Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
Stick with the low hanging fruit line, I think it’s true. The main take out from polling is Conservatives not going anywhere considering they were just about 4 points behind this time last year. Not only have they not quickly got back there with Sunak, but by my reckoning the majority of polling this week has Tory’s going BACKWARDS - that does suggest low hanging fruit gone now and they are struggling to go further. The Lib Dem rise has knocked a few off Labour showing closer leads, but as a fools gold, the smarter PB posters have pointed out, as Lab and Lib shuffled those points LLG has barely changed. And everything in the mood and locals forecasting pointing to the heaving 60% LLG itching to use itself to maximum anti Tory affect.
Now nearly £200 lower due to the new 45p rate kicking in.
I must confess it's testing my resolve.
Steel yourself CR - are Labour going to reduce your taxes?
I was thinking about you the other night, not in a weird way, was looking for something to listen and fall asleep to on BBC sounds and they have a reading of the Casino Royale Book. I thought it would be perfect, thought I knew it from watching the film, 2 episodes of 70 mins each and I will be asleep after 20 mins approx. Drifting off thinking nothing then a line “bond lit his 70th cigarette of the day” and was suddenly “wow” and awake - 2 hours later still wide awake very happy to have listened to the original book - no gadgets just a good story.
So that’s the last time I hope I’m kept awake by Casino Royale but your questioning of politically might just do it.
It's a fantastic story, which of course is why Ian Fleming's career launched as it did.
On the broader point, no. Truss aside the Tories still live in the world of real-world economics, not fantasy ones, and I'd be thousands of pounds more worse off a year under Labour.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
I expect LAB to be around 5% to 7% ahead on an adjusted national vote basis in the local elections.
Not enough to be sure of a GE win next year although of course LAB are ahead and are rightly current GE favourites.
I'll be disappointed with that. Hoping for around 10 pts.
FPT, Winchester Cathedral is nearest to me, and it's incredible.
The mortuary chests contain the bones of some of the very earliest Kings of Wessex and England, dating back to the 610s - which is barely 200 years after the Romans left.
England is truly an ancient country, steeped in history, heritage, tradition, and lore. You can almost feel it when you're there.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Good points all. I think there are some cultural differences between now and the run up to 1997.
Since 1997 the broad scope of public cynicism has grown from moderate to overwhelming. Blair received genuine adulation from idealistic centrists, mostly but not all young. In our own day we have seen adulation for: Jezza, Truss!!, Boris, Farage, Trump, and Russell Brand - ie useless, deeply flawed unstatesmen. (Zelensky is different only because he is fighting for survival in a 'right v wrong battle).
September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, banks, EU, Brexit, plutocracy, corruption, China, Ukraine and the effects of social media have changed the world.
What is there to be idealistic about as compared with 1997? And this is why SKS (who deserves to win) might not in 2024; Blairite idealism is not an available commodity in electable quantities.
Now nearly £200 lower due to the new 45p rate kicking in.
I must confess it's testing my resolve.
Your efforts to repair Britain's finances are, I hope, greatly appreciated by everyone here.
Not just CR. I’ve saved the government nearly £200 by not teaching yesterday or Tuesday. I’m expecting a thank you note from Jeremy *unt to drop through my letterbox any day now.
Perhaps he will return the favour and call you similarly. It would not be unjust.
I wasn’t so much calling him that as reminiscing about the time he was called that live on R4. I actually think he’s one of the few adults left in the room (though the max of a decade earlier would be spitting venison to read me admit that).
But I’m genuinely intrigued - do you think it’s justified to use that word about striking teachers?
That’s not a loaded question and I recognise people will have strong views about strikes. I’m quite interested in yours.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
FPT, Winchester Cathedral is nearest to me, and it's incredible.
The mortuary chests contain the bones of some of the very earliest Kings of Wessex and England, dating back to the 610s - which is barely 200 years after the Romans left.
England is truly an ancient country, steeped in history, heritage, tradition, and lore. You can almost feel it when you're there.
It is very humbling.
And don't forget this weather forecasting character:
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
I don't think I ever said I was considering voting Labour.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
I don't think I ever said I was considering voting Labour.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
The only leaflets I have had were from Labour and an independent.
Labour's two leaflets were riddled with careless spelling mistakes.
The independent would make Oswald Mosley look like a moderate.
I'm pondering how best to spoil my ballot paper.
Or, just to turn up without ID and be bundled out.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
If you've never read Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, you're missing a book that would suit you well.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Good points all. I think there are some cultural differences between now and the run up to 1997.
Since 1997 the broad scope of public cynicism has grown from moderate to overwhelming. Blair received genuine adulation from idealistic centrists, mostly but not all young. In our own day we have seen adulation for: Jezza, Truss!!, Boris, Farage, Trump, and Russell Brand - ie useless, deeply flawed unstatesmen. (Zelensky is different only because he is fighting for survival in a 'right v wrong battle).
September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, banks, EU, Brexit, plutocracy, corruption, China, Ukraine and the effects of social media have changed the world.
What is there to be idealistic about as compared with 1997? And this is why SKS (who deserves to win) might not in 2024; Blairite idealism is not an available commodity in electable quantities.
What's remarkable is how we're, still, collectively traumatised by 1997 and terrified it could happen again.
I know I am, and yet I also know that's rather unlikely.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Aka, he’s being mean to Liz.
His point is nakedly political - he wants Labour to go big on Liz Truss (as if that's remotely relevant to anyone struggling with their electricity bill) because it would support the general effort to suppress her 'failed' (sic) economic policies.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Good points all. I think there are some cultural differences between now and the run up to 1997.
Since 1997 the broad scope of public cynicism has grown from moderate to overwhelming. Blair received genuine adulation from idealistic centrists, mostly but not all young. In our own day we have seen adulation for: Jezza, Truss!!, Boris, Farage, Trump, and Russell Brand - ie useless, deeply flawed unstatesmen. (Zelensky is different only because he is fighting for survival in a 'right v wrong battle).
September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, banks, EU, Brexit, plutocracy, corruption, China, Ukraine and the effects of social media have changed the world.
What is there to be idealistic about as compared with 1997? And this is why SKS (who deserves to win) might not in 2024; Blairite idealism is not an available commodity in electable quantities.
What's remarkable is how we're, still, collectively traumatised by 1997 and terrified it could happen again.
I know I am, and yet I also know that's rather unlikely.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
I expect LAB to be around 5% to 7% ahead on an adjusted national vote basis in the local elections.
Not enough to be sure of a GE win next year although of course LAB are ahead and are rightly current GE favourites.
I expect it to be double figures.
That’s mainly because The main eye opener could be how low the Tory share is for failing to get their vote out in this current cost of living crisis, and Truss and Boris so recent in memory. As low as 23%.
The Conservatives won the national equivalent of 25% in 1995, their worst ever result, compared to 47% for Labour and 22% for the Lib Dems. Nothing in local by-election results suggests that such a result is on the cards. Broadly speaking, the same seats are being contested as in 1995.
My own view is that the Conservatives' result will be very similar to the 28% achieved in 2019, and Labour about 10% better than that.
The Conservatives' overall headline result will be flattered by regaining a lot of seats lost to rural independents (who gained 700 seats in 2019) even as they lose seats in battlegrounds to Labour.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
I don't think I ever said I was considering voting Labour.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
I will be voting Labour as it is time for a change. The Tories have been in power too long and have run out of ideas and any sense of what they are for.
I hope they can re-group in opposition and I can one day vote for them again.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Good points all. I think there are some cultural differences between now and the run up to 1997.
Since 1997 the broad scope of public cynicism has grown from moderate to overwhelming. Blair received genuine adulation from idealistic centrists, mostly but not all young. In our own day we have seen adulation for: Jezza, Truss!!, Boris, Farage, Trump, and Russell Brand - ie useless, deeply flawed unstatesmen. (Zelensky is different only because he is fighting for survival in a 'right v wrong battle).
September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, banks, EU, Brexit, plutocracy, corruption, China, Ukraine and the effects of social media have changed the world.
What is there to be idealistic about as compared with 1997? And this is why SKS (who deserves to win) might not in 2024; Blairite idealism is not an available commodity in electable quantities.
What's remarkable is how we're, still, collectively traumatised by 1997 and terrified it could happen again.
I know I am, and yet I also know that's rather unlikely.
I don't think there is likely to be a result based on exaggerated idealism. Truss, Jezza, Boris and botched Brexit have seen to that; but have seen off any sort of idealism.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
I expect LAB to be around 5% to 7% ahead on an adjusted national vote basis in the local elections.
Not enough to be sure of a GE win next year although of course LAB are ahead and are rightly current GE favourites.
I expect it to be double figures.
That’s mainly because The main eye opener could be how low the Tory share is for failing to get their vote out in this current cost of living crisis, and Truss and Boris so recent in memory. As low as 23%.
The Conservatives won the national equivalent of 25% in 1995, compared to 47% for Labour and 22% for the Lib Dems. Nothing in local by-election results suggests that such a result is on the cards. Broadly speaking, the same seats are being contested as in 1995.
My own view is that the Conservatives' result will be very similar to the 28% achieved in 2019, and Labour about 10% better than that.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
I don't think I ever said I was considering voting Labour.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
The only leaflets I have had were from Labour and an independent.
Labour's two leaflets were riddled with careless spelling mistakes.
The independent would make Oswald Mosley look like a moderate.
I'm pondering how best to spoil my ballot paper.
Or, just to turn up without ID and be bundled out.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
I don't think I ever said I was considering voting Labour.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
Speaking of failed economic policies, if a Government policy had already spaffed £4bn this year and was set to cost £210bn over the next decade, shouldn't it get some discussion?
'Threadneedle Street said transfers between the Treasury and the Bank to cover losses realised on its stockpile of asset purchases will amount to around £30bn annually over the next three years alone.'
Is this not meant to be a parsimonious Government intent on rebuilding the nation's finances?
"George Buckley, chief UK economist at Nomura, said the Chancellor's message reflected a desire to keep "market disruption to a minimum" as well as "caution over the implication of selling bonds too quickly".
"If they go too fast and cause an increase in yields, it would not only reduce the value of the bond portfolio, but it would mean higher borrowing rates for the Government," he said.
The Bank also started actively offloading around £80bn of its near-£900bn stockpile back to the private sector late last year, which will also likely lead to losses for the taxpayer."
In other words, because the Government has agreed that the taxpayer will fund the BOE's losses, the BOE can effectively control the Government - vastly increasing the cost of its borrowing, by putting up interest rates, and selling off bonds. And all Jeremy Hunt can do apparently is write a concerned letter to the Chairman. We have made the Bank independent of the Government, but made the Government dependent on the Bank.
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276 Lab 10,929 Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
I don't think I ever said I was considering voting Labour.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
The only leaflets I have had were from Labour and an independent.
Labour's two leaflets were riddled with careless spelling mistakes.
The independent would make Oswald Mosley look like a moderate.
I'm pondering how best to spoil my ballot paper.
Or, just to turn up without ID and be bundled out.
Any chance of two possibles for the first ID election: One, polling officials will quietly ignore it in many cases; Two, government will at the last minute tell officials to 'use their discretion and common sense' as these rules are new etc...?
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
The only stretch of the SW coastal path I did was east from Sidmouth. A lovely walk.
They also knew how to motivate people. All the signs kept saying, 'Beer, X miles.'
Speaking of failed economic policies, if a Government policy had already spaffed £4bn this year and was set to cost £210bn over the next decade, shouldn't it get some discussion?
'Threadneedle Street said transfers between the Treasury and the Bank to cover losses realised on its stockpile of asset purchases will amount to around £30bn annually over the next three years alone.'
Is this not meant to be a parsimonious Government intent on rebuilding the nation's finances?
"George Buckley, chief UK economist at Nomura, said the Chancellor's message reflected a desire to keep "market disruption to a minimum" as well as "caution over the implication of selling bonds too quickly".
"If they go too fast and cause an increase in yields, it would not only reduce the value of the bond portfolio, but it would mean higher borrowing rates for the Government," he said.
The Bank also started actively offloading around £80bn of its near-£900bn stockpile back to the private sector late last year, which will also likely lead to losses for the taxpayer."
In other words, because the Government has agreed that the taxpayer will fund the BOE's losses, the BOE can effectively control the Government - vastly increasing the cost of its borrowing, by putting up interest rates, and selling off bonds. And all Jeremy Hunt can do apparently is write a concerned letter to the Chairman. We have made the Bank independent of the Government, but made the Government dependent on the Bank.
That last remark is particularly ignorant in that the Government has been dependent on the Bank for about 300 years. That is the nature of a central bank.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Rather poor of the public too if that's the case! Which, yes, it might be. But what I'd say is I'm in 2 minds not denial. I'm both confident and extremely anxious. The natural state for a Labour supporter 14 or so pts up with a GE 18 months away. If I probe this dichotomy a little I think it's a head heart thing. The dusty analytical side of me tells me don't worry the Cons simply cannot get the electorate to give them another term given their lousy record. Then my intuition kicks in and goes, "oh really? who are you kidding?" The latter is unwelcome but I can't deny it. It’s certainly enough to prevent me betting on a Labour majority atm even though the price has drifted above evens.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
Ok I’m an alky like you but that’s mad. DRINK SOME WATER
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Aka, he’s being mean to Liz.
His point is nakedly political - he wants Labour to go big on Liz Truss (as if that's remotely relevant to anyone struggling with their electricity bill) because it would support the general effort to suppress her 'failed' (sic) economic policies.
There’s something in both your points of view. But his point, that the Tories managed to pull off ditching yet another PM, this time round for what was inarguably perceived as incompetence, surprisingly well in the circumstances.
And as you say, stuff is still shit for a lot of voters.
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276 Lab 10,929 Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
Well: except for 2019, the Conservatives had an excellent run of local elections from 2017 to 2022.
Under Corbyn Labour went backwards. In 2017, they lost 382 councillors. In 2018, they reversed that trend and gained... counts... 79 councillors. In 2019, Labour again went backwards. And then they fell back yet again in 2021.
It was 2022 before Labour posted a decent local election performance. (SKS fans please explain.)
The LibDems did better, but from an incredibly low base, roughly doubling their councillors between 2017 and 2022.
FWIW, Omnisis have Lab 37%, Con 26%, LD 17% in the locals.
Which would be a 7.5% from Conservative to Labour from the 2019 elections.
The parties were level in 2019.
That would be Labour +9%, Con -2%, LD -2%. I make it a 5.5% swing.
I'd be surprised if Labour did that well.
No, Omnisis was asking specifically about local election voting.
In 2019, the Conservatives polled 31.5% of actual votes cast, Labour 26.5%, LDs 16.8%, Green 9.2%, UKIP 4.5% and Independents/Residents/Others 11.5%. The Conservatives are down roughly 5%, Labour up roughly 10% and the LDs and Greens about the same so that's where the 7.5% swing comes from.
Don't confuse projected national vote shares with actual votes cast.
All this discussion of Winchester cathedral and no mention of William Walker, the diver who single handedly conserved it, working underground and underwater for FIVE years?
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276 Lab 10,929 Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
Whisper it but Conservatives are actually pretty good at local administration and delivering value for money?
I'd argue that in many cases the quality of the councillors is better than the parliamentarians.
We're going to get Zadok the Priest belted out at full volume next weekend as the King marches down the aisle.
I challenge anyone not to be moved by that.
It's going to be incredible.
Drive by the Cars when they leave?
Lol. Not British enough.
Although, it would be amusing. I'd actually probably prefer Heartbeat City for the procession, although they'd have to substitute "Jackie" for "Charlie".
Currently considering voting Labour in the locals but perhaps leaning Tory for the GE now. My local councillor is doing a decent job and the Tory led Notts council has a massive county element to the council tax whereas the district element is ok. Nationally though I think Sunak and Hunt might be the best pair of hands going forward but I'm not completely ruling out Starmer. I might even read the manifestoes..
FWIW, Omnisis have Lab 37%, Con 26%, LD 17% in the locals.
Which would be a 7.5% from Conservative to Labour from the 2019 elections.
The parties were level in 2019.
That would be Labour +9%, Con -2%, LD -2%. I make it a 5.5% swing.
I'd be surprised if Labour did that well.
No, Omnisis was asking specifically about local election voting.
In 2019, the Conservatives polled 31.5% of actual votes cast, Labour 26.5%, LDs 16.8%, Green 9.2%, UKIP 4.5% and Independents/Residents/Others 11.5%. The Conservatives are down roughly 5%, Labour up roughly 10% and the LDs and Greens about the same so that's where the 7.5% swing comes from.
Don't confuse projected national vote shares with actual votes cast.
Speaking of failed economic policies, if a Government policy had already spaffed £4bn this year and was set to cost £210bn over the next decade, shouldn't it get some discussion?
'Threadneedle Street said transfers between the Treasury and the Bank to cover losses realised on its stockpile of asset purchases will amount to around £30bn annually over the next three years alone.'
Is this not meant to be a parsimonious Government intent on rebuilding the nation's finances?
"George Buckley, chief UK economist at Nomura, said the Chancellor's message reflected a desire to keep "market disruption to a minimum" as well as "caution over the implication of selling bonds too quickly".
"If they go too fast and cause an increase in yields, it would not only reduce the value of the bond portfolio, but it would mean higher borrowing rates for the Government," he said.
The Bank also started actively offloading around £80bn of its near-£900bn stockpile back to the private sector late last year, which will also likely lead to losses for the taxpayer."
In other words, because the Government has agreed that the taxpayer will fund the BOE's losses, the BOE can effectively control the Government - vastly increasing the cost of its borrowing, by putting up interest rates, and selling off bonds. And all Jeremy Hunt can do apparently is write a concerned letter to the Chairman. We have made the Bank independent of the Government, but made the Government dependent on the Bank.
That last remark is particularly ignorant in that the Government has been dependent on the Bank for about 300 years. That is the nature of a central bank.
Dependent on its functions - not beholden to its authority.
Everyone is going to be like, why is Charlez playing the Champions League theme? And then they will realise that he's a huge Toon fan when he whips off his robe to reveal the famous black and white stripes Saudi green.
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276 Lab 10,929 Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
Whisper it but Conservatives are actually pretty good at local administration and delivering value for money?
I'd argue that in many cases the quality of the councillors is better than the parliamentarians.
Several councils in Surrey and Northamptonshire say hello.
Couldn't give a toss about the Coronation if I am honest. I won't be tuning in
Then you’re BONKERS
@Casino_Royale is right. This is the kind of medieval-modern spectacle that ONLY Britain can do and it ONLY happens once every few decades. Seven decades in this case. This may be the only coronation many people will ever witness
If you are interested in almost anything: history, sociology, politics, church music, anthropology, Britain, England, London, modernity, antiquity, medieval anointing procedurals, religion, diamonds, nobility, mad eco sensitive kings, family gossip, Europe, the Anglosphere, the commonwealh, military processions, gold, horses and how much Harry is really balding, you need to watch it
Couldn't give a toss about the Coronation if I am honest. I won't be tuning in
Then you’re BONKERS
@Casino_Royale is right. This is the kind of medieval-modern spectacle that ONLY Britain can do and it ONLY happens once every few decades. Seven decades in this case. This may be the only coronation many people will ever witness
If you are interested in almost anything: history, sociology, politics, church music, anthropology, Britain, England, London, modernity, antiquity, medieval anointing procedurals, religion, diamonds, nobility, mad eco sensitive kings, family gossip, Europe, the Anglosphere, the commonwealh, military processions, gold, horses and how much Harry is really balding, you need to watch it
I doubt he's a true Conservative who's "defected" to Labour with regret.
None I know would talk like that about this country's history and heritage.
I don’t know how anyone with a functioning brain can NOT be interested in the Coronation. It’s a spectacularly unique event - and that’s true even if you absolutely DESPISE the monarchy. Even more so, in fact
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276 Lab 10,929 Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
Whisper it but Conservatives are actually pretty good at local administration and delivering value for money?
I'd argue that in many cases the quality of the councillors is better than the parliamentarians.
Several councils in Surrey and Northamptonshire say hello.
Thurrock's £600 million bail out of £1.5 billion debt.
Couldn't give a toss about the Coronation if I am honest. I won't be tuning in
Then you’re BONKERS
@Casino_Royale is right. This is the kind of medieval-modern spectacle that ONLY Britain can do and it ONLY happens once every few decades. Seven decades in this case. This may be the only coronation many people will ever witness
If you are interested in almost anything: history, sociology, politics, church music, anthropology, Britain, England, London, modernity, antiquity, medieval anointing procedurals, religion, diamonds, nobility, mad eco sensitive kings, family gossip, Europe, the Anglosphere, the commonwealh, military processions, gold, horses and how much Harry is really balding, you need to watch it
Yes. Quite. Hence why Tesco are using it to advertise their Clubcard deals.
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276 Lab 10,929 Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
Whisper it but Conservatives are actually pretty good at local administration and delivering value for money?
I'd argue that in many cases the quality of the councillors is better than the parliamentarians.
Pretty meaningless number, though. The councillors to voters ratio is very different in different places. Birmingham has one councillor per 7000 voters, Huntingdonshire has one per 3000, Fenland is about one per 1700.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
Rather poor of the public too if that's the case! Which, yes, it might be. But what I'd say is I'm in 2 minds not denial. I'm both confident and extremely anxious. The natural state for a Labour supporter 14 or so pts up with a GE 18 months away. If I probe this dichotomy a little I think it's a head heart thing. The dusty analytical side of me tells me don't worry the Cons simply cannot get the electorate to give them another term given their lousy record. Then my intuition kicks in and goes, "oh really? who are you kidding?" The latter is unwelcome but I can't deny it. It’s certainly enough to prevent me betting on a Labour majority atm even though the price has drifted above evens.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
Legionaries supposedly drank a litre of wine (or what passed for it) a day, so yep, Roman army. Coffee not so much, though.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Aka, he’s being mean to Liz.
His point is nakedly political - he wants Labour to go big on Liz Truss (as if that's remotely relevant to anyone struggling with their electricity bill) because it would support the general effort to suppress her 'failed' (sic) economic policies.
There’s something in both your points of view. But his point, that the Tories managed to pull off ditching yet another PM, this time round for what was inarguably perceived as incompetence, surprisingly well in the circumstances.
And as you say, stuff is still shit for a lot of voters.
Just to be clear, yes, of course, my position is political. I wanted Labour to go big on Liz Truss because, frankly, I thought it was an open goal for tying the dreadful economic situation to the Tories general, profound and extreme incompetence. This is because I'd love to see the Tories buried under another election landslide defeat.
As to what I think would be a better economic way forward, and whether i'm part of some grander conspiracy against Truss' specific economic policies, this reaction of Lg1983 says a lot more about his obsession than about my economic opinions. I'm certainly no fan of the economic orthodoxy.
I agree with you for what it's worth. No real interest in the Coronation, and Leon wanking himself off over it hardly makes it more appealing.
I will readily admit that my wanking - however famous it may be in prime ministerial circles - is not everyone’s main interest here. What I don’t understand is how people apparently deeply interested in politics are NOT interested in the Coronation?
Among other things, it is a hugely political event in the life of the nation - and other nations under the crown
I don’t know how anyone with a functioning brain can NOT be interested in the Coronation. It’s a spectacularly unique event - and that’s true even if you absolutely DESPISE the monarchy. Even more so, in fact
Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't float mine or it would seem several others on here.
Now QE2's Coronation might have been somewhat different. That was then, this is now, and KC3 is no QE2.
I agree with you for what it's worth. No real interest in the Coronation, and Leon wanking himself off over it hardly makes it more appealing.
Despite my republican beliefs I watched a lot of the late Queens funeral. The coronation? Not bothered, other than for the pageantry.Will hopefully be playing cricket…
I agree with you for what it's worth. No real interest in the Coronation, and Leon wanking himself off over it hardly makes it more appealing.
I will readily admit that my wanking - however famous it may be in prime ministerial circles - is not everyone’s main interest here. What I don’t understand is how people apparently deeply interested in politics are NOT interested in the Coronation?
Among other things, it is a hugely political event in the life of the nation - and other nations under the crown
Because the main interest of people here is political geekery and numerical analysis?
I mean, it does attract a certain type, and to some extent that's consistent across party lines.
FWIW, Omnisis have Lab 37%, Con 26%, LD 17% in the locals.
Which would be a 7.5% from Conservative to Labour from the 2019 elections.
The parties were level in 2019.
That would be Labour +9%, Con -2%, LD -2%. I make it a 5.5% swing.
I'd be surprised if Labour did that well.
No, Omnisis was asking specifically about local election voting.
In 2019, the Conservatives polled 31.5% of actual votes cast, Labour 26.5%, LDs 16.8%, Green 9.2%, UKIP 4.5% and Independents/Residents/Others 11.5%. The Conservatives are down roughly 5%, Labour up roughly 10% and the LDs and Greens about the same so that's where the 7.5% swing comes from.
Don't confuse projected national vote shares with actual votes cast.
Compare like with like, and the story is pretty consistent.
National vote intentions (take YouGov to make life simple)
Late April '19: C29 L29 LD13 Late April '23: C27 L41 LD11
So Labour up about ten, Conservatives and Lib Dems both down a bit.
I bet most of the people on here blithely saying “ah, I can’t be bothered watching the coronation” will actually end up watching it
I know this, because I’m one of them. Until a week ago I didn’t give a toss. The queens funeral was big. This seems so much less important
But as it gets nearer I’ve suddenly realised how unique it is. And it’s ours. And it’s just so…. OLD. It is intrinsically fascinating on multiple levels, it’s a spectacularly complex religio-political ceremony that dates back over 1000 years and is very very rarely seen and has only been televised ONCE
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
Stick with the low hanging fruit line, I think it’s true. The main take out from polling is Conservatives not going anywhere considering they were just about 4 points behind this time last year. Not only have they not quickly got back there with Sunak, but by my reckoning the majority of polling this week has Tory’s going BACKWARDS - that does suggest low hanging fruit gone now and they are struggling to go further. The Lib Dem rise has knocked a few off Labour showing closer leads, but as a fools gold, the smarter PB posters have pointed out, as Lab and Lib shuffled those points LLG has barely changed. And everything in the mood and locals forecasting pointing to the heaving 60% LLG itching to use itself to maximum anti Tory affect.
LLG, yes that's our Dems vs the GOP of the Cons + RUK. Clearly ahead atm. Country looks to have its head screwed on for once but the vagaries of FPTP and the public's longstanding susceptibility to the Con con still has my nerves on edge. We're going to need some efficient tactical voting to make sure, I think. To drive the stake through the heart.
I didn't watch any of the Queen's funeral either. I am totally ambivalent towards the Royal Family and really don't give a toss about them. If other people want to, more power to them. But I don't care.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Aka, he’s being mean to Liz.
His point is nakedly political - he wants Labour to go big on Liz Truss (as if that's remotely relevant to anyone struggling with their electricity bill) because it would support the general effort to suppress her 'failed' (sic) economic policies.
There’s something in both your points of view. But his point, that the Tories managed to pull off ditching yet another PM, this time round for what was inarguably perceived as incompetence, surprisingly well in the circumstances.
And as you say, stuff is still shit for a lot of voters.
Just to be clear, yes, of course, my position is political. I wanted Labour to go big on Liz Truss because, frankly, I thought it was an open goal for tying the dreadful economic situation to the Tories general, profound and extreme incompetence. This is because I'd love to see the Tories buried under another election landslide defeat.
As to what I think would be a better economic way forward, and whether i'm part of some grander conspiracy against Truss' specific economic policies, this reaction of Lg1983 says a lot more about his obsession than about my economic opinions. I'm certainly no fan of the economic orthodoxy.
I am not sure that 2 remarks about your economic commentary are what I'd class as an obsession. If I read something as daft, I'll say it.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
Legionaries supposedly drank a litre of wine (or what passed for it) a day, so yep, Roman army. Coffee not so much, though.
They drank what the Bible used to call "vinegar", which was sour white wine, diluted with water. It was refreshing in hot weather.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
Legionaries supposedly drank a litre of wine (or what passed for it) a day, so yep, Roman army. Coffee not so much, though.
They drank what the Bible used to call "vinegar", which was sour white wine, diluted with water. It was refreshing in hot weather.
It sounds like it may have been more hydrating than water alone.
I didn't watch any of the Queen's funeral either. I am totally ambivalent towards the Royal Family and really don't give a toss about them. If other people want to, more power to them. But I don't care.
Fair enough, of course
But that’s arguably a shame. You live in a country with one of the oldest monarchies on earth, and certainly the most storied and legendary. It’s entertaining for history geeks and celeb gossipers alike. You’re missing out on part of the fun of being British. We have a mad, colourful, ancient monarchy
I bet most of the people on here blithely saying “ah, I can’t be bothered watching the coronation” will actually end up watching it
I know this, because I’m one of them. Until a week ago I didn’t give a toss. The queens funeral was big. This seems so much less important
But as it gets nearer I’ve suddenly realised how unique it is. And it’s ours. And it’s just so…. OLD. It is intrinsically fascinating on multiple levels, it’s a spectacularly complex religio-political ceremony that dates back over 1000 years and is very very rarely seen and has only been televised ONCE
“There are bits of lemon peel floating down the Thames that would make better monarchs than Charles!"
I agree with you for what it's worth. No real interest in the Coronation, and Leon wanking himself off over it hardly makes it more appealing.
I will readily admit that my wanking - however famous it may be in prime ministerial circles - is not everyone’s main interest here. What I don’t understand is how people apparently deeply interested in politics are NOT interested in the Coronation?
Among other things, it is a hugely political event in the life of the nation - and other nations under the crown
Because the main interest of people here is political geekery and numerical analysis?
I mean, it does attract a certain type, and to some extent that's consistent across party lines.
What are the betting opportunities for the Coronation?
I bet most of the people on here blithely saying “ah, I can’t be bothered watching the coronation” will actually end up watching it
I know this, because I’m one of them. Until a week ago I didn’t give a toss. The queens funeral was big. This seems so much less important
But as it gets nearer I’ve suddenly realised how unique it is. And it’s ours. And it’s just so…. OLD. It is intrinsically fascinating on multiple levels, it’s a spectacularly complex religio-political ceremony that dates back over 1000 years and is very very rarely seen and has only been televised ONCE
This is why I expect the viewing figures to be a lot higher than some of the numbers being suggested earlier. There's going to be a hard to resist curiosity about the event that will get a lot of people ambivalent about the institution tuning in, and plenty of diehard republicans will also end up hate-watching to scoff at the absurdity of it all.
I'd love to think I'd be too busy to pay it any attention, but truth be told it's quite possible that I'll have a quiet moment at some point in the morning, and might end up having a peek. I did end up watching people file past QEII's coffin on the internet livestream after all, and it's not as though I'm so busy that I don't have time to spare to spend on here.
Itsa poll....... tomorrow a poll will say something else..... People misremember who they voted for. Dubious stats imho.
Generally the more people say a poll is dubious is in direct proportion to them not liking the numbers
It's bollocks though.
How do you think Sunak has climbed from 23-24% to 30-31% over the last 4 months? Black magic?
He has plucked the low hanging fruit. The hard part is still to come. He has to convert lots of the remaining DKs AND keep the populist Right voters onboard.
There was no guarantee that he would have made as much progress as he did. I remember the gleeful comments about his lack of a honeymoon bounce.
Maybe he will make further inroads into Labour's lead, maybe he won't, but he's shown an ability to change the political weather while Starmer still seems to be failing to seal the deal with wavering voters.
Given how severely most people's living standards have been affected by inflation it's kinda miraculous that Sunak has made any progress at all. As a lefty I'm seriously worried.
Well by low hanging fruit I mean Con inclined voters utterly horrified by the Truss debacle. He didn't need to do much to get them back. I reckon half that peak Labour lead was soft and what we basically have now is the half that isn't. This 10 pts or so will really take some shifting. Credit to Sunak for bringing the Cons back into contention but I'll be unpleasantly surprised if the Labour lead doesn't solidify at a level that's more than enough to win the GE. So I'm not worried. Except of course I am. I'm shitting bricks because I've grown used to Tories winning elections. Those 20 pt leads were much more to my taste.
This might sound a bit harsh, but I think you're in denial.
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
For someone meant to understand and comment on these issues (was that you?); you're doing a very good impression of someone with a very poor economic knowledge.
Aka, he’s being mean to Liz.
His point is nakedly political - he wants Labour to go big on Liz Truss (as if that's remotely relevant to anyone struggling with their electricity bill) because it would support the general effort to suppress her 'failed' (sic) economic policies.
There’s something in both your points of view. But his point, that the Tories managed to pull off ditching yet another PM, this time round for what was inarguably perceived as incompetence, surprisingly well in the circumstances.
And as you say, stuff is still shit for a lot of voters.
Just to be clear, yes, of course, my position is political. I wanted Labour to go big on Liz Truss because, frankly, I thought it was an open goal for tying the dreadful economic situation to the Tories general, profound and extreme incompetence. This is because I'd love to see the Tories buried under another election landslide defeat.
As to what I think would be a better economic way forward, and whether i'm part of some grander conspiracy against Truss' specific economic policies, this reaction of Lg1983 says a lot more about his obsession than about my economic opinions. I'm certainly no fan of the economic orthodoxy.
I am not sure that 2 remarks about your economic commentary are what I'd class as an obsession. If I read something as daft, I'll say it.
Your obsession is over any criticism of Liz Truss, from whatever source, not me personally.
My last six days’ walk, and the view after 145 miles
30+ miles on Monday is properly impressive
I used to be an indefatigable walker, and still enjoy the occasional 10-15 miler
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Would have done OK in Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, too.
Pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela are recommended to do 12-20 miles a day. More than that and you start to risk injury. So @BlancheLivermore doing 20-30 miles OR MORE is, as you say, military grade yomping
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
I've done what he's done before on the South West Coast Path.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
Sure. I’ve done the SW path for a week. Very enjoyable
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
Astonishingly, no blisters yet
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
Legionaries supposedly drank a litre of wine (or what passed for it) a day, so yep, Roman army. Coffee not so much, though.
They drank what the Bible used to call "vinegar", which was sour white wine, diluted with water. It was refreshing in hot weather.
It sounds like it may have been more hydrating than water alone.
Drinking water on its own was potentially dangerous, in any case. As a species, we're not very well adapted to drinking water from sources we aren't used to, hence all the efforts that have always been paid to purify it with alcohol, boil it, make it into tea, coffee, etc.
Comments
On the broader point, no. Truss aside the Tories still live in the world of real-world economics, not fantasy ones, and I'd be thousands of pounds more worse off a year under Labour.
But 20-30 miles EVERY DAY is seriously impressive
Of course peak Truss debacle was never going to last. Even CR at the time said he couldn't vote Tory and was considering voting Labour. That fell out of the figures very quickly. But then the situation was pretty stable, until about a couple of months ago, since which the :Labour share has declined by at least 4 pts, and the Conservative share has increased by about three points. That's happened at a time of continued strikes - particularly in the NHS - and persistent high inflation.
When the pound crashed out of the ERM, Labour were able to pin that onto the Tories for a generation*. When the banking system came to the edge of the precipice, the Tories were able to pin that onto Labour for a generation. We had the debacle of Liz Truss, in the middle of an inflation crisis and an unprecedented decline in living standards, deciding it was a good time to try and buck the markets and drive the country towards bankruptcy, and it seems as though Labour have failed to pin that onto the Tories.
Labour's task as an opposition party was to make the link between the Tories and the Liz Truss debacle so strong that the voters wouldn't be able to see the word "Conservative", or the colour blue, without thinking of Liz Truss and how she created a massive economic crisis just for the lolz. Instead, barely six months after she was humiliatingly ousted from office, she's fast becoming the answer to a series of obscure quiz questions.
It's really poor.
* Other lengths of a generation exist. This is not a binding definition.
That red to middle - that reminded me of some of the pots of Alex Higgins in his heyday.
He's stolen the Stone of Scone back from the Scots, and brought it back to its rightful home.
Last time a Conservative PM was a cuck who surrendered it meekly to the North Britons, it was a sign of weakness and an impending landslide defeat.
The mortuary chests contain the bones of some of the very earliest Kings of Wessex and England, dating back to the 610s - which is barely 200 years after the Romans left.
England is truly an ancient country, steeped in history, heritage, tradition, and lore. You can almost feel it when you're there.
It is very humbling.
Since 1997 the broad scope of public cynicism has grown from moderate to overwhelming. Blair received genuine adulation from idealistic centrists, mostly but not all young. In our own day we have seen adulation for: Jezza, Truss!!, Boris, Farage, Trump, and Russell Brand - ie useless, deeply flawed unstatesmen. (Zelensky is different only because he is fighting for survival in a 'right v wrong battle).
September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, banks, EU, Brexit, plutocracy, corruption, China, Ukraine and the effects of social media have changed the world.
What is there to be idealistic about as compared with 1997? And this is why SKS (who deserves to win) might not in 2024; Blairite idealism is not an available commodity in electable quantities.
But I’m genuinely intrigued - do you think it’s justified to use that word about striking teachers?
That’s not a loaded question and I recognise people will have strong views about strikes. I’m quite interested in yours.
I hope our postie doesn’t come a cropper
https://www.hampshire-history.com/shrine-of-st-swithun/#:~:text=Swithun is probably one of,graveyard of the Old Minster.
I said I might stay at home or spoil my ballot with a huge cock and balls.
Labour's two leaflets were riddled with careless spelling mistakes.
The independent would make Oswald Mosley look like a moderate.
I'm pondering how best to spoil my ballot paper.
Or, just to turn up without ID and be bundled out.
If you're on your own, and you're not sleeping or eating, what else is there to do but walk, see the world, and complete your task?
That's how you clock up the big daily mile counts. Because you end up strolling from dawn to dusk.
I know I am, and yet I also know that's rather unlikely.
Better on a phone.
I challenge anyone not to be moved by that.
It's going to be incredible.
My own view is that the Conservatives' result will be very similar to the 28% achieved in 2019, and Labour about 10% better than that.
The Conservatives' overall headline result will be flattered by regaining a lot of seats lost to rural independents (who gained 700 seats in 2019) even as they lose seats in battlegrounds to Labour.
https://youtu.be/pJ_cNK77lPY
I hope they can re-group in opposition and I can one day vote for them again.
I’m just saying that 30m+ in a day is a remarkable pace. He must be very fit. That’s some serious walking that would leave most people blistered and sprained
My own view is that the Conservatives' result will be very similar to the 28% achieved in 2019, and Labour about 10% better than that. Just do the usual cock and balls.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/28/ftse-100-markets-live-news-first-republic-us-treasury/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
Full of gems this article.
'Threadneedle Street said transfers between the Treasury and the Bank to cover losses realised on its stockpile of asset purchases will amount to around £30bn annually over the next three years alone.'
Is this not meant to be a parsimonious Government intent on rebuilding the nation's finances?
"George Buckley, chief UK economist at Nomura, said the Chancellor's message reflected a desire to keep "market disruption to a minimum" as well as "caution over the implication of selling bonds too quickly".
"If they go too fast and cause an increase in yields, it would not only reduce the value of the bond portfolio, but it would mean higher borrowing rates for the Government," he said.
The Bank also started actively offloading around £80bn of its near-£900bn stockpile back to the private sector late last year, which will also likely lead to losses for the taxpayer."
In other words, because the Government has agreed that the taxpayer will fund the BOE's losses, the BOE can effectively control the Government - vastly increasing the cost of its borrowing, by putting up interest rates, and selling off bonds. And all Jeremy Hunt can do apparently is write a concerned letter to the Chairman. We have made the Bank independent of the Government, but made the Government dependent on the Bank.
Con 6777
Lab 5849
Lib 2554
One year before the 1997 election, after 1996 locals:
Con 4,276
Lab 10,929
Lib 5,078
How have the conservatives managed to hold on to so many local seats over 13 years of government? And if Starmer wins the general, how many more will they win from opposition?
2023 might be the year that Labour finally has more councillors than the Conservatives, after 13 years...
I’ve also, rather recklessly, managed this drinking only booze
The only nonalcoholic drinks I’ve had have been coffees with breakfast
They also knew how to motivate people. All the signs kept saying, 'Beer, X miles.'
But his point, that the Tories managed to pull off ditching yet another PM, this time round for what was inarguably perceived as incompetence, surprisingly well in the circumstances.
And as you say, stuff is still shit for a lot of voters.
Under Corbyn Labour went backwards. In 2017, they lost 382 councillors. In 2018, they reversed that trend and gained... counts... 79 councillors. In 2019, Labour again went backwards. And then they fell back yet again in 2021.
It was 2022 before Labour posted a decent local election performance. (SKS fans please explain.)
The LibDems did better, but from an incredibly low base, roughly doubling their councillors between 2017 and 2022.
In 2019, the Conservatives polled 31.5% of actual votes cast, Labour 26.5%, LDs 16.8%, Green 9.2%, UKIP 4.5% and Independents/Residents/Others 11.5%. The Conservatives are down roughly 5%, Labour up roughly 10% and the LDs and Greens about the same so that's where the 7.5% swing comes from.
Don't confuse projected national vote shares with actual votes cast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(diver)?wprov=sfla1
I'd argue that in many cases the quality of the councillors is better than the parliamentarians.
Although, it would be amusing. I'd actually probably prefer Heartbeat City for the procession, although they'd have to substitute "Jackie" for "Charlie".
Nationally though I think Sunak and Hunt might be the best pair of hands going forward but I'm not completely ruling out Starmer. I might even read the manifestoes..
black and white stripesSaudi green.@Casino_Royale is right. This is the kind of medieval-modern spectacle that ONLY Britain can do and it ONLY happens once every few decades. Seven decades in this case. This may be the only coronation many people will ever witness
If you are interested in almost anything: history, sociology, politics, church music, anthropology, Britain, England, London, modernity, antiquity, medieval anointing procedurals, religion, diamonds, nobility, mad eco sensitive kings, family gossip, Europe, the Anglosphere, the commonwealh, military processions, gold, horses and how much Harry is really balding, you need to watch it
None I know would talk like that about this country's history and heritage.
But both are much more opaque and much more boring
Elements of the Coronation will go right back to the anointing of the Anglo Saxon kings in the Dark ages. How can anyone not be fascinated by that?
Sunak remains unpopular.
Just watch it by yourself.
Coffee not so much, though.
As to what I think would be a better economic way forward, and whether i'm part of some grander conspiracy against Truss' specific economic policies, this reaction of Lg1983 says a lot more about his obsession than about my economic opinions. I'm certainly no fan of the economic orthodoxy.
Among other things, it is a hugely political event in the life of the nation - and other nations under the crown
Now QE2's Coronation might have been somewhat different. That was then, this is now, and KC3 is no QE2.
I mean, it does attract a certain type, and to some extent that's consistent across party lines.
National vote intentions (take YouGov to make life simple)
Late April '19: C29 L29 LD13
Late April '23: C27 L41 LD11
So Labour up about ten, Conservatives and Lib Dems both down a bit.
I know this, because I’m one of them. Until a week ago I didn’t give a toss. The queens funeral was big. This seems so much less important
But as it gets nearer I’ve suddenly realised how unique it is. And it’s ours. And it’s just so…. OLD. It is intrinsically fascinating on multiple levels, it’s a spectacularly complex religio-political ceremony that dates back over 1000 years and is very very rarely seen and has only been televised ONCE
Crisis not over yet?
But that’s arguably a shame. You live in a country with one of the oldest monarchies on earth, and certainly the most storied and legendary. It’s entertaining for history geeks and celeb gossipers alike. You’re missing out on part of the fun of being British. We have a mad, colourful, ancient monarchy
I'd love to think I'd be too busy to pay it any attention, but truth be told it's quite possible that I'll have a quiet moment at some point in the morning, and might end up having a peek. I did end up watching people file past QEII's coffin on the internet livestream after all, and it's not as though I'm so busy that I don't have time to spare to spend on here.
In truth, I think it most unlikely that the Conservative projected vote share will be lower than the 28% they got in 2019.