrid to a large chunk of the electorate. He could promise the moon on a stick and, to a great extent, deliver. Starmer doesn't have that luxury. He has to make choices about whom he is going to favour and whom he is going to mug for the money, but he doesn't want to.
So where do they go for extra cash? They can opt for more impositions on outright plutocrats, but they can hide most of their loot in Monaco or the Cayman Islands, and anyway there aren't enough of them to make a real dent in our problems. That leaves Labour as the party that can tinker round the edges but can't promise real change to its supporters because it won't raise more money, and can't promise anything better to the Tories' supporters either because it's just offering them more of what they're already getting from that nice Rishi.
The risk in all this is that Labour's own supporters sit on their hands and the Tories' voters opt for the real thing over a facsimile, and that's how Starmer contrives to lose the next election.
Rather scraping the barrel to use Jim Sillars. He hasn't had an elected seat or party position for 30+ years IIRC. And more recently he was funding a Labour MSP.
Fair comment. But he is, I think, close to Salmond and is articulating what quite a few people are thinking. But, being Jim Sillars, he's prepared to say it openly.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
When was the last time an opposition lost an election after being 20 points ahead?
I'm guessing 1992, as without checking I find it hard to imagine the Tories got 20 points ahead after 1997.
One is that we now all know that the polls were systematically wrong in the early 90's, and we roughly understand why. Shy Tories and whatnot.
The other is that Labour only touched a twenty point lead for a fairly brief time- nearly all the individual polls with a twentysomething point lead were in April 1990; even then the Wikiworm maxed out at L51C33. (Admittedly, there were many fewer polls, so the average doesn't pick out short term spikes at all well.)
The current Wikiworm average is L45C28, so the gap is almost as big as the Poll Tax summer.
One way or another, something striking is about to happen.
I think there's also the fact that once Maggie resigned Labour's big poll leads vanished into the ether... The most favourable polls the Tories have had since Sunak took over are a 10% Labour lead with Deltapoll (which seems to have been an outlier, given their last poll had a Labour on a humongous lead) and now this 11% one with Opinium.
Rather scraping the barrel to use Jim Sillars. He hasn't had an elected seat or party position for 30+ years IIRC. And more recently he was funding a Labour MSP.
Fair comment. But he is, I think, close to Salmond and is articulating what quite a few people are thinking. But, being Jim Sillars, he's prepared to say it openly.
Not close to Salmond. Misunderstanding on your part there, in my view, which is another reason I am suspicious of hius beijng regularly wheeled out.
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
More spending requires more money which requires taking it from someone.
Alternatively you can increase productivity but that's a lot harder to do than to promise.
And an increase in productivity in labour intensive sectors means an increase in output without an increase in pay.
Which, I suspect, is the opposite of what most public sector workers would like from a Labour government.
There are important choices to make. The conservatives want to cut tax as soon as they can. Indeed the last budget included quite a lot of expensive tax cuts, the biggest being the ruinously expensive freeze on fuel duty which keeps being extended (and now also the supposedly one off 5p cut from last Autumn).
If public finances are a little better in 2024, which the Sunak revivalists seem to be agreed on, then Labour can make the choice to use that extra headroom to invest in public services. Indeed Sunak’s own health and social care levy which was cancelled by Kwarteng was never reinstated.
Sure but is a few billion here and there going to make a noticeable difference to public sector performance ?
Even assuming you got a 1:1 increase in output for the corresponding increased input - very, very unlikely IMO.
For example NHS employment has increased by 189k since the 2019 GE yet you refer to the NHS as 'a disaster':
I think Labour do have a Sunak problem and haven't worked out how to address it. They've failed to pigeonhole him as "weak" so where do they go from here. No doubt Peter Mandelson is working on it...
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
Will it be enough to make people forget how difficult 2022 and early 2023 were?
No. People will have long memories on how these middle years have felt, I believe. Not seen anything like it in the last 10-12 years at least - even when things were supposed to be pretty bad, it didn't feel like this. That will stick in the mind.
The other issue the Tories have is that vast swathes of middle earners will be barely any better off in real terms than they were when the Tories came to power in 2010, and they know it. They also know the public services have declined during that period.
The only people significantly better off are pensioners and top quartile earners.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
Well that would be nice but I’m realistic that we don’t have the ammunition or equipment to enable Ukraine to roll over a country prepared to throw hundreds of thousands of its own people into a meat grinder because it’s an organised crime syndicate masquerading as a country.
I think there’s a lot more we could do on sanctions to blunt Russia’s firepower too.
Then of course we have the US 2024 general election where a Trump or De Santis victory means a swift Russian victory thereafter. The US MAGA right is now to all intents and purposes a Russian ally.
Actually De Santis rolled back from his territorial dispute quote, didn't he? And how is Russia going to win? Unless you regard a ceasefire on current lines of engagement as a victory?
Rather scraping the barrel to use Jim Sillars. He hasn't had an elected seat or party position for 30+ years IIRC. And more recently he was funding a Labour MSP.
I was amused to hear Jim on R4 last week (during one of their regular spasms of trying to educate the Home Counties on far away countries of which they know nothing) after describing the woes of the SNP saying ‘we’re in real trouble’.
Rather scraping the barrel to use Jim Sillars. He hasn't had an elected seat or party position for 30+ years IIRC. And more recently he was funding a Labour MSP.
I was amused to hear Jim on R4 last week (during one of their regular spasms of trying to educate the Home Counties on far away countries of which they know nothing) after describing the woes of the SNP saying ‘we’re in real trouble’.
Well, he is still a party member as far as I know.
If the Labour leads drops into single digits they will officially start bricking it
Labour are a clear and present danger to my children and threaten to tax them out of the schools they love and are settled in.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
I think this is what gets underestimated as a factor, namely the fear factor of your opponent getting in.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
If the economy is seen to be doing well next year, then the kind of attack lines that work at the moment will fall flat. It's definitely more open than many people assume.
One potentially game changing effect that hasn't really been taken into account is that rising tax receipts in early 2024 give the Government room to cut taxes. Two of the side effects of inflation is that (1) VAT receipts go up because of rising prices and (2) Income tax receipts also go up because of rising wages.
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
Will it be enough to make people forget how difficult 2022 and early 2023 were?
No. People will have long memories on how these middle years have felt, I believe. Not seen anything like it in the last 10-12 years at least - even when things were supposed to be pretty bad, it didn't feel like this. That will stick in the mind.
The other issue the Tories have is that vast swathes of middle earners will be barely any better off in real terms than they were when the Tories came to power in 2010, and they know it. They also know the public services have declined during that period.
The only people significantly better off are pensioners and top quartile earners.
The Conservatives have become too focussed on protecting privilege and have forgotten about aspiration.
If I were them I'd be talking about the UK having full employment but they're a party of rich people depending on the votes of old people and so likely don't regard full employment for the young and working class as good things.
Steamer’s crew have forgotten their strongest suit: under-invested public services.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
There are some areas of weakness but most public services still work ok, and there have been some notable improvements over the past 13 years. It isn't exactly a failed state. Most of the problems are not visible to the public and not obvious vote winners, IE the problems over pay meaning skilled people leave. Labour need to explain what they would do better and how it would improve people's lives.
An interesting if terrifying scenario in many ways. I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
It is indeed terrifying, because when regimes become insensitive to battlefield dynamics they just keep going until they are utterly defeated, like Germany or Japan in WW2. But they can’t be, because Russia cannot be invaded due to the asymmetry of nuclear deterrence. So the war goes until Ukraine loses or Russia has a change if leadership.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
Rather than wait 20 years we could give the Ukrainians longer range artillery and fighter jets. Phillips O'Brien states he was told by a very high ranking source in Washington that F-16 training could be done in 6 weeks.
Well that would be nice but I’m realistic that we don’t have the ammunition or equipment to enable Ukraine to roll over a country prepared to throw hundreds of thousands of its own people into a meat grinder because it’s an organised crime syndicate masquerading as a country.
I think there’s a lot more we could do on sanctions to blunt Russia’s firepower too.
Then of course we have the US 2024 general election where a Trump or De Santis victory means a swift Russian victory thereafter. The US MAGA right is now to all intents and purposes a Russian ally.
I think you're overestimating both Russia's strength, and the MAGA right's willingness to help them in practice as opposed to criticising Biden's handling of the war.
Along with 'Starmer is no Blair', it has become commonplace for posters of all stripes to say that if Labour is to seal the deal, Starmer et al need to come up with some big ideas, and have a 'vision' to sell. That's fair enough, and I agree.
However, I'm struggling even more to see the Tories' big ideas, or their 'vision'. What is modern Toryism about, other than 'small boats' type populism? Why should I vote for them? What's Sunak's 'big idea'? I really don't have a clue. I reckon if there's a vacuum in Labour's policy offer, there's at least as large a one in the Tories'.
I'll have a try at this. Most of the electorate is tired after what has been a very hectic 5-6 years - Brexit and its aftermath, straight into Covid and the lockdowns, followed by a major war in Europe and inflation not seen for 40+ years. They don't won't big ideas necessarily, they want things to be stable and for the Government to step in and protect them when they face major difficulties.
FWIW, I think that suits 'Sunak-ism' quite well. He's not one for the Thatcherite bold moves but - to many - he's decent enough and seems competent. That's enough for many.
Labour's problem - and SKS' in particular - is that he has never formulated where Labour will genuinely help people whose main obstacle is trying to deal with a society where the rules seem rigged in favour of big interests and people are resigned to their lives.
I think this is a comfortable interpretation of the psephological circumstances for Conservative leaning voters. It's not the Tories who are at fault, it's Brexit aftermath, COVID, war.
But I think it's nonsense. It's not just about the hectic last 5-6 years. It's about the state of the country that, more broadly, reflects 13 years of Tory leadership. People aren't (merely) tired of hectic events. They're tired of an NHS on its knees, where it's a struggle to get a GP appointment and hospital waiting lists are way up. They're tired of the problems in social care, of how local services have been cut to the bone, of how the police don't investigate crimes.
This has all been exacerbated by the three horsemen of the apocalypse, Brexit, pandemic and war. But these issues go deeper, they go back to austerity. These are not problems solved by Sunak-ism.
Also, while COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are external events, Brexit was the Conservatives (Sunak included).
Which is why, while Sunak may have stemmed the bleeding from the immediate self-inflicted wounds of Johnson and Truss, he can't reverse the main causes of the Tories' polling decline... or so I predict.
I’m really missing the hot take on all thing Scotch from a Scandinavian perspective.
Sad times.
No shortage of hot takes on all things Scotch on here, particularly from a non Scotch perspective.
You should petition your PB overlords if you’re really missing that Scandinavian slant.
Talking about PBUnionists and their pontifications, this story in the DT is interesting re tactical voting for Labout in Scotland. Don't have a sub so can only see the headline here.
I saw one long time Scotpol twitterer (LD I think so no real dog in this fight) suggest that the whole SCons urging tactical voting for SLab was just a bluff to taint them with the old red Tory tag. That would show a nice awareness that even the whiff an alliance with them is electoral death in Scotland.
Rather scraping the barrel to use Jim Sillars. He hasn't had an elected seat or party position for 30+ years IIRC. And more recently he was funding a Labour MSP.
I was amused to hear Jim on R4 last week (during one of their regular spasms of trying to educate the Home Counties on far away countries of which they know nothing) after describing the woes of the SNP saying ‘we’re in real trouble’.
Well, he is still a party member as far as I know.
I’m pretty sure campaigning for/funding political opponents in an election is grounds for expulsion in most parties.
Comments
(On current figures).
The question should be legal up to 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 ... 24 /26 ... 34 / 36 weeks.
Or would that be too likely to produce a 'moderate' result to the outrage of fanatics of both sides ?
The other part is the poll didn’t show a direct 3-point move from Labour to Conservative which makes me think this is more likely to be noise than a direct shift in opinion.
More polls are needed as always…
So, now, all he really has to draw upon is exhaustion with the Tory party.
I will laugh tears of joy if they are checked and blocked from office.
Would a Starmer government that was actively or passively dependent on Lib Dem votes, let alone SNP votes really be closer to the type of government you prefer? I rather doubt it.
I mentioned before what Blair did extremely well in 1997 was reduce the fear for many people of a Labour Government, So many Tories just didn't bother voting.
One thing that may be an issue for Starmer is that, for all the talk of getting the broken, sleazy Tories out, there is a fair cohort that fears Labour - people like yourself that worry about their kids, friends of mine who are naturally Labour voters but worry about the trans issues and people in poor towns who essentially think that, despite his words, Starmer is pro-immigration and will let more people enter.
I know it's Guido but he had an interesting link with voters on what they thought about Sunak and Starmer. Generally positive on Sunak but less complimentary re Starmer and his policies, particularly on saying what he truly thinks.
I personally think we are on track for another Conservative victory (and will bet accordingly).
In an area heavily dependent on tourism.
It's difficult to disagree that they are right.
18 months to go and anything is possible.
Once.
Labour is still besting that in at least half of them.
There's a lot more swingback needed yet.
It was utterly inevitable that this would be better received than Johnson/Truss.
It isn't election winning, just not firing a machine gun at his own feet. Every other day.
As I alluded to further down thread, whilst one has to assume that Labour will finally realise that they need to offer their likely supporters something better than more of the same under different management, there is a non-negligible possibility that this assumption will prove to be unfounded. Therein lies the space for a Tory victory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1992_United_Kingdom_general_election
It'd have to be going gangbusters to make up for the fall in real wages this year. And we know the government won't want anyone getting a real terms pay rise to make up for it.
I am interested in scenario where Ukr does reasonably well in an offensive, it is encouraged towards talks by its partners & it tries to engage Russia—but is rebuffed because Kremlin has irreversibly drunk its own kool-aid & can no longer calculate costs/benefits in rational way.
Ukraine's position has changed through the war, but there have been many signals about talks, engagement, compromises, and so on (some nudged by partners). Russia's position has been remarkably consistent—remarkably insensitive to battlefield dynamics.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1644786964846051335
I find it hard to see why people would choose more of the same after an unprecedented decline in living standards, but then it's hard to see what change Starmer is offering, and yet he's the only change available.
". . . behavioral health services and capital facilities, including a countywide crisis care centers network, increased residential treatment; mobile crisis care; post-discharge stabilization; and workforce supports."
source: https://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/Vote/contests/ballotmeasures.aspx?lang=en-US&cid=100765&groupname=County
(This King County includes Seattle, nearby suburbs, and many acres of rural areas, extending, as it does, to the crest of the Cascades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County,_Washington )
I haven't decided how I'll vote on this yet. It addresses serious problems, but elected officials here have not persuaded me that they are competent to deal with them. And much of the money appears to be for "harm reduction", rather than, say, "prevention". That may be the best approach in the circumstances, but I would like to see more of the argument.
I don't think Starmer will do this though. I have mentioned before that having Mandelson and Campbell advise Labour is not necessarily a good thing. The Britain of 2023 is different from that of 1997.
However, there is a difference. Labour's lead seems to be entirely down to people not liking the Tories. With Cameron, some at least saw him as a fresh face.
Labour's issue is that, if it is dislike of the Tories driving their poll share, that can reverse. We re 12++ months out from an election.
How does Can't Make It Kier sound?
Add in the comparables for inflation get easier in late 2023 / early 2024, and Sunak is going to be having some very favourable boosts on the economic front,
All the massive Labour leads in the '87-'92 period came *before* Maggie was defenestrated. The polls flipped over to a Tory lead the moment she fell on her sword - quite remarkable really.
There were plenty of smaller Labour leads spread through the remainder of that Parliament but they never recovered a commanding lead.
The Conservatives have, of course, already played the trump card of getting rid of their unwanted leader this time. Twice.
https://twitter.com/LeftieStats/status/1644804122892288000
"Stats for Lefties 🏳️⚧️
@LeftieStats
🗳️ NEW: Labour lead drops to 11pts
🔴 LAB 41% (-3)
🔵 CON 30% (+1)
🟠 LD 10% (+1)
🟣 REF 7% (-)
🟢 GRN 5% (-)
----
🔴 Labour majority of 32 seats
Via @OpiniumResearch
, date TBC (+/- vs 29-31 Mar)"
Boring Sunak good. Vote winner.
Boring Starmer bad. Vote loser.
I think that there is also another boring chap fronting another party, but I could be mistaken.
So it’s time to rediscover the hope we all had in Feb 2022, that a tenacious Ukraine would make life impossible for Russia for years and slowly drain its resources and sap its will. It took the Taliban 20 years to achieve that in Afghanistan. Ukraine and the West need similar strategic patience. In 20 years time the Russian population will be significantly smaller than it is now. In the meantime economic sanctions need to be good enough to lay waste to the Russian state’s ability to wage war.
One is that we now all know that the polls were systematically wrong in the early 90's, and we roughly understand why. Shy Tories and whatnot.
The other is that Labour only touched a twenty point lead for a fairly brief time- nearly all the individual polls with a twentysomething point lead were in April 1990; even then the Wikiworm maxed out at L51C33. (Admittedly, there were many fewer polls, so the average doesn't pick out short term spikes at all well.)
The current Wikiworm average is L45C28, so the gap is almost as big as the Poll Tax summer.
One way or another, something striking is about to happen.
Sunak comes in, takes a bit of time to turn things round but, come early 24, the benefits are coming through.
For many, that will be enough to get him their vote again.
We keep forgetting that support for Ukraine has been carefully calibrated to be just as much as they need but no more. We also should consider the position of the Russian economy and whether they can actually keep this going for that long.
Sad times.
There are few things more incontrovertible than the awful state of almost all public services in 2023. The health system: a disaster. Education: a lost cause. Policing and justice: on its knees. Local government: doesn’t even have any knees left. Infrastructure and transport: embarrassing. And so on. A government that undertakes to get things actually working again should be more than enough. The country is freaking at the seams and everyone know it. So why is Sir Keir fannying around with offensive UKIP attack ads?
While Ukraine can't march on Moscow and topple the Putin regime, because of nuclear deterrence, it's still within their power - given sufficient Western support - to push Russian forces to the internationally-recognised border. Then all Russia has left is a diminishing ability to fire missiles and artillery shells across the border, while Ukraine's capacity to degrade and defend against that ability increases over time.
If Ukraine can regain all its lost territory it doesn't matter so much that Russia refuses to accept defeat - except insofar as it would make EU and NATO membership more complicated.
This looks like a Nixon-style tactic, namely look as though I am mad enough to do anything so you have to give me some sort of escape route. It is the only thing they have left.
We were never being bored
'Cause we were never being boring
We were never being bored
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1983_United_Kingdom_general_election
That does suggest another way a government can turn the polls around, albeit a tricky one to engineer.
Seems infighting continuing but it is out in the open and the first big error by Labour
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/08/yvette-cooper-was-not-told-about-labours-sunak-attack-ad-in-advance?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
I think there’s a lot more we could do on sanctions to blunt Russia’s firepower too.
Then of course we have the US 2024 general election where a Trump or De Santis victory means a swift Russian victory thereafter. The US MAGA right is now to all intents and purposes a Russian ally.
Alternatively you can increase productivity but that's a lot harder to do than to promise.
And an increase in productivity in labour intensive sectors means an increase in output without an increase in pay.
Which, I suspect, is the opposite of what most public sector workers would like from a Labour government.
If I'm right then the Tories could give everyone a free owl and they wouldn't get any credit for it.
The only path to a Tory victory would then lie in doing a thorough job on destroying Starmer's credibility, most likely requiring his active participation. It's not impossible, but I'd suggest that the fortunes of the economy will have nothing to do with it.
But as I am not a 'stard they have to go.
But if red wall scummers voter to kick themselves in the bollocks and re-elect the likes of Lee Anderson, I will howl laughing all the way to the bank.
If public finances are a little better in 2024, which the Sunak revivalists seem to be agreed on, then Labour can make the choice
to use that extra headroom to invest in public services. Indeed Sunak’s own health and social care levy which was cancelled by Kwarteng was never reinstated.
You should petition your PB overlords if you’re really missing that Scandinavian slant.
https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/sunday-telegraph-front-page-2023-04-09/
Labour can't do it all through borrowing without opening itself up to unflattering comparisons with the Corbyn experiment. It can't do it through taxing the shit out of low and middle income workers because (a) the Tories have already done this, and they therefore have nothing left to give, and (b) all those turkeys won't vote for Christmas. And it's terrified of executing a raid on assets because it'll consolidate the huge wealthy grey vote (elderly outright owners of massively overpriced houses, along with their expectant heirs) behind the Tories again.
I would argue at this juncture that Labour are best off trying to rally the poorer third of pensioners and virtually everyone under the age of 45 behind the banner of redistribution - better services and lower taxes on earnings, paid for by bleeding the Tory core vote white - but, as others have pointed out, they seem intent on re-fighting the battles of 1997 and trying to coax the Tory core into their camp through reassurances and an image of cuddly, centrist Dad, beige cardigan safety. Of course, Blair could afford to do this because there were fewer old people to pay for and vastly better economic prospects at the time, so he could shell out for changey hopey hospitals, sure start centres and such like without having to be really very horrid to a large chunk of the electorate. He could promise the moon on a stick and, to a great extent, deliver. Starmer doesn't have that luxury. He has to make choices about whom he is going to favour and whom he is going to mug for the money, but he doesn't want to.
So where do they go for extra cash? They can opt for more impositions on outright plutocrats, but they can hide most of their loot in Monaco or the Cayman Islands, and anyway there aren't enough of them to make a real dent in our problems. That leaves Labour as the party that can tinker round the edges but can't promise real change to its supporters because it won't raise more money, and can't promise anything better to the Tories' supporters either because it's just offering them more of what they're already getting from that nice Rishi.
The risk in all this is that Labour's own supporters sit on their hands and the Tories' voters opt for the real thing over a facsimile, and that's how Starmer contrives to lose the next election.
The most favourable polls the Tories have had since Sunak took over are a 10% Labour lead with Deltapoll (which seems to have been an outlier, given their last poll had a Labour on a humongous lead) and now this 11% one with Opinium.
Even assuming you got a 1:1 increase in output for the corresponding increased input - very, very unlikely IMO.
For example NHS employment has increased by 189k since the 2019 GE yet you refer to the NHS as 'a disaster':
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/timeseries/c9lg/pse
The only people significantly better off are pensioners and top quartile earners.
It's like when they used to get Tory criticisms from Heseltine - really, no one else?
Lab 41
Con 30
SKS fans please explain
If I were them I'd be talking about the UK having full employment but they're a party of rich people depending on the votes of old people and so likely don't regard full employment for the young and working class as good things.
https://twitter.com/Georgia_Edkins/status/1644812700742983680
A prime example of someone being given top job after top job after the electorate thinking they had got rid of him.
But I think it's nonsense. It's not just about the hectic last 5-6 years. It's about the state of the country that, more broadly, reflects 13 years of Tory leadership. People aren't (merely) tired of hectic events. They're tired of an NHS on its knees, where it's a struggle to get a GP appointment and hospital waiting lists are way up. They're tired of the problems in social care, of how local services have been cut to the bone, of how the police don't investigate crimes.
This has all been exacerbated by the three horsemen of the apocalypse, Brexit, pandemic and war. But these issues go deeper, they go back to austerity. These are not problems solved by Sunak-ism.
Also, while COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are external events, Brexit was the Conservatives (Sunak included).
Which is why, while Sunak may have stemmed the bleeding from the immediate self-inflicted wounds of Johnson and Truss, he can't reverse the main causes of the Tories' polling decline... or so I predict.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1644813284669792261?t=NuinXqvFIva_FpQjSpC_XA&s=19