I've never been in favour of the voter ID policy, but it might be worth speculating at this point what will happen if the local elections in May are not, in fact, a disaster.
I believe most voters are generically in favour of policies like this as they sound reasonable - who doesn't think voting security should be high? - and the actual results this time are likely to be a Tory bloodbath, so it won't look like they have gained any advantage (even if that was the intent I'm sceptical it would have worked).
Which means election chaos and administrative problems are key. Councils and others have done as much as they can to remind people of the new rules, but there's still been a lot of warnings it could go very badly.
So what if it doesn't?
My worry is we get a few teething problems but nothing too dramatic, and it becomes one of those rules oppositions criticise but dont bother to change once they get in.
"“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.
Unless Sir Keith Donkey really is frit, they will have to start setting out what these pledges mean with regards to policies. I think the hesitation is that some of them will be weaponised by the Tories / right wing moron media.
Witness the row over migration. Labour have a plan to tackle this which includes going after the traffickers and having them jailed and confiscating the boats - working with the French to do so. The Tories keep screeching that Labour have no plan AND that they are traitors for not backing their latest crayon sketch to Stop The Boats.
That no boats are being stopped by the Tories seems to be ignored by the moron media. This kind of the lie is the truth and the truth is a lie positioning still has the potential to damage Labour's chances amongst the voters still desperately waiting for their Brexit moon on a stick to be dished out.
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)
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.
Didn’t Cicero include a bit of racism against black people in one of his tirades against Piso? That wouldn’t have worked unless the audience (The Senate) were familiar and similarly prejudiced.
"“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).
Bradford Council has sent out an email reminding voters that ID is required. It advises that it will take longer at the polling station while everyone has their documents checked. Probably not a big deal for low turnout local elections, but potentially long queues next year at the GE.
They have also included a photo of a dog at a polling station, which is nice.
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.
Many would see Starmer and labour as catastrophic for the country to be fair
Bradford Council has sent out an email reminding voters that ID is required. It advises that it will take longer at the polling station while everyone has their documents checked. Probably not a big deal for low turnout local elections, but potentially long queues next year at the GE.
They have also included a photo of a dog at a polling station, which is nice.
Did the dog have ID? Did it express a view on FPTP vs AV?
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?
Yes, this time I think so.
I am pretty sure of it. Having spent five years in a reasonably competent and amicable government, with lots of sensible Lib Dem policies introduced, despite opposition from Tory backwoodsmen most of the time, the Lib Dems were stabbed in the back atthe election by their former colleagues.
The final straw came when the Tories claimed credit for the popular Coalition policies which they had opposed while in governemnt - and they still do to this day.
Nobody in his right mind would trust the Tories with anything.
And any suggestion of a deal would have to be ratified by a Lib Dem Party Conference. As OGH has often pointed out, the Conservatives are uncoalitionable.
On topic I have always held the view that this was a solution in search of a problem but if David Davis is opposed to it I may need to think again.
I was amazed to read recently that he's only in his 70s. We could easily have to put up with him for another 10+ years. He looks truly ancient in the same way that a Saxon church or an X-Type does.
Starmer needs to focus on pinning the increases in mortgage costs on the Tories. And it shouldn’t be difficult to do. Millions of people have fixed rate agreements that will come to an end before the next election.
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
Question. Please define "great". You have defined it as winds up the people I don't like. Does not her egregious failings as Attorney General and then firing as a massive security risk take any points away? Or indeed her endless failure to deliver her headline policy?
She has wheeled out a racist policy. You lectured me on how it couldn't be racist as they were all "asian" and someone the same. But she is Indian heritage attacking people of another heritage and faith. And now we have senior Tories also calling out the racism because it is racism.
If you like the racist security risk policy failure because she annoys other Tories, that's up to you. Calling her "great" says a lot though. About you...
On topic I have always held the view that this was a solution in search of a problem but if David Davis is opposed to it I may need to think again.
I was amazed to read recently that he's only in his 70s. We could easily have to put up with him for another 10+ years. He looks truly ancient in the same way that a Saxon church or an X-Type does.
Certainly that T-shirt DD publicity gag is like something out of the Miocene.
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.
Many would see Starmer and labour as catastrophic for the country to be fair
Worse than Truss and Johnson? I really don’t think so.
Bradford Council has sent out an email reminding voters that ID is required. It advises that it will take longer at the polling station while everyone has their documents checked. Probably not a big deal for low turnout local elections, but potentially long queues next year at the GE.
They have also included a photo of a dog at a polling station, which is nice.
Did the dog have ID? Did it express a view on FPTP vs AV?
Dogs is cool. They are all microchipped. Which suggests a solution to ID cards, never mind polling impersonation.
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.
It sometimes works. "Don't risk change" vs "It's time for change" is what most elections ultimately boil down to, the rest is usually window dressing. Ones like 2019 when both were genuinely (not superficially) offering change is rare.
They might try to vary it a bit, but "Don't risk woke change. Also remember Corbyn" still looks like it will struggle.
"“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.
In 1993 he was Shadow Home Secretary. So rather than setting out the policies of his landslide government, he was setting out the policies of a John Smith government.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
He really isn't. You have the same choice of dishes from both, grey porridge or grey porridge.
I consider Sunak to be head and shoulders better than Johnson and Truss, and likewise Starmer to be head and shoulders better than Corbyn. Sunak sounds lighter on the ear than Starmer. He sounds like Tony Blair, whereas Starmer sounds like he needs his adenoids removed. If that is enough for you, fair enough.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
"“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.
Unless Sir Keith Donkey really is frit, they will have to start setting out what these pledges mean with regards to policies. I think the hesitation is that some of them will be weaponised by the Tories / right wing moron media.
Witness the row over migration. Labour have a plan to tackle this which includes going after the traffickers and having them jailed and confiscating the boats - working with the French to do so. The Tories keep screeching that Labour have no plan AND that they are traitors for not backing their latest crayon sketch to Stop The Boats.
That no boats are being stopped by the Tories seems to be ignored by the moron media. This kind of the lie is the truth and the truth is a lie positioning still has the potential to damage Labour's chances amongst the voters still desperately waiting for their Brexit moon on a stick to be dished out.
Going after the traffickers sounds like a good idea.
But they are already insulating themselves from the actual crossings - by giving the helm of the boat to one of the immigrants, not giving names etc.
The French (local) government in the area has already refused to cooperate in identifying who sold the boats to the smugglers - as they see it, a nice ash business enriching French citizens while removing a problem.
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.
Many would see Starmer and labour as catastrophic for the country to be fair
Worse than Truss and Johnson? I really don’t think so.
Didn't take long for our PBTories to forget about that pair. Memory of an alcoholic goldfish with a lobotomy.
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.
The one thing we can agree is that Braverman is a big negative for Sunak and I hope that once the locals are over he has a reshuffle and moves her
I really do not like her not only for her tone but she has simply failed
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shockingly unfamiliar with Cicero, I'm afraid. I did hear recently that the Romans were widely prejudiced but it wasn't so much skin colour as just not being Roman. Probably with an honourable(ish) exception for Greeks.
That also tallies with the Greeks having two types of foreigner (the worse kind being barbarians), and the Eastern Romans and latter day Persians disliking each other but admitting they were both civilised and practically everybody else was a barbarian.
Being from Africa certainly wasn't a bar to Septimius Severus becoming emperor (unsure if he was born there, think so, to senatorialish parents... been a while since I read his bio).
"“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).
“Tough on boats, tough on the causes of boats.”
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
Likewise Education, Education, Education and hammering away at Tory funding of the NHS. The only policy they had at the election was sticking to the Tories spending limits in the first parliament, and a very effective policy it was too.
I do wish Starmer didn't look constantly surprised that people are asking him questions, and shifty when answering them, regardless of how innocuous they are. Another Tory win would be disastrous for all concerned, including the Tories.
Bradford Council has sent out an email reminding voters that ID is required. It advises that it will take longer at the polling station while everyone has their documents checked. Probably not a big deal for low turnout local elections, but potentially long queues next year at the GE.
They have also included a photo of a dog at a polling station, which is nice.
Did the dog have ID? Did it express a view on FPTP vs AV?
Dogs is cool. They are all microchipped. Which suggests a solution to ID cards, never mind polling impersonation.
I've said for years newborns should be assigned a phone number and email address, might as well add a microchip with all relevant info.
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.
Many would see Starmer and labour as catastrophic for the country to be fair
The tribal and the Tory clientele will back the Tories no matter what. The more objective amongst us might look at their record and reflect that maybe some democratic fresh air would be a good thing.
I've never been in favour of the voter ID policy, but it might be worth speculating at this point what will happen if the local elections in May are not, in fact, a disaster.
I believe most voters are generically in favour of policies like this as they sound reasonable - who doesn't think voting security should be high? - and the actual results this time are likely to be a Tory bloodbath, so it won't look like they have gained any advantage (even if that was the intent I'm sceptical it would have worked).
Which means election chaos and administrative problems are key. Councils and others have done as much as they can to remind people of the new rules, but there's still been a lot of warnings it could go very badly.
So what if it doesn't?
My worry is we get a few teething problems but nothing too dramatic, and it becomes one of those rules oppositions criticise but dont bother to change once they get in.
I'm in favour of id for voting. It doesn't seem too onerous and it's not as if we're the only country to demand it. However, I probably won't get round to voting now as a result. I know my ward and constituency are both safe seats and my vote is largely useless. A walk to the polling booth is pleasant; hunting through the big drawer for my passport or driving license is not.
On topic I have always held the view that this was a solution in search of a problem but if David Davis is opposed to it I may need to think again.
I was amazed to read recently that he's only in his 70s. We could easily have to put up with him for another 10+ years. He looks truly ancient in the same way that a Saxon church or an X-Type does.
If trump or biden prevail, he might fancy another crack at it here
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.
Many would see Starmer and labour as catastrophic for the country to be fair
Worse than Truss and Johnson? I really don’t think so.
I wasn't speaking in the context of Johnson or Truss but 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.
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
Question. Please define "great". You have defined it as winds up the people I don't like. Does not her egregious failings as Attorney General and then firing as a massive security risk take any points away? Or indeed her endless failure to deliver her headline policy?
She has wheeled out a racist policy. You lectured me on how it couldn't be racist as they were all "asian" and someone the same. But she is Indian heritage attacking people of another heritage and faith. And now we have senior Tories also calling out the racism because it is racism.
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
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?
Yes, this time I think so.
I am pretty sure of it. Having spent five years in a reasonably competent and amicable government, with lots of sensible Lib Dem policies introduced, despite opposition from Tory backwoodsmen most of the time, the Lib Dems were stabbed in the back atthe election by their former colleagues.
The final straw came when the Tories claimed credit for the popular Coalition policies which they had opposed while in governemnt - and they still do to this day.
Nobody in his right mind would trust the Tories with anything.
And any suggestion of a deal would have to be ratified by a Lib Dem Party Conference. As OGH has often pointed out, the Conservatives are uncoalitionable.
Most of what you claim is right but the middle bit does not and never has made sense. Of course Tories claim and claimed credit for coalition policies which are popular and frankly its fair game to do so - the LDs would be equally entitled to claim credit for coalition policies even if they had not wanted to do it but it was the price if cooperation.
It might be galling they dont acknowledge where they only did something because it was a concession to the LDs, and that the positive influence of the LDs is overlooked, but if they still did it they can claim credit.
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)
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shockingly unfamiliar with Cicero, I'm afraid. I did hear recently that the Romans were widely prejudiced but it wasn't so much skin colour as just not being Roman. Probably with an honourable(ish) exception for Greeks.
That also tallies with the Greeks having two types of foreigner (the worse kind being barbarians), and the Eastern Romans and latter day Persians disliking each other but admitting they were both civilised and practically everybody else was a barbarian.
Being from Africa certainly wasn't a bar to Septimius Severus becoming emperor (unsure if he was born there, think so, to senatorialish parents... been a while since I read his bio).
IIRC it was a somewhat weak pun on “negotium” and the Latin for black.
The implication of it was that Piso was thick and barely sentient - like a slave of dark hue.
It was clearly racist in the modern sense.
I do wonder whether Severus was an example of the “exception for racism” by being wealthy and educated. It’s a fairly common trope among racists from South Africa that educated and successful black people aren’t “who I mean”.
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shockingly unfamiliar with Cicero, I'm afraid. I did hear recently that the Romans were widely prejudiced but it wasn't so much skin colour as just not being Roman. Probably with an honourable(ish) exception for Greeks.
That also tallies with the Greeks having two types of foreigner (the worse kind being barbarians), and the Eastern Romans and latter day Persians disliking each other but admitting they were both civilised and practically everybody else was a barbarian.
Being from Africa certainly wasn't a bar to Septimius Severus becoming emperor (unsure if he was born there, think so, to senatorialish parents... been a while since I read his bio).
Egypt was Rome's granary, and the wealthiest province outside of Rome. The particular kind of prejudices developed during a few centuries of European colonialism simply didn't exist back then.
They had their own, very different ideas of the civilised and the barbarian (words which they generously gave us).
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shockingly unfamiliar with Cicero, I'm afraid. I did hear recently that the Romans were widely prejudiced but it wasn't so much skin colour as just not being Roman. Probably with an honourable(ish) exception for Greeks.
That also tallies with the Greeks having two types of foreigner (the worse kind being barbarians), and the Eastern Romans and latter day Persians disliking each other but admitting they were both civilised and practically everybody else was a barbarian.
Being from Africa certainly wasn't a bar to Septimius Severus becoming emperor (unsure if he was born there, think so, to senatorialish parents... been a while since I read his bio).
Egypt was Rome's granary, and the wealthiest province outside of Rome. The particular kind of prejudices developed during a few centuries of European colonialism simply didn't exist back then.
They had their own, very different ideas of the civilised and the barbarian (words which they generously gave us).
I was told at a diversity and inclusion seminar thingy last year that Henry the Navigator has been called the first racist, which was a surprise to me. Seems pretty clear there's always been plenty of racism, it just won't have looked exactly like how we view racism today, with the baggage if the last 300 years and the cultural factors in play.
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
No problem TFS , everyone to their own I say. I have been betting on the horses since a young boy and unlikely to change now. I will be at Ayr for Scottish National next week, hopefully it is a sunny day like today.
"“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).
“Tough on boats, tough on the causes of boats.”
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
Yousless abolished the transport brief from his cabinet. Instantly all of the policy failures on ferries and road improvements went away and people can get on with the primary crisis facing Scotland, that S35 blockage of the Let Rapists Loose in Women's Prisons Bill
If the Tories insist on this sort of nonsense I think Labour should look at extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds. This would be controversial but far more defensible since it would lead to more people voting not less.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
I think this fair. There are numerous examples of downright likeable politicians but who do not come across that way. Most are so tightly controlled for fear of cocking up that they are just blandly polished or cliche spewing automatons. It's one reason the genuine characters can be well liked even if their politics are questionable.
I do like the Sunak as Cbeebies presenter comparisons when he goes for eager and earnest though.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
The problem though, for Sunak, is that the headbangers are still in the background demanding their pound of flesh. He's defanged the legislation to junk all the EU laws and replace them without consultation, but if he allows the extreme elements push through the trade union and protest measures, particularly the first, in the light of so many broadly popular strikes he won't look moderate compared to Starmer, who has been so perfomatively vociferous on Corbyn, on Blairite advice.
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I disagree.
Both are hugely impressive.
You don't get to be PM or LotO without being a supremely capable operator.
But it is the necessary appeal to the lowest common denominator that, for more rarified minds, is so off-putting.
On topic I have always held the view that this was a solution in search of a problem but if David Davis is opposed to it I may need to think again.
The solution is lets find a way to discourage the young from voting. The problem is postal vote fraud.
But they like postal votes because that is Tory votes in the bag.
The young dont vote as much anyway. Its the 30s who need to be discouraged to save them (the 40s may be clawed back), so it would be a stupid plan.
I think its genuinely in its aims, it's just misguided, disproportionate and stupid (and more likely to see 80 year olds forget about the new rules than young people to miss out).
"“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).
“Tough on boats, tough on the causes of boats.”
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
Yousless abolished the transport brief from his cabinet. Instantly all of the policy failures on ferries and road improvements went away and people can get on with the primary crisis facing Scotland, that S35 blockage of the Let Rapists Loose in Women's Prisons Bill
Still the head honcho's of the state owned ferry cartel are going on £1K a night cruise ( work) jolly. Hopefully they learn about what a ship is and fact it is supposed to be able to cross tracts of water.
Mr. Malmesbury, I'm shockingly unfamiliar with Cicero, I'm afraid. I did hear recently that the Romans were widely prejudiced but it wasn't so much skin colour as just not being Roman. Probably with an honourable(ish) exception for Greeks.
That also tallies with the Greeks having two types of foreigner (the worse kind being barbarians), and the Eastern Romans and latter day Persians disliking each other but admitting they were both civilised and practically everybody else was a barbarian.
Being from Africa certainly wasn't a bar to Septimius Severus becoming emperor (unsure if he was born there, think so, to senatorialish parents... been a while since I read his bio).
Egypt was Rome's granary, and the wealthiest province outside of Rome. The particular kind of prejudices developed during a few centuries of European colonialism simply didn't exist back then.
They had their own, very different ideas of the civilised and the barbarian (words which they generously gave us).
I was told at a diversity and inclusion seminar thingy last year that Henry the Navigator has been called the first racist, which was a surprise to me. Seems pretty clear there's always been plenty of racism, it just won't have looked exactly like how we view racism today, with the baggage if the last 300 years and the cultural factors in play.
Prejudice in one form or another has always existed, as far as we can tell.
I'm not sure quite how old the concept of 'race' is, but it's certainly nowhere near as old.
It's also come to be a pretty bogus pseudo-scientific concept.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
Value/own brand frozen Lasagnes.
That would be some value. Sea the Stars is currently standing at Gilltown Stud at EUR180,000.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
People who think Rishi is charismatic really do need to get out more. I’ve seen more charismatic lampposts.
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I disagree.
Both are hugely impressive.
You don't get to be PM or LotO without being a supremely capable operator.
But it is the necessary appeal to the lowest common denominator that, for more rarified minds, is so off-putting.
Starmer looks like a waxworks dummy and Rishi is like a presenter on CEEBBies but streets ahead of Starmer the empty suit
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.
And "Labour" is a country mile ahead of "Conservative" on almost all issues facing the country. Sunak is clearly a better leader than his immediate predecessors, but they did a lot of damage to the brand which will take a while to unwind.
Apart from its search function Vanilla works brilliantly imo. Always knows where you are and fits the screen perfectly. I contribute to PB via vanilla forums as it is bizarre to have the latest post at the top rather than the bottom of the page.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
Value/own brand frozen Lasagnes.
That would be some value. Sea the Stars is currently standing at Gilltown Stud at EUR180,000.
It would be value except for bloody Brexit which means we have to pay huge duty on importing racehorses for lasagne filling.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
Value/own brand frozen Lasagnes.
That would be some value. Sea the Stars is currently standing at Gilltown Stud at EUR180,000.
It would be value except for bloody Brexit which means we have to pay huge duty on importing racehorses for lasagne filling.
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I disagree.
Both are hugely impressive.
You don't get to be PM or LotO without being a supremely capable operator.
But it is the necessary appeal to the lowest common denominator that, for more rarified minds, is so off-putting.
Starmer looks like a waxworks dummy and Rishi is like a presenter on CEEBBies but streets ahead of Starmer the empty suit
CBeebies Sunak. He’s just a normal man; just an innocent man.
"“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).
“Tough on boats, tough on the causes of boats.”
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
Yousless abolished the transport brief from his cabinet. Instantly all of the policy failures on ferries and road improvements went away and people can get on with the primary crisis facing Scotland, that S35 blockage of the Let Rapists Loose in Women's Prisons Bill
Still the head honcho's of the state owned ferry cartel are going on £1K a night cruise ( work) jolly. Hopefully they learn about what a ship is and fact it is supposed to be able to cross tracts of water.
Back in 2016 I took my Mini Cooper on a tour of the Western Isles. After a blissful trip from north to south I drove into Castlebay and headed for my digs for the night. A few cars parked in a line at the ferry terminal, but the boat goes the morning after.
Doesn't it? Chatting with someone in the shop, and no - the boat is broken. So pulling another one in which is now doing overnight sailing back to Oban. No email, no text update, the ticket office in Castlebay not open or with a notice in the window.
So I abandoned my digs, ended up on a late ferry (just drive on, the crew didn't care) to arrive into Oban at 4:30 am having had no sleep waiting for a petrol station to open.
Calmac have been a basket case for years. Just look at the age of their fleet. Hard for the government to blame anyone else when they have been in office since 2007.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
I dunno, some sort of tax on all gambling, maybe? Send them all to nice sanctuaries. Get all the wealthy owners to pay for their upkeep? The government like to fund scrappage schemes, maybe a bit of that? Maybe go really radical, and any horse that gets hurt at a race, the owner and jockey get dragged behind the vetinary screen and bolt gunned (I know it's lethal injection, but a bolt gun adds a bit of theatre) It's a tough one isn't it? No easy answers, and I know no one on here wants a horse to die, and that you are far more knowledgeable than most (including me) on horse racing, but the average punter probably never thinks about what happens behind that vet screen but they probably should.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
People who think Rishi is charismatic really do need to get out more. I’ve seen more charismatic lampposts.
He *is* quietly charismatic. As John Major was. Problem is that they don't project it. Sunak fixes a Brownesque unconvincing smile and robotically reads a speech which sounds like a lie just from the delivery.
If the Tories insist on this sort of nonsense I think Labour should look at extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds. This would be controversial but far more defensible since it would lead to more people voting not less.
I'm not a fan of 16-17 year olds voting but I regard it as a policy choice which is not that controversial.
I do think though that while we get different rights and restrictions at different ages, the general trend seems more to extend the period of childhood and adolescence, and so giving voting rights would seem counter to 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
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
People who think Rishi is charismatic really do need to get out more. I’ve seen more charismatic lampposts.
He *is* quietly charismatic. As John Major was. Problem is that they don't project it. Sunak fixes a Brownesque unconvincing smile and robotically reads a speech which sounds like a lie just from the delivery.
Probably way too close to the next election now, but either of them would benefit greatly (though in different ways) from some serious vocal training.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
I dunno, some sort of tax on all gambling, maybe? Send them all to nice sanctuaries. Get all the wealthy owners to pay for their upkeep? The government like to fund scrappage schemes, maybe a bit of that? Maybe go really radical, and any horse that gets hurt at a race, the owner and jockey get dragged behind the vetinary screen and bolt gunned (I know it's lethal injection, but a bolt gun adds a bit of theatre) It's a tough one isn't it? No easy answers, and I know no one on here wants a horse to die, and that you are far more knowledgeable than most (including me) on horse racing, but the average punter probably never thinks about what happens behind that vet screen but they probably should.
Horses die in racing; dogs and cats and goldfish die as pets, and we as a society have to decide if that cost is worth having racing and animals as pets. And to eat. And produce milk. To date we have decided that it is.
If you stopped all those things then the animal population would decrease dramatically and perhaps, for example in your opinion, that is a good thing.
Apart from its search function Vanilla works brilliantly imo. Always knows where you are and fits the screen perfectly. I contribute to PB via vanilla forums as it is bizarre to have the latest post at the top rather than the bottom of the page.
Agreed, theres far worse out there despite the occasional niggle.
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I disagree.
Both are hugely impressive.
You don't get to be PM or LotO without being a supremely capable operator.
But it is the necessary appeal to the lowest common denominator that, for more rarified minds, is so off-putting.
Para 3. Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are waving frantically at you from the back!
If the Tories insist on this sort of nonsense I think Labour should look at extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds. This would be controversial but far more defensible since it would lead to more people voting not less.
I'm not a fan of 16-17 year olds voting but I regard it as a policy choice which is not that controversial.
I do think though that while we get different rights and restrictions at different ages, the general trend seems more to extend the period of childhood and adolescence, and so giving voting rights would seem counter to that.
Why aren’t you a fan? Genuine question. It’s something I’ve always been in favour of and I don’t really buy arguments that you need more life experience or whatever.
Maybe more controversially, I think prisoners ought to be able to vote too.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
People who think Rishi is charismatic really do need to get out more. I’ve seen more charismatic lampposts.
He *is* quietly charismatic. As John Major was. Problem is that they don't project it. Sunak fixes a Brownesque unconvincing smile and robotically reads a speech which sounds like a lie just from the delivery.
The Major of 1992 had a definite, albeit minor key, charisma. That's why the whole campaign was built around him.
It went to pot because events overwhelmed him, but that's another story.
Sunak has definite talents, but he doesn't have that charisma.
If the Tories insist on this sort of nonsense I think Labour should look at extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds. This would be controversial but far more defensible since it would lead to more people voting not less.
I'm not a fan of 16-17 year olds voting but I regard it as a policy choice which is not that controversial.
I do think though that while we get different rights and restrictions at different ages, the general trend seems more to extend the period of childhood and adolescence, and so giving voting rights would seem counter to that.
Why aren’t you a fan? Genuine question. It’s something I’ve always been in favour of and I don’t really buy arguments that you need more life experience or whatever.
Maybe more controversially, I think prisoners ought to be able to vote too.
I think if we are saying 16 year olds are not mature enough to make life decisions as small as buying cigarettes or alcohol, and make a big push to ensure everyone is in education or training so very few enter the workforce at 16, then how can we argue they are ready for voting.
I know total consistency is not possible, but I'd be in favour of lowering the voting age if we lowered other restrictions, because we'd be saying this is an age when we think you are old enough to decide major things by yourself.
Since we seem not to be doing that I see the push for 16 year old voting as contradictory.
However, i also wont kick up a fuss if it happens, especially as the point has already been conceded in some votes already.
It's a difficult one on Sunak's charisma ; I think, on his day, he does have some. A smooth and sunny, friendly fluency.
The person that actually reminds me of a bit is James Callaghan, rather than Blair and despite his Blair-ite voice, with no harder edge, but Sunak is more confident of it, and has more of it.
I believe they might. As for horses much better to watch the race without a bet so you aren't willing horses to do badly.
If you want to satisfy your betting urge you can get 22s about Boris being Cons leader at the next election.
My horses for National
Corach Rambler Delta Work Gallard Du Mesnil
Good Luck to everyone having a Flutter
With respect malc, I hope people bet their house, life savings, kids inheritance and the shirts on their backs but lose the lot in some bizarre loophole caused by cancellation of the race due to animal rights protests. A niche aspiration, I grant you. If it has to be run, let's hope it's the jockeys who get hurt, and the horses have a bit of a shake, trot off and have a nibble on some grass.
How are you planning to dispose of the tens of thousands of racehorses once you've ended racing.
I dunno, some sort of tax on all gambling, maybe? Send them all to nice sanctuaries. Get all the wealthy owners to pay for their upkeep? The government like to fund scrappage schemes, maybe a bit of that? Maybe go really radical, and any horse that gets hurt at a race, the owner and jockey get dragged behind the vetinary screen and bolt gunned (I know it's lethal injection, but a bolt gun adds a bit of theatre) It's a tough one isn't it? No easy answers, and I know no one on here wants a horse to die, and that you are far more knowledgeable than most (including me) on horse racing, but the average punter probably never thinks about what happens behind that vet screen but they probably should.
Horses die in racing; dogs and cats and goldfish die as pets, and we as a society have to decide if that cost is worth having racing and animals as pets. And to eat. And produce milk. To date we have decided that it is.
If you stopped all those things then the animal population would decrease dramatically and perhaps, for example in your opinion, that is a good thing.
Let's face it, veganism isn't going to take over the world anytime soon. But if we can just incrementally stop unnecessary and casual cruelty, we're going in the right direction. Animals dying for our fun has never sat right with me, and the Grand National is a great platform (in my opinion) to highlight the issue. As for food, in the future with science providing healthy, plentiful and tasty plant based food, who knows? And yes certain animals would die out, but we as a species seem pretty relaxed about that now already!
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.
The purpose is to give millions of people an extra paid day off work.
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.
*slicing onions*
I wonder how many peers had new ones made or the old ones refurbished in the last few months?
'Viscount Torrington, joint chairman of the Hereditary Peerage Association, who has not been invited to the Coronation, said: “It’’s a great shame. Ironically the coronation robes are in a way less gaudy than the parliamentary robes, and I thought the idea was to make the ceremony less gaudy, so coronation robes might have been better.”'
BUT
"Some crimson robes will allowed to be donned by sitting members of the House of Lords, but these are parliamentary cloaks, traditionally worn at the State opening of Parliament every year.
Less lavish than coronation robes, they do not include coronets, swords, court shoes, breeches or an under-jacket."
It seems that for Sunak it is enough not to be Truss or Johnson. Starmer, though, has to be at the level of pre-1997 Tony Blair. As ever, the Tories and Labour are judged to very different standards!!
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I disagree.
Both are hugely impressive.
You don't get to be PM or LotO without being a supremely capable operator.
But it is the necessary appeal to the lowest common denominator that, for more rarified minds, is so off-putting.
Para 3. Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are waving frantically at you from the back!
And yes they are impressive also. You don't just end up by chance in those offices.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
People who think Rishi is charismatic really do need to get out more. I’ve seen more charismatic lampposts.
He *is* quietly charismatic. As John Major was. Problem is that they don't project it. Sunak fixes a Brownesque unconvincing smile and robotically reads a speech which sounds like a lie just from the delivery.
The Major of 1992 had a definite, albeit minor key, charisma. That's why the whole campaign was built around him.
It went to pot because events overwhelmed him, but that's another story.
Sunak has definite talents, but he doesn't have that charisma.
I couldn't possibly criticise a man who regularly treated himself to a hot Currie.
"“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).
“Tough on boats, tough on the causes of boats.”
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
Yousless abolished the transport brief from his cabinet. Instantly all of the policy failures on ferries and road improvements went away and people can get on with the primary crisis facing Scotland, that S35 blockage of the Let Rapists Loose in Women's Prisons Bill
Still the head honcho's of the state owned ferry cartel are going on £1K a night cruise ( work) jolly. Hopefully they learn about what a ship is and fact it is supposed to be able to cross tracts of water.
Back in 2016 I took my Mini Cooper on a tour of the Western Isles. After a blissful trip from north to south I drove into Castlebay and headed for my digs for the night. A few cars parked in a line at the ferry terminal, but the boat goes the morning after.
Doesn't it? Chatting with someone in the shop, and no - the boat is broken. So pulling another one in which is now doing overnight sailing back to Oban. No email, no text update, the ticket office in Castlebay not open or with a notice in the window.
So I abandoned my digs, ended up on a late ferry (just drive on, the crew didn't care) to arrive into Oban at 4:30 am having had no sleep waiting for a petrol station to open.
Calmac have been a basket case for years. Just look at the age of their fleet. Hard for the government to blame anyone else when they have been in office since 2007.
After 8 attempts,I have managed to book myself onto a ferry. It's 34 years old, so fingers crossed!
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.
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.
Rishi's dishes didn't take off for nothing.
I have met Rishi. Had a 1on1 conversation with him. He is a charming and personable guy. But from what I have been told so is Starmer. As we now know so was Major. And yet all of them in public were wooden and grey and boring.
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
People who think Rishi is charismatic really do need to get out more. I’ve seen more charismatic lampposts.
He *is* quietly charismatic. As John Major was. Problem is that they don't project it. Sunak fixes a Brownesque unconvincing smile and robotically reads a speech which sounds like a lie just from the delivery.
The Major of 1992 had a definite, albeit minor key, charisma. That's why the whole campaign was built around him.
It went to pot because events overwhelmed him, but that's another story.
Sunak has definite talents, but he doesn't have that charisma.
I couldn't possibly criticise a man who regularly treated himself to a hot Currie.
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.
Well, there's something in that, but I do still think some are looking for reasons to be upset and gloomy about it. I confidently predict when the viewing figures are less than the Queen's funeral various people online will practically be creaming themselves in excitement.
"“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).
“Tough on boats, tough on the causes of boats.”
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
Yousless abolished the transport brief from his cabinet. Instantly all of the policy failures on ferries and road improvements went away and people can get on with the primary crisis facing Scotland, that S35 blockage of the Let Rapists Loose in Women's Prisons Bill
Still the head honcho's of the state owned ferry cartel are going on £1K a night cruise ( work) jolly. Hopefully they learn about what a ship is and fact it is supposed to be able to cross tracts of water.
Back in 2016 I took my Mini Cooper on a tour of the Western Isles. After a blissful trip from north to south I drove into Castlebay and headed for my digs for the night. A few cars parked in a line at the ferry terminal, but the boat goes the morning after.
Doesn't it? Chatting with someone in the shop, and no - the boat is broken. So pulling another one in which is now doing overnight sailing back to Oban. No email, no text update, the ticket office in Castlebay not open or with a notice in the window.
So I abandoned my digs, ended up on a late ferry (just drive on, the crew didn't care) to arrive into Oban at 4:30 am having had no sleep waiting for a petrol station to open.
Calmac have been a basket case for years. Just look at the age of their fleet. Hard for the government to blame anyone else when they have been in office since 2007.
After 8 attempts,I have managed to book myself onto a ferry. It's 34 years old, so fingers crossed!
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.
Well, there's something in that, but I do still think some are looking for reasons to be upset and gloomy about it. I confidently predict when the viewing figures are less than the Queen's funeral various people online will practically be creaming themselves in excitement.
Couldn't Chaz just rock up to a court or something, do a bit of swearing on various books of faith, a bit of non religious stuff and leave it at that? Save an absolute fortune and a win-win-win for monarchists, Republicans and the not-fussed-either-ways?
On topic I have always held the view that this was a solution in search of a problem but if David Davis is opposed to it I may need to think again.
I was amazed to read recently that he's only in his 70s. We could easily have to put up with him for another 10+ years. He looks truly ancient in the same way that a Saxon church or an X-Type does.
I was on this site, as just plain "Alan" then, while the Tory leadership election was taking place in 2005. Malcolm Rifkind was a potential candidate for the leadership (he eventually didn't formally stand) and I recall Davis supporters here would often refer to Rifkind as "over the hill". Davis is just 3 years younger than Rifkind. As they say in the USA "Do the math".
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.
Well, there's something in that, but I do still think some are looking for reasons to be upset and gloomy about it. I confidently predict when the viewing figures are less than the Queen's funeral various people online will practically be creaming themselves in excitement.
Couldn't Chaz just rock up to a court or something, do a bit of swearing on various books of faith, a bit of non religious stuff and leave it at that? Save an absolute fortune and a win-win-win for monarchists, Republicans and the not-fussed-either-ways?
It's got to look like a silly (but po faced) extravagant medievalesque ceremony otherwise there really is no point. We get fewer and fewer changes to laugh at silly costumes from our social superiors now.
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.
Well, there's something in that, but I do still think some are looking for reasons to be upset and gloomy about it. I confidently predict when the viewing figures are less than the Queen's funeral various people online will practically be creaming themselves in excitement.
Couldn't Chaz just rock up to a court or something, do a bit of swearing on various books of faith, a bit of non religious stuff and leave it at that? Save an absolute fortune and a win-win-win for monarchists, Republicans and the not-fussed-either-ways?
Hasn't he done that already? I saw a photo of him doing something of the sort.
At one time, the government in England legally went into remission between the death of a sovereign and the coronation of his (usually) successor. There would be a council empowered to carry out the necessary day to day business of government. On those occasions the heir was significantly under age and would not be crowned for some time (e.g. 1422 or 1547) Protectors were empowered to act on behalf of the council, but not to the extent of being King in all but name. The whole thing was a process, starting with the Accession Council and finishing fairly soon after with the Coronation. It also gave a little time to gather all the key nobles and clerics so they would swear loyalty to the king and make it all nice, neat and official. This was doubly important because until The Act of Settlement there was no clearly defined mechanism for succeeding to the throne, which frequently caused a great deal of trouble. Both Henry VIII and Edward III willed the crown away, for example, although in Edward's case it was in a logical fashion following male line primogeniture.
I'm not quite sure when that ended, but since the seventeenth century at least the tradition has been the monarch takes charge at the moment of the death of the previous monarch, and acts as their own regent. I'm also not quite sure whether legally there now has to be a coronation for a King to be properly counted as king. That may have been ditched because of Edward V - given Henry VII's urgent need to underline Richard III's position as a usurper - but certainly nobody seemed to doubt Edward VIII was King even though he was never crowned.
Therefore, you do have to wonder a bit whether the televised Accession Council itself wasn't more than sufficient and the Coronation rather pointless.
On topic I have always held the view that this was a solution in search of a problem but if David Davis is opposed to it I may need to think again.
I was amazed to read recently that he's only in his 70s. We could easily have to put up with him for another 10+ years. He looks truly ancient in the same way that a Saxon church or an X-Type does.
I was on this site, as just plain "Alan" then, while the Tory leadership election was taking place in 2005. Malcolm Rifkind was a potential candidate for the leadership (he eventually didn't formally stand) and I recall Davis supporters here would often refer to Rifkind as "over the hill". Davis is just 3 years younger than Rifkind. As they say in the USA "Do the math".
We are likely to get something of that at the next elections in the USA itself, given Trump is only 4 years younger than Biden.
At one time, the government in England legally went into remission between the death of a sovereign and the coronation of his (usually) successor. There would be a council empowered to carry out the necessary day to day business of government. On those occasions the heir was significantly under age and would not be crowned for some time (e.g. 1422 or 1547) Protectors were empowered to act on behalf of the council, but not to the extent of being King in all but name. The whole thing was a process, starting with the Accession Council and finishing fairly soon after with the Coronation. It also gave a little time to gather all the key nobles and clerics so they would swear loyalty to the king and make it all nice, neat and official. This was doubly important because until The Act of Settlement there was no clearly defined mechanism for succeeding to the throne, which frequently caused a great deal of trouble. Both Henry VIII and Edward III willed the crown away, for example, although in Edward's case it was in a logical fashion following male line primogeniture.
I'm not quite sure when that ended, but since the seventeenth century at least the tradition has been the monarch takes charge at the moment of the death of the previous monarch, and acts as their own regent. I'm also not quite sure whether legally there now has to be a coronation for a King to be properly counted as king. That may have been ditched because of Edward V - given Henry VII's urgent need to underline Richard III's position as a usurper - but certainly nobody seemed to doubt Edward VIII was King even though he was never crowned.
Therefore, you do have to wonder a bit whether the televised Accession Council itself wasn't more than sufficient and the Coronation rather pointless.
From what I gather, and despite some words from people organising the coronation, there is no formal requirement whatsoever, since it is the case now that the formal reign began the moment he was proclaimed (if not instantly upon the death of Her Majesty).
Now we are a long way removed from any possible contesting of who might be monarch, and they are not going to be uncontactable for long periods (ie off slaughtering people in the holy land when the old king pops it), then there's no need for any formal delay I guess.
The Coronation is therefore just the Accession Council but with a bit more flair and mysticism.
Comments
I believe most voters are generically in favour of policies like this as they sound reasonable - who doesn't think voting security should be high? - and the actual results this time are likely to be a Tory bloodbath, so it won't look like they have gained any advantage (even if that was the intent I'm sceptical it would have worked).
Which means election chaos and administrative problems are key. Councils and others have done as much as they can to remind people of the new rules, but there's still been a lot of warnings it could go very badly.
So what if it doesn't?
My worry is we get a few teething problems but nothing too dramatic, and it becomes one of those rules oppositions criticise but dont bother to change once they get in.
Witness the row over migration. Labour have a plan to tackle this which includes going after the traffickers and having them jailed and confiscating the boats - working with the French to do so. The Tories keep screeching that Labour have no plan AND that they are traitors for not backing their latest crayon sketch to Stop The Boats.
That no boats are being stopped by the Tories seems to be ignored by the moron media. This kind of the lie is the truth and the truth is a lie positioning still has the potential to damage Labour's chances amongst the voters still desperately waiting for their Brexit moon on a stick to be dished out.
But is that a Tory policy, or the SNP’s?
They have also included a photo of a dog at a polling station, which is nice.
The final straw came when the Tories claimed credit for the popular Coalition policies which they had opposed while in governemnt - and they still do to this day.
Nobody in his right mind would trust the Tories with anything.
And any suggestion of a deal would have to be ratified by a Lib Dem Party Conference. As OGH has often pointed out, the Conservatives are uncoalitionable.
She has wheeled out a racist policy. You lectured me on how it couldn't be racist as they were all "asian" and someone the same. But she is Indian heritage attacking people of another heritage and faith. And now we have senior Tories also calling out the racism because it is racism.
If you like the racist security risk policy failure because she annoys other Tories, that's up to you. Calling her "great" says a lot though. About you...
They might try to vary it a bit, but "Don't risk woke change. Also remember Corbyn" still looks like it will struggle.
I consider Sunak to be head and shoulders better than Johnson and Truss, and likewise Starmer to be head and shoulders better than Corbyn. Sunak sounds lighter on the ear than Starmer. He sounds like Tony Blair, whereas Starmer sounds like he needs his adenoids removed. If that is enough for you, fair enough.
But they are already insulating themselves from the actual crossings - by giving the helm of the boat to one of the immigrants, not giving names etc.
The French (local) government in the area has already refused to cooperate in identifying who sold the boats to the smugglers - as they see it, a nice ash business enriching French citizens while removing a problem.
I really do not like her not only for her tone but she has simply failed
That also tallies with the Greeks having two types of foreigner (the worse kind being barbarians), and the Eastern Romans and latter day Persians disliking each other but admitting they were both civilised and practically everybody else was a barbarian.
Being from Africa certainly wasn't a bar to Septimius Severus becoming emperor (unsure if he was born there, think so, to senatorialish parents... been a while since I read his bio).
I do wish Starmer didn't look constantly surprised that people are asking him questions, and shifty when answering them, regardless of how innocuous they are. Another Tory win would be disastrous for all concerned, including the Tories.
She has wheeled out a racist policy. You lectured me on how it couldn't be racist as they were all "asian" and someone the same. But she is Indian heritage attacking people of another heritage and faith. And now we have senior Tories also calling out the racism because it is racism.
If you like the racist security risk You can't save America. They keep voting to have their kids slaughtered in their schools.
A full tax credit for teachers to be armed in the classroom. Because kids aren't safe in their classrooms unless their teacher is packing.
It might be galling they dont acknowledge where they only did something because it was a concession to the LDs, and that the positive influence of the LDs is overlooked, but if they still did it they can claim credit.
The implication of it was that Piso was thick and barely sentient - like a slave of dark hue.
It was clearly racist in the modern sense.
I do wonder whether Severus was an example of the “exception for racism” by being wealthy and educated. It’s a fairly common trope among racists from South Africa that educated and successful black people aren’t “who I mean”.
The particular kind of prejudices developed during a few centuries of European colonialism simply didn't exist back then.
They had their own, very different ideas of the civilised and the barbarian (words which they generously gave us).
When not reading a speech Sunak is as you say. But he is PM. Which means speeches. And he reads them out in a comedic Jackanory voice. As he did Stop The Boats. Even if he was announcing a cure for cancer validated by the greatest medical minds his presentation would both send you to sleep and make you think its a lie.
I genuinely like Rishi. Was an early ramper of his on this forum. But please, don't try and make him out to be some kind of people person in a way Starmer is not. Please. Because its nonsense.
The problem is postal vote fraud.
But they like postal votes because that is Tory votes in the bag.
Neither of them is that impressive. But they're both decent administrators. Given that, time for a change doesn't look or feel dangerous - especially after the last few years.
I do like the Sunak as Cbeebies presenter comparisons when he goes for eager and earnest though.
Both are hugely impressive.
You don't get to be PM or LotO without being a supremely capable operator.
But it is the necessary appeal to the lowest common denominator that, for more rarified minds, is so off-putting.
I think its genuinely in its aims, it's just misguided, disproportionate and stupid (and more likely to see 80 year olds forget about the new rules than young people to miss out).
I'm not sure quite how old the concept of 'race' is, but it's certainly nowhere near as old.
It's also come to be a pretty bogus pseudo-scientific concept.
Doesn't it? Chatting with someone in the shop, and no - the boat is broken. So pulling another one in which is now doing overnight sailing back to Oban. No email, no text update, the ticket office in Castlebay not open or with a notice in the window.
So I abandoned my digs, ended up on a late ferry (just drive on, the crew didn't care) to arrive into Oban at 4:30 am having had no sleep waiting for a petrol station to open.
Calmac have been a basket case for years. Just look at the age of their fleet. Hard for the government to blame anyone else when they have been in office since 2007.
I do think though that while we get different rights and restrictions at different ages, the general trend seems more to extend the period of childhood and adolescence, and so giving voting rights would seem counter to that.
If you stopped all those things then the animal population would decrease dramatically and perhaps, for example in your opinion, that is a good thing.
Maybe more controversially, I think prisoners ought to be able to vote too.
It went to pot because events overwhelmed him, but that's another story.
Sunak has definite talents, but he doesn't have that charisma.
I know total consistency is not possible, but I'd be in favour of lowering the voting age if we lowered other restrictions, because we'd be saying this is an age when we think you are old enough to decide major things by yourself.
Since we seem not to be doing that I see the push for 16 year old voting as contradictory.
However, i also wont kick up a fuss if it happens, especially as the point has already been conceded in some votes already.
The person that actually reminds me of a bit is James Callaghan, rather than Blair and despite his Blair-ite voice, with no harder edge, but Sunak is more confident of it, and has more of it.
National is a great platform (in my opinion) to highlight the issue. As for food, in the future with science providing healthy, plentiful and tasty plant based food, who knows? And yes certain animals would die out, but we as a species seem pretty relaxed about that now already!
There’s that one scene.
You know the one I’m talking about.
That scene was better than sex.
Malcolm Rifkind was a potential candidate for the leadership (he eventually didn't formally stand) and I recall Davis supporters here would often refer to Rifkind as "over the hill".
Davis is just 3 years younger than Rifkind.
As they say in the USA "Do the math".
I'm not quite sure when that ended, but since the seventeenth century at least the tradition has been the monarch takes charge at the moment of the death of the previous monarch, and acts as their own regent. I'm also not quite sure whether legally there now has to be a coronation for a King to be properly counted as king. That may have been ditched because of Edward V - given Henry VII's urgent need to underline Richard III's position as a usurper - but certainly nobody seemed to doubt Edward VIII was King even though he was never crowned.
Therefore, you do have to wonder a bit whether the televised Accession Council itself wasn't more than sufficient and the Coronation rather pointless.
He does seem younger in fairness.
In general, domesticated animals enjoy much better lives than wild animals, which is why it’s so easy to domesticate them.
Now we are a long way removed from any possible contesting of who might be monarch, and they are not going to be uncontactable for long periods (ie off slaughtering people in the holy land when the old king pops it), then there's no need for any formal delay I guess.
The Coronation is therefore just the Accession Council but with a bit more flair and mysticism.