Reading the whole thing, there doesn't seem to be a complete reported VI. They mention 16% Don't Know, 18% Conservative, but there's no Labour figure. It does read a bit like trying to build bricks of a story out of a smallish amount of straw.
And for all the gap has closed, the big picture is still not that favourable for the blue team;
As a former Tory minister pointed out, Johnson’s landslide win was not based on a huge surge of new Conservative voters from the 2017 election but of Labour voters staying at home or switching their support towards the Liberal Democrats...
“All Labour need to do is get their 2017 support to turn up and vote and we’ll be back to a hung parliament,” the former minister said. “It is not enough for us to hold on to our 2019 vote — we need former Labour voters who didn’t like Corbyn not to vote for Starmer.”
And a question for Conservatives looking forward to a Hung Parliament. It may give you emotional pleasure stopping a Labour majority. But do you really think a Lib-Lab arrangement, let alone a Lib-Lab-SNP one, will govern in a way that's more agreeable to you?
Really?
A minority Labour government will certainly have the Parliamentary backing for a much closer relationship with the EU and for extra public spending financed by, say, wealth taxes and additional borrowing. In her pomp, Nicola Sturgeon may have had the political skill and capital to justify an SNP decision not to to support a Labour minority government to Scottish voters, but I doubt Humza Yousaf could - especially if the SNP has lost seats and vote share to Labour.
Hasn't Labour been trumpeting the fact as a stinging government rebuke that the UK has its highest tax burden in ages if not ever? Who will be paying these wealth taxes.
People who tend not to vote Labour would be my guess, along with a smaller group of people who do vote Labour but are willing to pay more.
"Undecideds are also almost four times more likely to trust Sunak and the Conservatives to handle the economy than they are to trust Labour, which in past elections has always been a good indicator of how people cast their ballot."
"Senior Tory strategists say that their own internal polling shows the same — that among undecided voters and what they describe as “soft” Labour supporters, Sunak significantly out-polls Starmer on who would make the best prime minister.
They put the percentage of the electorate which is up for grabs at between 30 and 40 per cent. They hope that, as the general election gets closer, this group will ultimately end up backing the Tories because of Sunak."
But doesn’t this just reflect that these Undecideds are predominantly ex-Conservative supporters?
The problem for the Tories is that lots of their voters have moved into the undecided column, and some have moved straight to Labour, while Labour voters, by and large, still support Labour. So, of course, these Undecideds will still have a somewhat positive view of Sunak: that’s why they’re in this category.
Labour will have lost some Corbyn-lovers who will maybe go Green or sit on their hands next time. But Labour went down to an utterly disastrous defeat last time, so they have to be making huge inroads into the Tory vote that gave an 80 seat majority for the Conservatives.
As I have reported back from the doorsteps, there is no love for Labour/Starmer out there. There has been a lot of WTAF???? about the Tories under Boris, then Truss. People are still wary of this RIshi Sunak government, but far less so than they were 6 months ago. Once inflation and then interest rates decline, once the strikes end, once the cost of living and energy prices stop delivering horrible shocks to domestic budgets, there will be a palpable sense of relief.
And Rishi will benefit.
And Labour concern for their prospects will mean some of them propose frankly daft options.
We can examine these different subsets of voters, and that can be very interesting. The question is how do the views of all these different subsets come together and balance out. The way to determine that is, of course, just to look at the overall polling, where Labour remain massively ahead.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
Just watching this history of England lecture series.
Examination of 5th and 6th century skeletons:
> bonal growths suggesting incessant squatting to do grinding and hard manual labour in the fields > poor bone density, suggesting malnourishment > severe and agonising tooth decay due to hard grit and grain in poorly ground and baked bread, the mainstay of their diet > evidence of chronic parasite infections > arthritis and other joint diseases endemic > most fail to reach full adult human height
Infant mortality at least 50% and estimated that only 28% of males made it to the age of 35. Even worse for women due to the hazards of childbirth and blood loss. And most children had stunted growth due to malnourishment, and wouldn't reach their full height until well into their 20s, if at all.
Grim.
There’s a non trivial percentage of humans alive today, living much of that.
Thankfully that number is shrinking, quite rapidly.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Just like Major in 92 ? Seems unlikely that he'd scrape anything more than a bare majority even in Casino's fondest dreams. Once the backbench loons outnumber your Parliamentary majority, you are distinctly assailable.
It is not really a "daft rule" that those over 60 will be able to use their travel passes while that will not be an acceptable form of ID for those who are younger. Not if you want to make sure that the voters who are most likely not to vote for you are the ones who are most impacted by the change.
It can only be viewed as "daft" in so far as it is so blatant that it gives the whole game away, and makes inevitable now that an incoming Lab or Lab-Lib government will have to prioritise a bill to change electoral law in its first term.
It's probably been explained literally 100 times on this website in the last few months that the requirements to get an over 60s travel pass are completely different (and massively more stringent) than to get an under 60s travel pass.
So it's not blatant at all.
But it does look blatant.
And the pertinent question is surely how likely it is that someone below 60 would apply for a travel pass - or multiple travel passes - just to get extra votes at an election?
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
(My assumption from outside the party is that Starmer was chosen to do the Kinnock Kleanup and then not outstay his welcome after losing in 2023. That we're even talking of Starmer PM is a function of how badly the Conservatives have screwed up, and how doggedly effective Boring Old Starmer has been.)
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
Just watching this history of England lecture series.
Examination of 5th and 6th century skeletons:
> bonal growths suggesting incessant squatting to do grinding and hard manual labour in the fields > poor bone density, suggesting malnourishment > severe and agonising tooth decay due to hard grit and grain in poorly ground and baked bread, the mainstay of their diet > evidence of chronic parasite infections > arthritis and other joint diseases endemic > most fail to reach full adult human height
Infant mortality at least 50% and estimated that only 28% of males made it to the age of 35. Even worse for women due to the hazards of childbirth and blood loss. And most children had stunted growth due to malnourishment, and wouldn't reach their full height until well into their 20s, if at all.
Grim.
There’s a non trivial percentage of humans alive today, living much of that.
Thankfully that number is shrinking, quite rapidly.
Still not as bad as post-Brexit Britain, eh?
That’s a post apocalyptic wasteland, inhabited by mutant zombies….
The Times is reporting something about Don't Knows moving to Rishi. But I can't read the whole article because of the paywall. Maybe someone else could find out.
The Times is quoting a YouGov poll (fieldwork 12/13 April) but there are no voting intention figures in the article. However there is the following:
DON'T KNOWS - BEST PM: Sunak 21 Starmer 8 (Rest not sure or refused)
Undecideds also almost four times more likely to trust Con/Sunak than Lab/Starmer to handle economy.
CON VOTERS - BEST PM: Sunak 82 Starmer 3
LAB VOTERS - BEST PM: Starmer 69 Sunak 3
So Sunak also outperforming Starmer amongst own party supporters.
Yes, it's well known that a lot of former Tory voters switched to Don't Know from BoJo. These are people who couldn't quite switch to another party. What we're waiting for is some sign that they're moving back. This data only shows us the size of what we already knew.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
“It could be even worse” will certainly be the central Tory message in 2024. I am not sure it’s a winning one, though.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
He could end up like Major in 1992. Beholden to a fringe element. That’s my expectation if he wins. Starmer less so as he will have delivered a govt for a party of opposition for many years.
He is already pretty beholden to the lunatics who, sadly, are no longer the fringe but now constitute the mainstream.
The Point I was responding to was he would be in an unassailable position if he won in 2024. He won’t be.
At the moment he does have some of the headbangers in his broad tent, like Steve Baker, the ERG have been marginalised by the success of the Windsor agreement. Post 2024 his position will be worse, if he wins, unless by some miracle he gains a larger majority.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
You better hope and pray, one A. Johnson loses Uxbridge or hasn't already been shoehorned into a safer seat. You think an ambitious Johnson couldn't make life absolute hell on earth for a 20 seat majority Sunak?
Q: Will economy improve or get worse over the next 12 months?
After Autumn Statement: Improve 7 Get worse 68
Now: Improve 17 Get worse 52
So IF in 12 months time people feel the economy has improved then lots of people are going to be surprised on the upside- which may (or may not!) feed into voting intention.
Sunak has already saved the Conservatives from catastrophe.
The really interesting question is how much better they'd be doing if Truss had never been elected, and he'd won the original contest.
The polling on economic credibility among undecided voters does suggest that the Truss Calamity has not had the lasting impact on attitudes that I expected.
Starmer has a window of opportunity to seal the deal with the electorate and it begins to look like he fluffed it.
I think you might overestimate what agency the opposition has in these situations. They don’t make the economic weather,
The situation was that the government had been forced to change Prime Minister for the second time in less than two months after creating an economic crisis. The opportunity for the opposition to present themselves as a government-in-waiting was unprecedented.
Starmer has failed to tell a story of how he wants to change the country and he's not convincing as a steady reliable hand on the tiller either. It's not enough to be a vacuum and wait for the government to cock-up.
If Starmer does fail to become PM after the next election, after everything that has happened, the failure will be entirely his.
Yep, I agree with that. And such an outcome certainly would take us to 1992 territory, with an unloved, worn out Tory administration in hock to its lunatic tendency.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion
Fair enough... but I don't think a regime of high taxes, consequential discouragement of tourism, and increasing dependency on subsidies is objectively really going to be a good long term answer.
I have to say that I haven't been on holiday in Wales for decades because all this is incredibly off-putting.
In the end it is no fun going to a place where everyone seems to hate you, however beautiful it is. In my experience the hate came from a small minority and there was also a lot of respect, curiosity and support which kept me going; particularly after I started writing newspaper columns explaining about the need for investment in these 'left behind' villages. But it was a lot of hard work and very far from profitable.
Tourism is vital to North Wales and that is why many object to the introduction of a tourist tax
We have an abundance of hotels, b and b's, caravan and mobile homes sites but second homes inflate house prices to the point that places like Abersoch are the playground of millionaires while locals cannot afford to buy or rent
We warmly welcome all holidaymakers to enjoy our wonderful and beautiful area which I for one consider to have been a great privilege to live here for near 50 years and previously my childhood holidays at my uncle and aunts caravan park in Abersoch in the late 1940s and early 1950s
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
Yep, not gonna happen. Part of the feeling in 2010 was that the Lib Dems couldn't be seen to pass up their first chance of being part of a government and also be seen as a serious party. They felt they had to go in to coalition, even though they were uneasy about the Tories. There is no such feeling now.
Then you turn to Brexit. The Lib Dems will have Brexit related pre-conditions for coalition negotiations. The Tories won't meet them.
It is not really a "daft rule" that those over 60 will be able to use their travel passes while that will not be an acceptable form of ID for those who are younger. Not if you want to make sure that the voters who are most likely not to vote for you are the ones who are most impacted by the change.
It can only be viewed as "daft" in so far as it is so blatant that it gives the whole game away, and makes inevitable now that an incoming Lab or Lab-Lib government will have to prioritise a bill to change electoral law in its first term.
It's probably been explained literally 100 times on this website in the last few months that the requirements to get an over 60s travel pass are completely different (and massively more stringent) than to get an under 60s travel pass.
So it's not blatant at all.
Its like the posters who keep insisting that inflation is collapsing.
Just because you keep repeating something you know is an inconvenient lie doesn't make it the truth.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
He could end up like Major in 1992. Beholden to a fringe element. That’s my expectation if he wins. Starmer less so as he will have delivered a govt for a party of opposition for many years.
He is already pretty beholden to the lunatics who, sadly, are no longer the fringe but now constitute the mainstream.
The Point I was responding to was he would be in an unassailable position if he won in 2024. He won’t be.
At the moment he does have some of the headbangers in his broad tent, like Steve Baker, the ERG have been marginalised by the success of the Windsor agreement. Post 2024 his position will be worse, if he wins, unless by some miracle he gains a larger majority.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Q: Will economy improve or get worse over the next 12 months?
After Autumn Statement: Improve 7 Get worse 68
Now: Improve 17 Get worse 52
So IF in 12 months time people feel the economy has improved then lots of people are going to be surprised on the upside- which may (or may not!) feed into voting intention.
Sunak has already saved the Conservatives from catastrophe.
The really interesting question is how much better they'd be doing if Truss had never been elected, and he'd won the original contest.
The polling on economic credibility among undecided voters does suggest that the Truss Calamity has not had the lasting impact on attitudes that I expected.
Starmer has a window of opportunity to seal the deal with the electorate and it begins to look like he fluffed it.
I think you might overestimate what agency the opposition has in these situations. They don’t make the economic weather,
The situation was that the government had been forced to change Prime Minister for the second time in less than two months after creating an economic crisis. The opportunity for the opposition to present themselves as a government-in-waiting was unprecedented.
Starmer has failed to tell a story of how he wants to change the country and he's not convincing as a steady reliable hand on the tiller either. It's not enough to be a vacuum and wait for the government to cock-up.
If Starmer does fail to become PM after the next election, after everything that has happened, the failure will be entirely his.
Yep, I agree with that. And such an outcome certainly would take us to 1992 territory, with an unloved, worn out Tory administration in hock to its lunatic tendency.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion
Fair enough... but I don't think a regime of high taxes, consequential discouragement of tourism, and increasing dependency on subsidies is objectively really going to be a good long term answer.
I have to say that I haven't been on holiday in Wales for decades because all this is incredibly off-putting.
In the end it is no fun going to a place where everyone seems to hate you, however beautiful it is. In my experience the hate came from a small minority and there was also a lot of respect, curiosity and support which kept me going; particularly after I started writing newspaper columns explaining about the need for investment in these 'left behind' villages. But it was a lot of hard work and very far from profitable.
Tourism is vital to North Wales and that is why many object to the introduction of a tourist tax
We have an abundance of hotels, b and b's, caravan and mobile homes sites but second homes inflate house prices to the point that places like Abersoch are the playground of millionaires while locals cannot afford to buy or rent
We warmly welcome all holidaymakers to enjoy our wonderful and beautiful area which I for one consider to have been a great privilege to live here for near 50 years and previously my childhood holidays at my uncle and aunts caravan park in Abersoch in the late 1940s and early 1950s
Aren’t all the Cheshire millionaires in their mega-trendy caravans in The Warren though?
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
“It could be even worse” will certainly be the central Tory message in 2024. I am not sure it’s a winning one, though.
Maybe. But given Labour havent anything as a core message it might be the only thing on offer.
Starmer still hasnt got his act together. Say what you like about Corbyn but at least he had policies - some of which a rightie like me would actually agree with. Starmer makes dishwater look exciting.
Q: Will economy improve or get worse over the next 12 months?
After Autumn Statement: Improve 7 Get worse 68
Now: Improve 17 Get worse 52
So IF in 12 months time people feel the economy has improved then lots of people are going to be surprised on the upside- which may (or may not!) feed into voting intention.
Sunak has already saved the Conservatives from catastrophe.
The really interesting question is how much better they'd be doing if Truss had never been elected, and he'd won the original contest.
The polling on economic credibility among undecided voters does suggest that the Truss Calamity has not had the lasting impact on attitudes that I expected.
Starmer has a window of opportunity to seal the deal with the electorate and it begins to look like he fluffed it.
I think you might overestimate what agency the opposition has in these situations. They don’t make the economic weather,
The situation was that the government had been forced to change Prime Minister for the second time in less than two months after creating an economic crisis. The opportunity for the opposition to present themselves as a government-in-waiting was unprecedented.
Starmer has failed to tell a story of how he wants to change the country and he's not convincing as a steady reliable hand on the tiller either. It's not enough to be a vacuum and wait for the government to cock-up.
If Starmer does fail to become PM after the next election, after everything that has happened, the failure will be entirely his.
Yep, I agree with that. And such an outcome certainly would take us to 1992 territory, with an unloved, worn out Tory administration in hock to its lunatic tendency.
Vote Sunak, get Braverman.
Someone must have the Photoshop skills to revisit the Ed in Eck's pocket poster.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
Indeed. But -
Did you miss the occasion when The Correspondent (not @Dura_Ace) stated that a favourite eatery had been ruined by Woke Vegans putting Venison on the menu? I think Ace is mocking that.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Maybe. The trouble is that Starmer has left it a bit bloody late to set out his vision for change.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
The problem is Starmer who simply fails to impress, and if Sunak is able to put behind the end of the Johnson Truss period then good luck to him
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
The plight of dukes unable to wear the coronation robes their families have stored for generations and not worn since 1953 might not make the next Labour campaign poster but does call into question what the coronation is for, if not for OTT pageantry. After all, Charles is already King.
'Forbidden' on the advice of the government. Tory freedoms. 😊
Conservatives do seem to retain a weird hankering after sumptuary laws.
"The Memphis Police Department is introducing an eight-officer unit that will arrest unaccompanied minors that sell food, play loud music, are 'inappropriately dressed' or dancing in the street in Downtown Memphis" .. https://mobile.twitter.com/ldtestino/status/1647010575166087169
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
Yep, not gonna happen. Part of the feeling in 2010 was that the Lib Dems couldn't be seen to pass up their first chance of being part of a government and also be seen as a serious party. They felt they had to go in to coalition, even though they were uneasy about the Tories. There is no such feeling now.
Then you turn to Brexit. The Lib Dems will have Brexit related pre-conditions for coalition negotiations. The Tories won't meet them.
It would be a shame and a bit People's Front of Judea if the LibDems, who have designs on government and by common consent did plenty of good last time, were this time round to eschew participation in government.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
Mr. Password, misremembering or commonly held beliefs about history being wrong is not unusual, though.
I'm reminded back when I watched the papers review on Sky. A youth commented on Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. The two other men, being Tories, replied they were glad the milk went as it was either warm and horrid or frozen solid. The youth backpedalled and said it was before his time.
Interesting, but it's important history is as accurate as possible so that correct lessons can be drawn from it. The departure of the Romans didn't lead to a rural idyll, but economic, social, and military collapse, with a nose-diving population, famine, war, and disease.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
They weren't five pledges. They were five missions. "To give us focus".
Q: Will economy improve or get worse over the next 12 months?
After Autumn Statement: Improve 7 Get worse 68
Now: Improve 17 Get worse 52
So IF in 12 months time people feel the economy has improved then lots of people are going to be surprised on the upside- which may (or may not!) feed into voting intention.
Sunak has already saved the Conservatives from catastrophe.
The really interesting question is how much better they'd be doing if Truss had never been elected, and he'd won the original contest.
The polling on economic credibility among undecided voters does suggest that the Truss Calamity has not had the lasting impact on attitudes that I expected.
Starmer has a window of opportunity to seal the deal with the electorate and it begins to look like he fluffed it.
I think you might overestimate what agency the opposition has in these situations. They don’t make the economic weather,
The situation was that the government had been forced to change Prime Minister for the second time in less than two months after creating an economic crisis. The opportunity for the opposition to present themselves as a government-in-waiting was unprecedented.
Starmer has failed to tell a story of how he wants to change the country and he's not convincing as a steady reliable hand on the tiller either. It's not enough to be a vacuum and wait for the government to cock-up.
If Starmer does fail to become PM after the next election, after everything that has happened, the failure will be entirely his.
Yep, I agree with that. And such an outcome certainly would take us to 1992 territory, with an unloved, worn out Tory administration in hock to its lunatic tendency.
Vote Sunak, get Braverman.
Braverman's great - Labourites cant get at her. She hits all the things Labour pretends to respect bur doesnt - a woman from an ethnic background married to a jew. In minority Top Trumps she beat you hands down
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
“It could be even worse” will certainly be the central Tory message in 2024. I am not sure it’s a winning one, though.
Maybe. But given Labour havent anything as a core message it might be the only thing on offer.
Starmer still hasnt got his act together. Say what you like about Corbyn but at least he had policies - some of which a rightie like me would actually agree with. Starmer makes dishwater look exciting.
Is it not politically sensible to ride the discontent then launch the policies closer to election time though?
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They said they’ve been very good customers in the time they were in the town and they were explaining why they wouldn’t be in again?
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
Maybe it was a warning not to play fowl in North Wales.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They said they’ve been very good customers in the time they were in the town
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion
Fair enough... but I don't think a regime of high taxes, consequential discouragement of tourism, and increasing dependency on subsidies is objectively really going to be a good long term answer.
I have to say that I haven't been on holiday in Wales for decades because all this is incredibly off-putting.
In the end it is no fun going to a place where everyone seems to hate you, however beautiful it is. In my experience the hate came from a small minority and there was also a lot of respect, curiosity and support which kept me going; particularly after I started writing newspaper columns explaining about the need for investment in these 'left behind' villages. But it was a lot of hard work and very far from profitable.
Tourism is vital to North Wales and that is why many object to the introduction of a tourist tax
We have an abundance of hotels, b and b's, caravan and mobile homes sites but second homes inflate house prices to the point that places like Abersoch are the playground of millionaires while locals cannot afford to buy or rent
We warmly welcome all holidaymakers to enjoy our wonderful and beautiful area which I for one consider to have been a great privilege to live here for near 50 years and previously my childhood holidays at my uncle and aunts caravan park in Abersoch in the late 1940s and early 1950s
Aren’t all the Cheshire millionaires in their mega-trendy caravans in The Warren though?
Actually it was the Warren that my Aunt and Uncle had the lease on and it is unrecognisable today from the days when we enjoyed our family holidays there in the 1940s and 50s and when my uncle opened a little shop in his garage, and then my uncle and aunt developed a restaurant later
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
“It could be even worse” will certainly be the central Tory message in 2024. I am not sure it’s a winning one, though.
Maybe. But given Labour havent anything as a core message it might be the only thing on offer.
Starmer still hasnt got his act together. Say what you like about Corbyn but at least he had policies - some of which a rightie like me would actually agree with. Starmer makes dishwater look exciting.
Is it not politically sensible to ride the discontent then launch the policies closer to election time though?
Of course but I struggle to see anything in Starmers past which will set the voters alight. It will be more obscure laws we dont need plus some goody goody nonsense for te north London set to sound like he cares. I cant detect much which will improve the lot of the average punter.
I thought Sunak would turn out looking more competent, and so it has come to be.
However, he still doesn't have either the courage, inclination, or political room to manoeuvre, to face down some of his party's more extreme elements, with the result that he's still working on getting through extreme legislation, like what is outlined above.
There's also very extreme legislation still to come on trade unions and protests, again also essentially held over from the Johnson-Bozo era. The danger for Sunak with this that he starts to look somewhat like a smooth front for some rather more unsavoury people.
I don't think he actually is that, in his personality or essence, but that's the danger for him that I think's emerging.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Maybe. The trouble is that Starmer has left it a bit bloody late to set out his vision for change.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
This is a bit of a myth. Blair was very good at not saying very much in detail. Much better than Starmer is. There were no big Labour policies 18 months out from May 1997. There was a lot of stuff about what Labour wouldn’t do. The “Education, education, education” speech was in October 1996, for example.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
There’s an offal lot of it going around.
Well, they wanted it to get the chop, but their views suggest they are thick as mince.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
You better hope and pray, one A. Johnson loses Uxbridge or hasn't already been shoehorned into a safer seat. You think an ambitious Johnson couldn't make life absolute hell on earth for a 20 seat majority Sunak?
I expect Johnson to lose his seat if indeed he even fights it
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
The problem is Starmer who simply fails to impress, and if Sunak is able to put behind the end of the Johnson Truss period then good luck to him
No. It would be catastrophic for the country if the Tories are rewarded with another five years, however skilled Sunak might be at technocratic management of decline.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
Q: Will economy improve or get worse over the next 12 months?
After Autumn Statement: Improve 7 Get worse 68
Now: Improve 17 Get worse 52
So IF in 12 months time people feel the economy has improved then lots of people are going to be surprised on the upside- which may (or may not!) feed into voting intention.
Sunak has already saved the Conservatives from catastrophe.
The really interesting question is how much better they'd be doing if Truss had never been elected, and he'd won the original contest.
The polling on economic credibility among undecided voters does suggest that the Truss Calamity has not had the lasting impact on attitudes that I expected.
Starmer has a window of opportunity to seal the deal with the electorate and it begins to look like he fluffed it.
I think you might overestimate what agency the opposition has in these situations. They don’t make the economic weather,
The situation was that the government had been forced to change Prime Minister for the second time in less than two months after creating an economic crisis. The opportunity for the opposition to present themselves as a government-in-waiting was unprecedented.
Starmer has failed to tell a story of how he wants to change the country and he's not convincing as a steady reliable hand on the tiller either. It's not enough to be a vacuum and wait for the government to cock-up.
If Starmer does fail to become PM after the next election, after everything that has happened, the failure will be entirely his.
Yep, I agree with that. And such an outcome certainly would take us to 1992 territory, with an unloved, worn out Tory administration in hock to its lunatic tendency.
Vote Sunak, get Braverman.
Braverman's great - Labourites cant get at her. She hits all the things Labour pretends to respect bur doesnt - a woman from an ethnic background married to a jew. In minority Top Trumps she beat you hands down
Have you seen her wedding photos though? Like a deleted scene from Get Out.
Apologies for duplicating. Either vanilla or my loss of hand control.
Probably vanilla. It has been doing that a lot lately and it's bloody annoying.
It happens when you click 'post' at the same time as it tries to auto save. So it saves a duplicate as you post it. Then you have to either delete the post, before you next type, or go into the system and delete from the 'draft comments' menu.
Reading the whole thing, there doesn't seem to be a complete reported VI. They mention 16% Don't Know, 18% Conservative, but there's no Labour figure. It does read a bit like trying to build bricks of a story out of a smallish amount of straw.
And for all the gap has closed, the big picture is still not that favourable for the blue team;
As a former Tory minister pointed out, Johnson’s landslide win was not based on a huge surge of new Conservative voters from the 2017 election but of Labour voters staying at home or switching their support towards the Liberal Democrats...
“All Labour need to do is get their 2017 support to turn up and vote and we’ll be back to a hung parliament,” the former minister said. “It is not enough for us to hold on to our 2019 vote — we need former Labour voters who didn’t like Corbyn not to vote for Starmer.”
And a question for Conservatives looking forward to a Hung Parliament. It may give you emotional pleasure stopping a Labour majority. But do you really think a Lib-Lab arrangement, let alone a Lib-Lab-SNP one, will govern in a way that's more agreeable to you?
Really?
A minority Labour government will certainly have the Parliamentary backing for a much closer relationship with the EU and for extra public spending financed by, say, wealth taxes and additional borrowing. In her pomp, Nicola Sturgeon may have had the political skill and capital to justify an SNP decision not to to support a Labour minority government to Scottish voters, but I doubt Humza Yousaf could - especially if the SNP has lost seats and vote share to Labour.
Hasn't Labour been trumpeting the fact as a stinging government rebuke that the UK has its highest tax burden in ages if not ever? Who will be paying these wealth taxes.
Invariably it will fall on middle earners as the wealthy either move or mitigate the taxes.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
“It could be even worse” will certainly be the central Tory message in 2024. I am not sure it’s a winning one, though.
Maybe. But given Labour havent anything as a core message it might be the only thing on offer.
Starmer still hasnt got his act together. Say what you like about Corbyn but at least he had policies - some of which a rightie like me would actually agree with. Starmer makes dishwater look exciting.
What were Labour’s key policies 18 months before the 2019 election?
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
Indeed. But -
Did you miss the occasion when The Correspondent (not @Dura_Ace) stated that a favourite eatery had been ruined by Woke Vegans putting Venison on the menu? I think Ace is mocking that.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
You better hope and pray, one A. Johnson loses Uxbridge or hasn't already been shoehorned into a safer seat. You think an ambitious Johnson couldn't make life absolute hell on earth for a 20 seat majority Sunak?
I expect Johnson to lose his seat if indeed he even fights it
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
A certain vegan hating Tory on here assured us vegans love a bit of venison as it's ultra woke to eat it. He's never wrong on anything so I'm slaughtering any muntjac that I can wrestle to the ground.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Maybe. The trouble is that Starmer has left it a bit bloody late to set out his vision for change.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
This is a bit of a myth. Blair was very good at not saying very much in detail. Much better than Starmer is. There were no big Labour policies 18 months out from May 1997. There was a lot of stuff about what Labour wouldn’t do. The “Education, education, education” speech was in October 1996, for example.
Blair was saying "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" in 1993.
Q: Will economy improve or get worse over the next 12 months?
After Autumn Statement: Improve 7 Get worse 68
Now: Improve 17 Get worse 52
So IF in 12 months time people feel the economy has improved then lots of people are going to be surprised on the upside- which may (or may not!) feed into voting intention.
Sunak has already saved the Conservatives from catastrophe.
The really interesting question is how much better they'd be doing if Truss had never been elected, and he'd won the original contest.
The polling on economic credibility among undecided voters does suggest that the Truss Calamity has not had the lasting impact on attitudes that I expected.
Starmer has a window of opportunity to seal the deal with the electorate and it begins to look like he fluffed it.
I think you might overestimate what agency the opposition has in these situations. They don’t make the economic weather,
The situation was that the government had been forced to change Prime Minister for the second time in less than two months after creating an economic crisis. The opportunity for the opposition to present themselves as a government-in-waiting was unprecedented.
Starmer has failed to tell a story of how he wants to change the country and he's not convincing as a steady reliable hand on the tiller either. It's not enough to be a vacuum and wait for the government to cock-up.
If Starmer does fail to become PM after the next election, after everything that has happened, the failure will be entirely his.
Yep, I agree with that. And such an outcome certainly would take us to 1992 territory, with an unloved, worn out Tory administration in hock to its lunatic tendency.
Vote Sunak, get Braverman.
Braverman's great - Labourites cant get at her. She hits all the things Labour pretends to respect bur doesnt - a woman from an ethnic background married to a jew. In minority Top Trumps she beat you hands down
And she gets bonus points for being a nutter, or whatever the politically correct word is these days.
Still don't think it is worth the entertainment value though.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Maybe. The trouble is that Starmer has left it a bit bloody late to set out his vision for change.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
This is a bit of a myth. Blair was very good at not saying very much in detail. Much better than Starmer is. There were no big Labour policies 18 months out from May 1997. There was a lot of stuff about what Labour wouldn’t do. The “Education, education, education” speech was in October 1996, for example.
Blair was saying "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" in 1993.
He laid foundations very early.
Is that a policy? It’s an aspiration, a direction maybe, but it’s not a policy.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
They need to pledge to expand housebuilding, especially in the south and south east where they are needed. Ignore the NIMBYs and reform the planning system.
There seems to be plenty of building in the north east where there really isn’t that much demand. Some local areas are seeing population declines.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion
Fair enough... but I don't think a regime of high taxes, consequential discouragement of tourism, and increasing dependency on subsidies is objectively really going to be a good long term answer.
I have to say that I haven't been on holiday in Wales for decades because all this is incredibly off-putting.
In the end it is no fun going to a place where everyone seems to hate you, however beautiful it is. In my experience the hate came from a small minority and there was also a lot of respect, curiosity and support which kept me going; particularly after I started writing newspaper columns explaining about the need for investment in these 'left behind' villages. But it was a lot of hard work and very far from profitable.
Tourism is vital to North Wales and that is why many object to the introduction of a tourist tax
We have an abundance of hotels, b and b's, caravan and mobile homes sites but second homes inflate house prices to the point that places like Abersoch are the playground of millionaires while locals cannot afford to buy or rent
We warmly welcome all holidaymakers to enjoy our wonderful and beautiful area which I for one consider to have been a great privilege to live here for near 50 years and previously my childhood holidays at my uncle and aunts caravan park in Abersoch in the late 1940s and early 1950s
Aren’t all the Cheshire millionaires in their mega-trendy caravans in The Warren though?
Actually it was the Warren that my Aunt and Uncle had the lease on and it is unrecognisable today from the days when we enjoyed our family holidays there in the 1940s and 50s and when my uncle opened a little shop in his garage, and then my uncle and aunt developed a restaurant later
Oh really!? I daresay it’s indeed unrecognisable. Abersoch is a funny old place. Alderley-Edge-On-Sea. My in-laws, who have a slight whiff of social climbing about them, are v much Abersoch-aspirant. For me - I prefer Pwllheli and Porthmadog.
Mr. JohnL, aye. If robes aren't worn for the coronation one might ask what the point of them is.
Mr. Jonathan, somehow, with consistent high double digit leads, Labour must win the next election? I think the spectre of 1992 might be a little overblown.
It is not just the point of the robes that is in doubt but the purpose of the coronation itself. It does not seem to have caught the public's imagination. Charles is already King and if the coronation is being reshaped to look like a sales convention full of middle-aged chaps in business suits, then why bother? The only media interest seems to be whether Prince Harry will turn up, nothing to do with the monarch.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
The problem is Starmer who simply fails to impress, and if Sunak is able to put behind the end of the Johnson Truss period then good luck to him
Starmer and Sunak are equally uncharismatic.
Both have had some success in purging their respective parties of nerwellto dos. Starmer has been more ruthless, which can be placed as a tick in the credit column. Sunak on the other hand selected Braverman as Home Secretary and this placed her in pole position as his successor, which puts a big ❌ in the debit column.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
There’s an offal lot of it going around.
Don't mince your words.
Seriously, though, the butcher is understandably feeling a bit choppy about it. This is BigG's original link - well worth a read if you haven't to see the mentality involved.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
Its not great, indeed its disheartening. And then you contrast it with Starmer and think oh shit, it couild be worse.
“It could be even worse” will certainly be the central Tory message in 2024. I am not sure it’s a winning one, though.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
The question is settled.
It's quite tragic that you seem to have nothing better to do than search and quote my old posts (which I have no clue how to do) and troll old ladies on the parish council.
Rishi Sunak is considering cutting inheritance tax at the next election, according to people familiar
Senior Tories think this could be the secret weapon to close the polls Sunak was privately keen on the idea of a pre-election inheritance tax cut back when he was chancellor, and it remains a live option
That’s according to ministers in the current govt who also served with Sunak when he was chancellor.
Mr. Password, misremembering or commonly held beliefs about history being wrong is not unusual, though.
I'm reminded back when I watched the papers review on Sky. A youth commented on Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. The two other men, being older, replied they were glad the milk went as it was either warm and horrid or frozen solid. The youth backpedalled and said it was before his time.
Interesting, but it's important history is as accurate as possible so that correct lessons can be drawn from it. The departure of the Romans didn't lead to a rural idyll, but economic, social, and military collapse, with a nose-diving population, famine, war, and disease.
She can't have been all that good at snatching the milk as I remember mandatory milk at primary school in the early 1980s. Small bottles. Silver top foil. Warm. Horrible.
Rishi Sunak is considering cutting inheritance tax at the next election, according to people familiar
Senior Tories think this could be the secret weapon to close the polls Sunak was privately keen on the idea of a pre-election inheritance tax cut back when he was chancellor, and it remains a live option
That’s according to ministers in the current govt who also served with Sunak when he was chancellor.
They will have polling to support this if they are suggesting it. And I remain sceptical the traditional trick of knocking a penny off income tax in the last few months will do anything - it didn't for Ken Clarke.
They are clearly looking at bulking and building out their electoral coalition down the age groups, this one being aimed at voters aged 45-55.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Maybe. The trouble is that Starmer has left it a bit bloody late to set out his vision for change.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
This is a bit of a myth. Blair was very good at not saying very much in detail. Much better than Starmer is. There were no big Labour policies 18 months out from May 1997. There was a lot of stuff about what Labour wouldn’t do. The “Education, education, education” speech was in October 1996, for example.
Blair was saying "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" in 1993.
He laid foundations very early.
That’s not a policy - it’s a very good sound bite. But it is definitely true that Blair was much, much better at those than Starmer is (and Sunak is, of course).
Trump on school shootings at the NRA forum: "This is not a gun problem ... this is a spiritual problem ... I will also create a new tax credit to reimburse any teacher for the full cost of a concealed carry firearm and training ... we want to arm some of these teachers." https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646990118815780865
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
The question is settled.
It's quite tragic that you seem to have nothing better to do than search and quote my old posts (which I have no clue how to do) and troll old ladies on the parish council.
Are you an old lady on the parish council? It explains an awful lot if you are. What are your thoughts on voter suppression, Councillor?
Anyway, enough of that. How do you get such blue hair? Is it your own or does it come out of a bottle?
Mr. Tres, 'fixed this' is certainly an accurate summation of what people like to do with history, by choice or error.
See also: medieval armour was rubbish, the Romans leaving Britain was good for the locals, Europe was always really racially diverse, there were no/very few black people travelling through the Roman world.
[Regulars may recall the latter was an error of mine. While not huge in number, it seems there was a significant minority of black traders etc who entered the Empire via Egypt].
The important thing is being able to acknowledge when it seems one made an error, rather than deliberately trying to make it seem a isagreement is due to malicious political bias or suchlike.
Rishi Sunak is considering cutting inheritance tax at the next election, according to people familiar
Senior Tories think this could be the secret weapon to close the polls Sunak was privately keen on the idea of a pre-election inheritance tax cut back when he was chancellor, and it remains a live option
That’s according to ministers in the current govt who also served with Sunak when he was chancellor.
And it seems some Labour politicians haven't drunk the kool-aid either:
"This is backed up by — admittedly anecdotal — evidence from MPs, ministers and shadow ministers who have used the Easter recess to fan out across the country, campaigning before the elections next month. They say that from talking to people on the doorstep Labour’s current 18 point poll lead is an overestimation of the party’s true support and that much of that apparent endorsement is “soft”.
One shadow minister said: “The polls simply aren’t a reflection of what I’m seeing on the ground when I go out canvassing. There is simply no way that we are twenty points ahead — ten or twelve at the most.”
We are heading to a hung parliament.
Hung Parliament means Starmer as PM, albeit with an unstable government.
If the Tories lose 50 seats, they are out. Kinnock gained 42 in 1992, so Starmer only needs to do slightly better to be in Number 10.
Can the LibDems be relied upon not to get into bed with the Tories again?
If the Tories are down by 50 or more it seems unlikely there will be enough LDs to give them a working majority.
So even in the unlikely event that we can’t, the point would be moot.
It seems somewhat odd to rely on there being too few LD MPs to avoid another LD Tory deal.
Surely they have learned from the last time they opened Pandora’s box and sent us down this path.
Good morning
It does seem sereal that in the course of a few weeks we have moved from an extinction election for the conserovatives to even Sunak beating all odds and holding off labour
I would suggest it is labour's to lose, but my regret is the party failed to listen to Sunak's warning about Truss which proved prescient
Of course it would be a political disaster for labour supporters, but personally I would be content to see a Sunak led government post GE24
I don’t feel enthusiasm for any of them but a starmer led govt would probably not be too bad. He’d certainly hold back the more idiotic members of the labour PLP.
Can we say the same of Sunak post 2024 ?
If Sunak beats all odds and remains in office he will be in an unassailable position
Like Boris in 2019 or Major in 1992?
Honestly, how anyone intelligent of any political persuasion can look at this government and think, yep let’s have some more of that, just makes me sad.
The problem is Starmer who simply fails to impress, and if Sunak is able to put behind the end of the Johnson Truss period then good luck to him
Starmer and Sunak are equally uncharismatic.
Both have had some success in purging their respective parties of nerwellto dos. Starmer has been more ruthless, which can be placed as a tick in the credit column. Sunak on the other hand selected Braverman as Home Secretary and this placed her in pole position as his successor, which puts a big ❌ in the debit column.
I appreciate you don't like Sunak and you are on the Left but he definitely has more charisma than Starmer. He has a flourish of presentation - when not reading out a speech - and isn't boring to listen to.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
Indeed. Did you miss the occasion when The Correspondent (not @Dura_Ace)
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
There’s an offal lot of it going around.
Well, they wanted it to get the chop, but their views suggest they are thick as mince.
Mr. Password, misremembering or commonly held beliefs about history being wrong is not unusual, though.
I'm reminded back when I watched the papers review on Sky. A youth commented on Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. The two other men, being older, replied they were glad the milk went as it was either warm and horrid or frozen solid. The youth backpedalled and said it was before his time.
Interesting, but it's important history is as accurate as possible so that correct lessons can be drawn from it. The departure of the Romans didn't lead to a rural idyll, but economic, social, and military collapse, with a nose-diving population, famine, war, and disease.
She can't have been all that good at snatching the milk as I remember mandatory milk at primary school in the early 1980s. Small bottles. Silver top foil. Warm. Horrible.
Thatcher Milk Snatcher? Go Thatcher!
Irony is labour removed free milk from far more school children than the Tories ever did. Ted Short and Shirley Williams. But neither have a witty rhyme.
The approach worked in the past but the circumstances then were different. The government's right not to buckle to crazy 35% pay claims, but being hardnosed on pay disputes then cutting inheritance tax won't necessarily come across well.
Sunak is clearly much better than Truss and Johnson, but there is not much polling evidence he is viewed more favourably than Starmer. They seem to be pretty level on best PM, while Starmer does better on net favourability.
"“For a big rump of voters if there was an option for a change candidate they would take it,” Frayne said. “But that isn’t Labour at the moment.
“It is a very consistent message we hear that people don’t see Starmer as a viable change candidate. They don’t see him as a proper leader but as someone who moans from the sidelines.”
I think we will see this position evolve over time. Labour's 5 pledges open the door to some pretty substantial solutions. Which they may or may not be too frit to propose...
Maybe. The trouble is that Starmer has left it a bit bloody late to set out his vision for change.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
This is a bit of a myth. Blair was very good at not saying very much in detail. Much better than Starmer is. There were no big Labour policies 18 months out from May 1997. There was a lot of stuff about what Labour wouldn’t do. The “Education, education, education” speech was in October 1996, for example.
Blair was saying "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" in 1993.
He laid foundations very early.
Is that a policy? It’s an aspiration, a direction maybe, but it’s not a policy.
It was followed by policy later, with sentencing changes, ASBOs etc.
And Starmer hasn't even done the aspiration or direction, despite desperately trying to copy the New Labour playbook exactly in all its forms.
"Blakeney residents believe tourism is vital to keep the community going but have complained about their village being taken over by property owners who only care about making thousands of pounds a week through holiday letting."
How does stopping people rent out their second homes as a holiday let help anyone in this situation? Surely it would work against the interests of tourism (which is 'vital to keep the community going') and the economy as a whole.
I once bought a property in a village (in another country) and rented it out as a holiday home, the first one in the village to do this. The house cost next to nothing because the main factory had closed down and would not reopen despite multiple attempts and houses were falling down, being abandoned, and the place wasn't being maintained by the authorities, it had a wild west / end of the world feel to it.
The hostility I got from some people in the village was immense because the only fate that they would accept is for the government to pour vast amounts of money in to the village to enable the factory to reopen so the 'old days could be recreated'. I had police investigations etc trying to close me down.
10 years later half the village was rented out as holiday homes, the place had smartened up and being maintained, the pub had reopened along with several new cafe's and businesses in the town, and property prices had quadrupled, benefitting the local people and saving many of them from financial ruin.
In all this time, and despite a favourable regulatory / tax regime and rising demand; I never made any money from the holiday rentals business, it only just about broke even. Even looking back through the accounts, there was no point in doing this, it caused massive stress at times dealing with impossible customers thousands of miles away.
I would just say the subject of second homes here in North Wales is very controversial and increasing council tax by 100% is popular and indeed the Welsh Labour government allows upto a 300% increase in certain circumstances
Indeed one such home owner expressed anger in a letter to a local butcher but is out of touch with local opinion...
I am quite taken with the idea of expressing one's anger by means of writing to the local butcher.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
You sort of wonder what their beef was?
They were suggesting it was politics of the pork barrel.
There’s an offal lot of it going around.
Well, they wanted it to get the chop, but their views suggest they are thick as mince.
Easy to chuck such insults around. I thought you’d have a speck of decency.
If you are a Don’t Know or Not Sure now, then you are likely to be Tory-leaning. Clearly, some of those are now returning home and that is also very clearly down to Sunak. But the real challenge the Tories have is winning back that part of their 2019 vote that has already jumped to Labour. As yet, there is no indication this is happening in any meaningful way. If it doesn’t, Labour takes power - possibly with a small overall majority if Scotland is seriously in play, but more likely as a minority government.
If that is the case, does Sunak resign as Tory leader or stay on? Will he be able to? Has the Truss/Johnson tendency in the Conservative party been beaten or is it just biding its time?
Taking the figures that are in the article, even Conservative + Don't Know gives 34%. The Labour figure isn't reported, but given that percentages have to add up to 100, I think we can assume that it's more than 34.
And thinking of posters here, the long-term Conservative members/activists who wobbled over late BoJo and Truss are back on board,but I'm not seeing any shift amongst those who decided "time for a change" earlier than that. If anything, there's a hardening of sentiment there.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the latest Ipsos-Mori poll, something like 65% said the next election would be a change one. In a similar vein, over 50% of respondents in the R&W poll regularly state that a general election should be called now. Those are indicators that look very bad for the Tories.
It’s worth remembering that even in 1997 the Tory press was running stories that Don’t Knows could decide the outcome.
You need to give your supporters hope. Sunak has undoubtedly given some to his party. Right now, though, I just don’t see a different election outcome to the one I’ve been predicting for a couple of years: a Labour minority government. If anything, Scotland coming into play tilts things further towards a small Labour majority.
Yup. And had you offered that to Labour on New Year's Day 2020, I suspect they would have bitten your arm off. Or whatever the vegan woke equivalent of that is.
A deer's hoof.
Woke, perhaps, but hardly vegan.
I thought we had been assured by A Correspondent that venison was the Woke Vegan approved meat?
Well, @Dura_Ace is in a better position to judge whether a particular meat is vegan or not. But AIUI the whole idea of veganism is you don't eat any animal products.
The question is settled.
It's quite tragic that you seem to have nothing better to do than search and quote my old posts (which I have no clue how to do) and troll old ladies on the parish council.
Are you an old lady on the parish council? It explains an awful lot if you are. What are your thoughts on voter suppression, Councillor?
Anyway, enough of that. How do you get such blue hair? Is it your own or does it come out of a bottle?
Comments
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
Seems unlikely that he'd scrape anything more than a bare majority even in Casino's fondest dreams.
Once the backbench loons outnumber your Parliamentary majority, you are distinctly assailable.
And the pertinent question is surely how likely it is that someone below 60 would apply for a travel pass - or multiple travel passes - just to get extra votes at an election?
(My assumption from outside the party is that Starmer was chosen to do the Kinnock Kleanup and then not outstay his welcome after losing in 2023. That we're even talking of Starmer PM is a function of how badly the Conservatives have screwed up, and how doggedly effective Boring Old Starmer has been.)
Then I realised I was in Bedford.
At the moment he does have some of the headbangers in his broad tent, like Steve Baker, the ERG have been marginalised by the success of the Windsor agreement. Post 2024 his position will be worse, if he wins, unless by some miracle he gains a larger majority.
A lesson for all of us on PB.
We have an abundance of hotels, b and b's, caravan and mobile homes sites but second homes inflate house prices to the point that places like Abersoch are the playground of millionaires while locals cannot afford to buy or rent
We warmly welcome all holidaymakers to enjoy our wonderful and beautiful area which I for one consider to have been a great privilege to live here for near 50 years and previously my childhood holidays at my uncle and aunts caravan park in Abersoch in the late 1940s and early 1950s
Then you turn to Brexit. The Lib Dems will have Brexit related pre-conditions for coalition negotiations. The Tories won't meet them.
Just because you keep repeating something you know is an inconvenient lie doesn't make it the truth.
Starmer still hasnt got his act together. Say what you like about Corbyn but at least he had policies - some of which a rightie like me would actually agree with. Starmer makes dishwater look exciting.
Did you miss the occasion when The Correspondent (not @Dura_Ace) stated that a favourite eatery had been ruined by Woke Vegans putting Venison on the menu? I think Ace is mocking that.
There's only 18 months left. Blair had been doing it for years at this stage. But, Starmer has had to compress Kinnock's reforms to claw the party back from the crazies (c.1983 to 1992) and Smith/Blair's bit into just 3 years, whereas they had near 14.
"The Memphis Police Department is introducing an eight-officer unit that will arrest unaccompanied minors that sell food, play loud music, are 'inappropriately dressed' or dancing in the street in Downtown Memphis" ..
https://mobile.twitter.com/ldtestino/status/1647010575166087169
I mean, we all know pizzas with pineapple on are just *unacceptable*.
However, he still doesn't have either the courage, inclination, or political room to manoeuvre, to face down some of his party's more extreme elements, with the result that he's still working on getting through extreme legislation, like what is outlined above.
There's also very extreme legislation still to come on trade unions and protests, again also essentially held over from the Johnson-Bozo era. The danger for Sunak with this that he starts to look somewhat like a smooth front for some rather more unsavoury people.
I don't think he actually is that, in his personality or essence, but that's the danger for him that I think's emerging.
It happens when you click 'post' at the same time as it tries to auto save. So it saves a duplicate as you post it. Then you have to either delete the post, before you next type, or go into the system and delete from the 'draft comments' menu.
Stupid glitch, but there we are.
He laid foundations very early.
Still don't think it is worth the entertainment value though.
There seems to be plenty of building in the north east where there really isn’t that much demand. Some local areas are seeing population declines.
Both have had some success in purging their respective parties of nerwellto dos. Starmer has been more ruthless, which can be placed as a tick in the credit column. Sunak on the other hand selected Braverman as Home Secretary and this placed her in pole position as his successor, which puts a big ❌ in the debit column.
https://www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/23442084.second-home-owners-punish-conwy-butchers-tax-premium-increase/
NEW: @BloombergUK Saturday read
Rishi Sunak is considering cutting inheritance tax at the next election, according to people familiar
Senior Tories think this could be the secret weapon to close the polls
Sunak was privately keen on the idea of a pre-election inheritance tax cut back when he was chancellor, and it remains a live option
That’s according to ministers in the current govt who also served with Sunak when he was chancellor.
https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1647148180000374787
Thatcher Milk Snatcher? Go Thatcher!
They are clearly looking at bulking and building out their electoral coalition down the age groups, this one being aimed at voters aged 45-55.
Pretty astonishing exchanges here:
Joanna Cherry claims those on the SNP NEC raising concerns about finances were ‘shouted down and hounded out of office’
SNP insider responds by claiming she bullied NEC members
Ms Cherry condemns “petty smears and nonsensical accusations”
https://twitter.com/mike_blackley/status/1647136795035828225
holy shit Pence is getting booed loudly at the NRA event
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646944345050718236
"We don't need gun control" -- Pence at the NRA forum blames recent mass shooting on trans people and mental illness and tries to absolve guns
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646946439044407315
Trump on school shootings at the NRA forum: "This is not a gun problem ... this is a spiritual problem ... I will also create a new tax credit to reimburse any teacher for the full cost of a concealed carry firearm and training ... we want to arm some of these teachers."
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646990118815780865
Trump proposes a panel to investigate whether being trans and using cannabis cause mass shootings
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646990601726861317
Trump: "We have a Marxist revolution going on, and I think you're starting to see it"
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646990988454293504
Anyway, enough of that. How do you get such blue hair? Is it your own or does it come out of a bottle?
See also: medieval armour was rubbish, the Romans leaving Britain was good for the locals, Europe was always really racially diverse, there were no/very few black people travelling through the Roman world.
[Regulars may recall the latter was an error of mine. While not huge in number, it seems there was a significant minority of black traders etc who entered the Empire via Egypt].
The important thing is being able to acknowledge when it seems one made an error, rather than deliberately trying to make it seem a isagreement is due to malicious political bias or suchlike.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
The approach worked in the past but the circumstances then were different. The government's right not to buckle to crazy 35% pay claims, but being hardnosed on pay disputes then cutting inheritance tax won't necessarily come across well.
And Starmer hasn't even done the aspiration or direction, despite desperately trying to copy the New Labour playbook exactly in all its forms.
Sunak 33% (+5)
Starmer 33% (-3)
Don't know 34% (-2)
Omnisis 12-13th April
Corach Rambler
Delta Work
Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter