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The new shy Tories? – politicalbetting.com
The new shy Tories? – politicalbetting.com
Interesting polling from @YouGov in yesterday's Times. The new shy Tories?https://t.co/wZLvpiH9v7 pic.twitter.com/mo8RSEdAKs
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Well, actually a pretty old meaning but nevertheless..
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
One of the saddest things, is that her actions have killed a lot of investment in the area of testing.
There is vast potential out there for testing for multiple issues from the same samples, low operator skill testing system etc. Real technologies that are now going to take much more time to emerge.
So I’ve seen a lot of political leaflets in my rime, but I must admit the “ten page Sunday newspaper magazine interview” format is a new one. The casual reader will learn a lot about this nice young man with no notion that this is political promotion, unless…
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1647587941961592832?s=20
But it's interesting to see what is holding them in confusion.
Yet we only get 70-75% turnout at general elections so among this one third of voters will likely be a substantial proportion who won’t vote at all.
Having a narrow preference for one side over the other doesn’t and won’t translate into going to a polling station or getting a postal or proxy vote.
That’s why we have likelihood of voting indicators and questions - yes, some of the one third will vote but I suspect most won’t.
If the Tory recovery under Sunak and Hunt continues this group will both shrink and become more favourable to the Tories as the election approaches but even a good result in this group doesn't mean that Labour doesn't get its majority. It would mean no landslide, however.
I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things.
The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Not just oldies but Generation Xs who have paid off their mortgages or the working class who are living in a time of full employment.
Now there are likewise many millions who are struggling and there are underlying economic problems that the country as a whole faces but I don't hear any realistic answers to those from anyone.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
The other aspect is we always have a group of DKs before any campaign - that’s part of the point of election campaigns, to persuade those who are undecided. I recall before 2010 the number of DKs being particularly high. The current number seems more average - the majority have already decided.
But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory?
I can't see very many at all.
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
This is a trope that I run out every so often - but the Tories #1 USP is keeping Labour out. The size if the Tory vote corresponds almost exactly to the scariness of the Labour Party. Few voters think "hooray, Conservatism" in the way that a determined bloc still think "hooray, socialism". Not least because "change" is a more energising concept than "but the change you propose is stupid" (unless what you propose is Corbyn. That energised quite a few.)
But nevertheless, people will still vote for "the change you propose is stupid - therefore no change".
Interestingly, I suspect voter id here harms the Tories. People keen to see change are more likely to overcome mi or hurdles to bring it about (possibly this is why unions are always led by people well to the left of the membership).
Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
But that isn't a positive.
Labour appears to be offering continuity Toryism, with a few cosmetic changes designed to distract from the fact.
If the floating voters decide that nice Rishi, aided by a couple of judicious tax cuts, is a more reliable bet than Keir Starmer, and then a chunk of Labour's vote stays at home because they're being offered nothing to turn out for, a Tory victory is on.
Labour is entirely missing the vision thing. It's a few soundbites vanishing into a vacuum. If that doesn't change then don't be surprised if they melt like the snow in Spring when exposed to the heat of a GE campaign.
Since some appeared to misunderstand me then, I'll add this small anecdote: On Friday, I went by my favorite Greek place, Santorini's and wished the two guys there a Happy Easter weekend -- and asked them to pass on my wishes to the proprietor, Stavros -- who is celebrating Easter, today.
It would be interesting to see how it is celebrated in Greece. I would guess no Easter bunny, for one thing.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair
2. Cameron
3. Brown
4. Starmer
5. May
6. Howard
7. Sunak
8. Hague
9. Miliband
10. Johnson / Corbyn
11. Truss
A good second half for Leicester yesterday, showing some fight, but I fear we have left it too late. Next week against Wolves is a big one for us.
I think the best thing the Tories have done in their current iteration is the extension of state funded childcare for working parents. As we discussed at the time, it was done somewhat suboptimally. But still, I'd vote for that. (And I note that Labour opposed it.)
But positive reasons to vote for a party are based on what they will do, rather than what they have done, and we don't really know what either party will propose going into the next election. It's possible there will be all sorts of positive reasons to vote for either of them. We'll see.
He wasn't very good.
The trend towards the view that there are no solutions in prospect for issues including Economy, Crime, NHS, Climate is strongly indicated by the 'Best Party for the Job' stats. People are NOT saying that the parties are edging towards sunlit uplands but are not quite there. They are expressing a stark absence of hope for better things.
This is fertile ground for, among others, a New Blair, a competent version of Boris, a UK Trump, a youthful Jezza and a further host of plausible messiahs. This is not great.
There must be a lesson here around not putting your trust in political leaders because 95% of the time they turn out to be shit.
If - and it remains an if - the winds blow fair over the next 18 months, then it's entirely possible we could see Sunak returned with a reduced majority. 1992, redux.
And Sunak is a bit of a John Major character: a decent guy, not full of charisma, but one who appears quietly competent, and who has done a very good in sorting out problems in Northern Ireland which appeared intractable.
We could even make Starmer a Kinnock type figure: a man who took over from a left wing fireband (and lover of dictators), who cast out the crazies from the party, but who was not appealing enough to reach beyond Labour's heartlands.
Of course, Labour will benefit from the current difficulties at the SNP. Most of our assumptions about a hung Parliament were because we expected the not-Con, not-Lab seat total to be 80+. If the number is actually 55, a narrow majority for either Labour or the Conservatives begins to look a lot more likely.
Lincoln knew this, and looked for ways to get Union forces down to the area.
This continued for many years after the war, so much so that for decades two of the most persistently Republican congressional districts in the entire US were in eastern Tennessee.
(There were northerners who supported the South, too, often called "Copperheads", after the poisonous snake.)
https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/1647588635187859457?s=20
But in truth I remain of the view it's hard to really judge the strength or weakness of a Cabinet, and even more so a Shadow Cabinet. I'm skeptical that the current ones are the weakest of our lifetimes.
Barring standouts constantly puting their foot in their mouth like Braverman most are at worst mediocre. Disappointed in Gove though, he seems to have given up and run out of any ideas.
For this to become a factor either way the Cons would need to be at least level in the polls. Meanwhile I was talking to a couple of local Con councillors yesterday and believe me I am a huge fan of Mr Sunak compared to them!
Why did these areas support the Union?
And were there commensurate areas in the north who supported the South?
This looks like a little bit of a return to form for them.
It's the classic dilemma, isn't it? The public trust the Conservatives to grow the economy, but not to manage public services well or generously. For Labour, the roles are reversed. Doesn't matter how justified those reputations are, they just are.
But the Conservatives need a game changer, and their plan for the next eighteen months is to grow the economy by squeezing the public sector. Even if it works, that just reinforces current prejudices.
So what shifts votes, exactly?
As for running away, was there anyone who believed his and others' claims he would not have to quit if the referendum was lost? It was an obvious untruth, which he should be called out on but I don't think anyone expected otherwise.
Blair - Iraq
Cameron - Brexit
Brown - Banks collapse on his watch. We pay.
May - A strong and stable red white and blue Brexit
Sunak - Wait and see
Boris - carelessly carried on being Boris
Truss - Egregious uncosted tax cuts for the rich. This. Is. A. Disgrace.
Only Sunak has a fairly untrashed reputation.
Try advocating my policy to eliminate the black economy in undocumented labour. The reactions you get are fascinating. The interest groups are not what you think they might be.
I think Sunak is moderately competent, but lacks hinterland, experience and is prone to misjudgement. The clips of him having tea next to the supposedly senile Biden were embarrassing.
If one tries to place him in the 20th century, as opposed to this one, he would present as an incredibly minor figure. He still has time, of course.
By the same analogy, General Dyer’s “legacy” was consolidated with Indian independence.
If we’d had the referendum at the start of the Coalition (say) the result would have been 65% Remain & the issue would have been done.
I thought the white working class were happy with slavery in that it allowed them to feel they did not occupy the lowest rung of the ladder…
This photo captures the atmosphere, if not the planting.
The rest of city centre Manchester, and indeed everywhere on the Altrincham tram line, was absolutely rammed with the marathon, which leant an exrra frisson of exciting urbanity to a Sunday morning.
I'm now killing time in a Costa Coffee in the Trafford Centre while other daughters and their friends (who are now old enough to watch a film on their own but not yet to be left and picked up) go to the cinema. Someone on here (possibly antifrank, now I come to think about it) gave me the advice a few years ago to always ask for filter coffee in chain coffee shops, advice I have profited from greatly from over the years - they may not always advertise it but they usually do it, and it is cheaper and better than the various frothy offerings. But here they not only don't have filter coffee, they had literally never heard of it. So Americano it is. A British version of an Italian version of an American version of coffee. Needlessly conplex ajd needlessly expensive, but it suffices.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )
But I think, above all, we should teach that slavery continued into modern times, in the Gulag, the Laogai, and in other parts of the world.
Cameron, Brown, what had they really experienced before politics? Before becoming PM Cameron had only been leader of the opposition in any senior level and had no major departmental experience - was “just” PM and left us with the I’ll thought out Brexit referendum then walked away from his mess. Brown was so politically obsessive that he couldn’t see anything outside of the Prism of “politics” probably because he never had a “hinterland”.
Blair did very well with a relatively short career in law before politics but also benefitted from a very tired argumentative Tory party but failed to push home any radical changes to the UK because he was too focussed on winning the next election instead of making real changes.
So maybe a jumped up management consultant, if given the time a lot of them had, might do a better job.
Middle Eastern warmongering
Crap EU negotiating
Uncontrolled immigration
Student tuition fees
Unaffordable housing
Unbalanced economy
Money grubbing sleaze
And Cameron had:
Middle Eastern warmongering
Crap EU negotiating
Uncontrolled immigration
Student tuition fees
Unaffordable housing
Unbalanced economy
Money grubbing sleaze
Blair also promised us a 'Cool Britannia' culture renaissance while Cameron promised to make the UK an 'Aid Superpower'.
Neither happened.
America is an Empire and literally a Colonial State, and we should perhaps not be surprised that this bubbles up into a frankly weird discourse.
And both were killed off by the Brexity junta.
What is likely is that the issue of the next GE is going to be engaging and fascinating for at least the next 18 months. For PM after next election Smarkets gives 80% SKS, 20% Rishi. Anyone who thinks this is even close to a done deal hasn't ever backed Arsenal in easy games that matter.
SKS is broadly aiming to win by being at the top of the pile of the losers. At the moment he isn't going all out affirmatively to win the GE. It will be a dangerous moment if he feels he has to do so, and actually set out alternatives in terms of meaningful policy.
All this is good for PB, if no-one else.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/16/humza-yousaf-suspend-nicola-sturgeon-snp-peter-murrell/
What possible excuse is there for this?
And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
It looks like he's giving the Tories a second hearing with Great British Public which didn't seem possible when Loopy Liz departed. Next 12-18 months will be interesting...
And what happened to all that money from those lottery winners, and from celebrity Scots abroad?
There’s still no evidence of outright fraud, but the finances seems to be an utter shitshow.
But the political system seems to be driving us toward those who have neither.
We need to look at root and branch reform.
Had Dave stayed on in summer 2016,
a) how long before his Brexit deal was being denounced as Not True Brexit by Team Leave?
b) how long before Conservative MPs VONCed him?
Personally I doubt Britain 2000-2015 is going to be remembered as a cultural epoch to match 15th century Florence.
Or even Britain between 1960 and 1975.
Both sides accuse each other of irrational ideology.
Conservative commentators and politicians say the country is in thrall to Green Party dogma, that scraps domestic nuclear power at a time when cutting Russian energy means rising prices. They accuse the government of increasing reliance on fossil fuels instead of using nuclear, which has lower emissions...
There have been attempts to rid Germany of nuclear power for decades
Greens and left-wingers argue that it is illogical to cling to nuclear power, which is more expensive than wind or solar. The government argues that keeping the three ageing atomic power stations online would need huge investment — funds that should go into renewable energy sources.
It is odd for the CDU to suddenly champion climate protection, say Green Party MPs, given that the conservatives regularly block measures to expand renewable energy infrastructure.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65260673
Doesn't Germany (or at least significant parts of it) also sit on a bed of coal?
A lot of the Northern opposition to Slavery came from the idea of the noble yeoman farmer. He would support himself and his family, be free of aristocrats, elect his magistrates etc. This interwoven with religious teachings as well.
In this way of the thinking the slave owning South was an immoral aristocracy built on the backs of the slaves.
A threat to all free men, because the cheap labour* of the slaves would drive them out of their farms**, which would reduce them to beggars while the Slavocracy got ever richer.
*The modern analysis of the true cost of slave labour in money terms wasn't available.
**The educated would bring in the story of the Gracchi.
EDIT: This was for areas where slavery was not dominant.
Why did these [Appalachian] areas support the Union?
And were there commensurate areas in the north who supported the South?"
The areas were then mostly inhabited by poor farmers on poor land, who had no slaves. Slavery made economic sense mostly in the cotton growing areas. Cotton required rich land. (In other parts of the Americas, slavery made economic sense mostly in sugar producing areas.) As many poor farmers saw it, it was a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. (Men who owned 25 or more slaves were exempt from conscription.)
There was substantial support for the Confederacy in border states like Kentucky, of course. There were many Copperheads in Indiana. The largest violent support for the South was in New York City, where men rioted against the draft, and blacks in 1863: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots
"Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned into a race riot, with white rioters attacking black people, in violence throughout the city. The official death toll was listed at either 119 or 120 individuals. Conditions in the city were such that Major General John E. Wool, commander of the Department of the East, said on July 16 that "Martial law ought to be proclaimed, but I have not a sufficient force to enforce it."[11]
The military did not reach the city until the second day of rioting, by which time the mobs had ransacked or destroyed numerous public buildings, two Protestant churches, the homes of various abolitionists or sympathizers, many black homes, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was burned to the ground."
(Immigrants from Ireland were prominent in the riot, on both sides.)
On the face of it, it’s egregious.
Even during the Age of Coal in the UK, we were importing lots of cheaper coal for heating etc. The higher quality deep mined coal was used for applications where greater BTU per ton was required - and hence could command a higher price.
Hence the Japanese buying Welsh Best as the reserve fuel for battle, for their navy.
When ships moved from coal power, the bottom dropped out of this market. In addition process improvements meant that lower quality coal (cheaper) became more useful for coking etc.
Britain 1993-2015 was pretty good, though.
This is excused or overlooked again because of the comparison with Johnson/Truss, and in part because the British public / media are now so deeply boiled (like frogs) in neo-liberal economic shibboleths that they hardly see it.
Everyone in the SNP who's still openly talking is going down with the ship basically, as it's clear now it's holed below the waterline.