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How votes have moved in Esher since GE1997 – politicalbetting.com
How votes have moved in Esher since GE1997 – politicalbetting.com
The seat borders Lib Dem held Twickenham as well as Ed Davey’s Kingston seat and it is highly likely that it will be a key target for the LDs at the general election. To put the GE2019 result into contention this happened on the same day as the Tories won their near landslide majority,
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PS. Alas Sir Les!
Perhaps someone prominent in the seat, who can say who, is abrasive and that has rubbed off locally.
Problems of canon and overloading can occur by trying to squeeze a lot into the same broad time period of the setting though.
Problems of canon and overloading can occur by trying to squeeze a lot into the same broad time period of the setting though. I don't see the appeal for DeSantis in joining the ticket under Trump (also wasn't there some speculation about not being able to as both registered in the same state?). He's young, should be easily re-elected as Governor and plenty of time.
He's unwilling to go after Trump for obvious reasons, and even in his own area people don't seem to fully buy he can be Trump but more electorally successful, since he is working hard to be polarising, so why would he go now?
In summary, running with Trump now helps RDS in 2028 unless the latter completely messes it up, which I don't think he would.
Most of the arguments against RDS being picked are flimsy. The same state rule can easily be circumvented. Technically, RDS might have to step down as Governor for a run but the Florida legislature can pass legislation to amend this (and has done so in the past). For me, the main question now is Trump - part personality wise but also whether he thinks a RDS wins or loses him more votes in 2024.
Obviously, the Republicans belief that drag acts are the root of all evil, or possibly all wokery, predates any mention of “Transgender Revenge Day” or the recent shooting by a trans individual (which, given the stupendously high frequency of shootings in the US, still means trans individuals are on average much less likely to be the perpetrators of such events).
US states are banning all drag acts, not just the armed ones. Dame Edna Everage would be *illegal* in parts of the US now. A light entertainment act that somehow we all grew up watching without becoming mass murderers/perverts/communists/the sort of people who have threesomes in a Swiss brothel.
It's far more plausuble Rishi simply told him he would not back him up, as it would look too bad, so he knew he had to bite the bullet, even if doing so looks silly when he doesn't accept the conclusions. I'm not even one of those who expected the report to find against him.
> writing him off due to current polling downs is just as wrong-headed, as assuming he's in like Flynn when his polling numbers go up. At this stage of play that is - remember 1972 Democratic nominee-presumptive, Ed "Cry Me a River" Muskie?
> with respect to possibility of a Trump-DeSantis GOP ticket in 2024, note that there are PLENTY of examples in US history, of nominees for POTUS selecting, or otherwise being matched, with a VP running mate DESPITE fact that they were bitter rivals for nomination. For example, Franklin Roosevelt and John Nance Garner (Dem 1932); John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (Dem 1960), Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder (Rep 1980). In case of #45 and RDS, fact they are from same state (currently) IS a problematic factor, to put it mildly!
> presume that bit re: "people in his own area" not getting on DeSantis bandwagon refers to members of Florida Republican congressional delegation? Who ain't exactly "people" in normal sense, but rather politicos on the make . . . just like RDS! Really insider baseball. For historical context, note that in 1932, the same argument was raised against FDR with respect to his lack of support from fellow NY Democratic politicos, who mostly lined up behind former NY State Gov. and 1928 nominee Al Smith.
Nor this one: https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/weymouth-man-who-allegedly-threatened-shoot-pride-flag-derby-street-shoppes-found-dangerous/5TYEIYOBIVA6HPWNPUZDLCFOLM/
Nor this one: https://www.ffxnow.com/2022/12/13/blue-iguana-drag-brunch-threat-anti-lgbtq-incidents-increasing/
The spectacular collapse of the Esher Tory vote in GE 2019 might not be entirely the result of LibDem campaigning skills or Raab's awfulness - but an unspoken coalition of anti-Tories around the LibDem to shaft the Tories while keeping Corbyn out. I've long been worried that Starmer's growing credibility will undermine LD near-strongholds like Esher (with a growing proportion of anti-Tories grouping around Labour) and that Tories could exploit this to be the largest party out of three, all polling well below 50%.
We should get some insights into this on May 4. Elmbridge Borough Council (in which Raab's seat lies) is currently run by a LD/Residents' coalition, with a third of its 48 seats up every three out of four years. Those 16 vote in 12 days' time. The LDs only have to gain one seat to become the largest party - but they only have to lose the wrong one seat for the Tories to return to being the largest party.
And who knows where Sunak's vote-suppressing ID rules will lead us all?
Blimey. Tory MP Caroline Nokes attacks her own party, telling @TheNewsAgents : “Culture wars, when it comes to determining how people vote in any given election, are so far down the average voter’s political radar, that I don't know why we're seeking to stoke division and hatred.”
https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1649437540015808514
The moment the investigation into Raab’s bullying was announced I tweeted that I expected many more civil servants to come forward with complaints. I’ve rarely been more confident about a prediction because, like everyone who hangs around Whitehall, I knew Raab’s reputation. His behaviour had been an open secret for years. The high turnover in his private office was a matter of record as were the higher than normal salaries offered to officials to work with him (“danger money” as more than one described it to me).
The Telegraph morons have just taken the highest RRP in the range and multiplied it up.
Why does the one in the pic look as if it has been T-boned?
(And why is it on a double-yellow rather than the parking space next to it? It's not obviously on a call that gives an exception.)
(My experience is ambulances switch off lights when stationary. This may not be typical as I usually see them stationary when parked on a drive.)
Not that I accept this guff about “porn-adjacent”. I’ve never seen any drag act that is porn-adjacent. I’ve seen Miley Cyrus music videos that are porn-adjacent, but Republicans don’t want to ban those. I’ve seen US Presidents who were pornstar-adjacent, but Republicans are fine with that.
Better than you, me OR Mike Pence!
Again, is is still EARLY DAYS meaning for one thing that early polls mean less than some pundits think they do.
We shall have to see how things develop during rest of 2023 and start of 2024.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/22/inside-the-collapse-of-ron-desantis-presidential-campaign/ (£££)
A quick and perhaps unrepresentative summary:-
A flurry of Trump endorsements from Florida and across the US. Florida's senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott have yet to declare.
RDS lacks charisma. He relies on his own instincts rather than campaign managers who have done it before, or got him where he is today.
No good at retail politics; does not schmooze donors.
Majoring on culture wars with strict abortion limits and war on Disney; mimicking Trump rather than rallying non-Trump and former-Trump Republicans.
DeSantis has lost his poll lead and now trails The Donald.
Otoh, RDS still has a big pile of campaign cash, and is well-placed if the prosecutors do for Trump.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2017/08/02/paul-ogrady-cant-stand-rupauls-drag-race-its-not-drag-its-transvestism/
BTW, have we had the manifesto published yet of the transgender shooter who shot dead children and teachers in Tennessee on Transgender Revenge Day?
Mad, really
That seems a very different comment to what you were saying about “porn-adjacent”. Nor do I believe Paul O’Grady supports laws banning drag acts, as Ron DeSantis does, to tie us in to the other discussion…
We read Golding's "Lord of the Flies" at school.
I only conclude Nigel O'Neill liked the thought of children being killed in unpleasant ways...
Yes in some ways it’s just a reflection of the pornification of culture more generally but it’s naive to think this is about anyone wanting to ban Dame Edna.
AGAIN: A couple in Broward County said they were shot at after they went to the wrong address to deliver Instacart groceries. The couple said police told them there would be no repercussions for the shooter because no Florida laws were broken.
https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1649787753159360513
C) according to https://fox17.com/news/local/nashville-tennessee-lawmaker-covenant-school-shooter-manifesto-described-as-a-blueprint-for-heinous-things-audrey-hale-crime-politics-usa-news the "manifesto" hasn't been released and might not be. But unless you know that the person being apparently trans is relevant to the shooting why mention it?
The only thing we know for sure is that most murders are committed by a certain minority of the population - men.
The former Soviet republics like Ukraine have “no effective status in international law”, they are “not sovereign states”.
What did Macron achieve in Beijing, exactly?…
https://twitter.com/d_foubert/status/1649604444558970883
Does that mean China has no status in international law? After all, the legal government is in Taipei...*
*yes, yes, I know Chiang's government had no more actual legitimacy than Mao's.
Drag is not remotely the same as trans - men who think they are women - and many aim to be hyperfeminised versions of women - indeed some of them claim to be “better than women”. But they’re still men. Who wish to compel belief in the rest of us.
And as for autogyniphiles (men who get sexually aroused thinking of themselves as women and dressing as women) it doesn’t take much imagination to work out why they wish to gain access to female only spaces. Unfortunately they get lumped in with the genuinely trans when you do something like GRR a l’Ecosse.
China will probably not try and invade Vietnam again, and North Korea is its ally. Taiwan it's already trying to browbeat into joining the mainland.
Mongolia might perhaps be a bit perturbed.
It doesn't mean we can't do business with it. We just have to have no illusions about it being a dangerous and very powerful potential adversary.
Paul O'Grady/Lily Savage would have disagreed, vehemently and obscenely, with that. Saying today's drag scene is more obscene than that of the 1960s/70s is silly, and when AIDS hit in the 80's it didn't help. We forget how scabrous, badly decorated, damp ridden and wildly unpleasant were public spaces and public entertainment were n the post-war period, and think that the sensitivities of our warm, disabled friendly, microaggression-afeared double-glazed world reflect those of the past. They do not.
As for "But unless you know that the person being apparently trans is relevant to the shooting why mention it? " it doesn't seem to stop every shooting of someone non-white by someone white as automatically being labelled a hate crime.
Remarkable how we can see divine so much into the intentions of one set of shooters and not the other.
It's a PR shot from the London Ambulance Trust, and the Telegraph are doing their usual enviro-whinge to stir up Tunbridge Wells.
https://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/2023/
(The 'we are fitting extra solar panels to power the blue lights so they will be even greener' sounds a little "quick spend the budget".)
“In my day we had the likes of Phil Starr, who was a glorious comedian… we had Marc Fleming, Auntie Flo, Mrs Shufflewick. We had great comedians in drag.
“This new brigade who just parade around going, sashay, shantay – that’s not drag to me.”
O’Grady drew a distinction between the on-the-night performance that is drag, and the full-characterisation that typifies the Drag Race stars.
“Drag is doing an act. That’s dressing up. That [Drag Race] is transvestism,” O’Grady said.
“Drag is an act, where you get up, you do your act, you get changed and you go home – you don’t parade round the streets doing all this business.”
“I’ve no interest in it whatsoever, none at all.”
When it was put to him that Drag Race had brought drag to a new generation and out in the open, O’Grady said: “I don’t like that.
“I always believed Lily Savage belonged in a pub, especially a gay bar, where you could rant and rave.”
Which makes the ambassador's remarks doubly stupid, of course.
Have you got a link to the original remarks?
With sole exception of "Great British Baking Show" back when Mary Berry was the main star. The rest make me wanna barf.
Is this what legal text looks like in the USA? Our Parliamentary Counsel would have a fit.
Setting aside the fact that I think trying to ban drag is silly, their attempt at a definition is so broad as to be unenforceable.
“2) "drag performance" means a performance in which one or more performers:
(A) Exhibits a gender identity that is different from the performer's gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup or other accessories that are traditionally worn by members of and are meant to exaggerate the gender identity of the performer's opposite sex; and
(B) sings, lip-synchs, dances or otherwise performs before an audience of at least two
persons for entertainment, whether performed for payment or not”.
That covers the Pythons. That covers most farces on stage. That covers the film ET (where he tries lipstick and a dress).
If enacted, you’d make so much unlawful you’d be a laughing stock in days.
Unsurprisingly, he is spectacularly wealthy. And quite debauched. He’s probably good friends with Nick Palmer
The creation of a non-binary category goes against the most basic rules of fair competition, effectively offering males two categories in which they can enjoy fair competition, whilst females have only one.
https://thecritic.co.uk/thousands-of-steps-backwards/
Agreed, though, this stuff is bonkers.