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Sunak’s Election Schedule: When will he fight for his job? – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited May 2023 in General
imageSunak’s Election Schedule: When will he fight for his job? – politicalbetting.com

The people have spoken, at least those who vote at local elections. And the basic message is clear: ‘Tories out’. With rare exceptions, the Tories got battered up and down England, and while Labour aren’t at the heights they hit in the mid-90s the Tories are at the same depths. Two questions arise. When will we get an election? And will Rishi Sunak fight it?

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Comments

  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    I feel a Jun/Jul 24 feels most likely, a lot rests on the economy and perhaps Tory MPs who feel bringing it on will at least clear the air, it is not like the govt has a clear agenda.
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 583
    When will the boundary changes come in??
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,284
    edited May 2023
    Penddu2 said:

    When will the boundary changes come in??

    I think it's around July this year, assuming it's approved by parliament.

    https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/2023-review/
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    October 2024
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    This is a very persuasive article.
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 583
    On another subject - did anyone see that Adam Price is to stand down as leader of Plaid Cymru asap ??

    There seems to be two main contenders:
    - Rhun Ap Iorwerth - MS for Ynys Mon - very strong media presence (ex BBC presenter) - strong support among traditionalist wing
    - Delyth Jewell - regional MS for South Wales East - she is a rising star with strong support among Indy supporters

    Rhun should start as favourite but he has said that he wants to stand down as MS and become a MP in UK parliament instead (presumably to work on his media presence) - in which case he can not stand for Leader (who has to be in Senedd).

    A public leadership contest would give Plaid some free publicity - but I suspect this will be agreed behind closed doors to avoid any negative bickering.

    My money will be on Delyth.

  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153
    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,097
    edited May 2023
    Thanks Quincel. Good to see @TSE's arguments against January '25 given extra impetus here.

    2025 is out. So is this year.

    So when in 2024?

    The 'reeking of fear' point is an important one. It's possible to lose the campaign before it has even begun. John Major in 1997 not only delayed until the last minute, he also ensured the longest campaign in memory. It smacked of desperation and the newspapers smelled the fear from the outset.

    Labour will win the election because the anti-tory vote is extremely strong. In the actual vote (locals) and opinion polls Lib-Lab are polling 55%. The Conservatives are in the 20's.

    What has changed since 1997 is that people like me are much more savvy about tactical voting and we're also a lot more angry with the Conservatives. We will do anything to boot them out. I voted for 3 LibDems last week and we turned the council yellow. At the GE I will vote Labour in a Lab-Con marginal.

    And remember, Omnisis who last polled the Labour lead at 21% also correctly called the local election NEV lead at 9%.

    It's over for the tories. It's a question of when, not if.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,097
    edited May 2023
    IanB2 said:

    October 2024

    I think so too. Before the 27th when the clocks go back.

    The reason it will probably be before the clocks go back is not taking us back to a bygone era, it's because a lot of people get pretty depressed about the shortening days and darker afternoons. It's psychological. Dec 2019 was a one-off re. 'Get Brexit Done'.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,097

    I feel a Jun/Jul 24 feels most likely, a lot rests on the economy and perhaps Tory MPs who feel bringing it on will at least clear the air, it is not like the govt has a clear agenda.

    The newspapers and msm, who love elections, will play a part here because at the turn of the year they will be asking the question in earnest.

    Sunak, assuming it's him, won't want to look frit. So I don't rule out summer '24 either.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Penddu2 said:

    On another subject - did anyone see that Adam Price is to stand down as leader of Plaid Cymru asap ??

    There seems to be two main contenders:
    - Rhun Ap Iorwerth - MS for Ynys Mon - very strong media presence (ex BBC presenter) - strong support among traditionalist wing
    - Delyth Jewell - regional MS for South Wales East - she is a rising star with strong support among Indy supporters

    Rhun should start as favourite but he has said that he wants to stand down as MS and become a MP in UK parliament instead (presumably to work on his media presence) - in which case he can not stand for Leader (who has to be in Senedd).

    A public leadership contest would give Plaid some free publicity - but I suspect this will be agreed behind closed doors to avoid any negative bickering.

    My money will be on Delyth.

    He can stand for the leadership, he just couldn’t hold it for very long if he did go down the Westminster route.

    If he does stand, I think he will win very easily. A short term appointment by a capable media performer with a functioning brain and a moderate platform would be a refreshing change for the party and might just allow it to exploit Tory weaknesses in West Wales, which is what they need right now if they’re not to be reduced to a rump of two seats.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    IanB2 said:

    The tricky bet is ‘year Sunak is replaced as Tory leader’. Which could be 2025 even with a certain 2024 GE.

    That would be my reservation too. Plus if Starmer wins with a minority government and a not particularly stable looking coalition so that a second election looks likely it is entirely possible that Sunak stays on, particularly if he continues to poll better than his party. The Tories are not exactly overloaded with talent either.

    I think that the current odds reflect these uncertainties and that this is not as clear example of mispricing as @Quincel suggests.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    On topic, excellent article.

    Nice to have something on the betting for once.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    Heathener said:

    Thanks Quincel. Good to see @TSE's arguments against January '25 given extra impetus here.

    2025 is out. So is this year.

    So when in 2024?

    The 'reeking of fear' point is an important one. It's possible to lose the campaign before it has even begun. John Major in 1997 not only delayed until the last minute, he also ensured the longest campaign in memory. It smacked of desperation and the newspapers smelled the fear from the outset.

    Labour will win the election because the anti-tory vote is extremely strong. In the actual vote (locals) and opinion polls Lib-Lab are polling 55%. The Conservatives are in the 20's.

    What has changed since 1997 is that people like me are much more savvy about tactical voting and we're also a lot more angry with the Conservatives. We will do anything to boot them out. I voted for 3 LibDems last week and we turned the council yellow. At the GE I will vote Labour in a Lab-Con marginal.

    And remember, Omnisis who last polled the Labour lead at 21% also correctly called the local election NEV lead at 9%.

    It's over for the tories. It's a question of when, not if.

    I'd argue that Tactical voting was a big factor in 1997 - places like Isle of Wight went Yellow, also Portillo was dumped in Enfield etc much of this due to tactical voting, from the Lib Dem perspective it was great for unseating Tories but perhaps gave Labour too big a majority.
    St Ives in Cornwall stayed blue 2015-19 precisely because there was no tactical voting - Labour voters left A George high and dry
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/08/tactical-voting-helped-rescue-britain-in-1997-we-can-do-it-again
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 583
    edited May 2023
    Will Plaid act like grownups? If they do they should annoint Rhun as Leader with Delyth as Deputy. That would shore up the heartlands vote and should ensure they maximise their MPs in 2024 (?). Then when Rhun stands down to move to Westminster the Leadership passes automatically to Delyth who should strengthen their vote in the Valleys for Senedd election in 2026(?). Rhun would still maintain a major leadership role as UK spokesman and would feature heavily in UK broadcasting (Question Time etc).

    But will Plaid act like grownups or will the bickering factions (Leanne) make too much noise....
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I assume this has been focus grouped by both sides (and maybe discussed between them).

    It would be interesting to see polling. Most voters tend to respond that they prefer majority government to coalition (because they’ve been taught by the press that’s the right answer) but I can’t see Lib-Lab being particularly unpopular. It would certainly suit me.

    Thing is I’m torn between the attractions of a Lib-Lab pact and the implication that this would mean a relatively strong Tory showing at the election that they could bounce back from.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Penddu2 said:

    Will Plaid act like grownups? If they do they should annoint Rhun as Leader with Delyth as Deputy. That would shore up the heartlands vote and should ensure they maximise their MPs in 2024 (?). Then when Rhun stands down to move to Westminster the Leadership passes automatically to Delyth who should strengthen their vote in the Valleys for Senedd election in 2026(?). Rhun would still maintain a major leadership role as UK spokesman and would feature heavily in UK broadcasting (Question Time etc).

    But will Plaid act like grownups or will the bickering factions (Leanne) make too much noise....

    QTWTAIN if past form is any guide.

    Incidentally where would Rhun stand if he went for Westminster? Presumably Ynys Môn but it would be a 'brave' move politically even in the current Tory doldrums.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,097

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I'm not so sure. I think you're tainted, as are others, by the fact that it was a Con-LibDem coalition which was always going to be politically tricky. It was really a coalition of the two public schoolboys, not the parties.

    I like the talk of coalitions because I think it helps Labour, who will win a thumping majority.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited May 2023
    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited May 2023

    Heathener said:

    Thanks Quincel. Good to see @TSE's arguments against January '25 given extra impetus here.

    2025 is out. So is this year.

    So when in 2024?

    The 'reeking of fear' point is an important one. It's possible to lose the campaign before it has even begun. John Major in 1997 not only delayed until the last minute, he also ensured the longest campaign in memory. It smacked of desperation and the newspapers smelled the fear from the outset.

    Labour will win the election because the anti-tory vote is extremely strong. In the actual vote (locals) and opinion polls Lib-Lab are polling 55%. The Conservatives are in the 20's.

    What has changed since 1997 is that people like me are much more savvy about tactical voting and we're also a lot more angry with the Conservatives. We will do anything to boot them out. I voted for 3 LibDems last week and we turned the council yellow. At the GE I will vote Labour in a Lab-Con marginal.

    And remember, Omnisis who last polled the Labour lead at 21% also correctly called the local election NEV lead at 9%.

    It's over for the tories. It's a question of when, not if.

    I'd argue that Tactical voting was a big factor in 1997 - places like Isle of Wight went Yellow, also Portillo was dumped in Enfield etc much of this due to tactical voting, from the Lib Dem perspective it was great for unseating Tories but perhaps gave Labour too big a majority.
    St Ives in Cornwall stayed blue 2015-19 precisely because there was no tactical voting - Labour voters left A George high and dry
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/08/tactical-voting-helped-rescue-britain-in-1997-we-can-do-it-again
    I don't think you can put IOW 1997 down to tactical voting, given that the Labour vote nearly doubled, rising by 5,000, whereas the LibDem vote fell back. The LibDems had narrowly missed out in 1992, having held the seat previously, and got back in for a single term because the Tory vote fell more dramatically than theirs.
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 583
    ydoethur said:

    Penddu2 said:

    Will Plaid act like grownups? If they do they should annoint Rhun as Leader with Delyth as Deputy. That would shore up the heartlands vote and should ensure they maximise their MPs in 2024 (?). Then when Rhun stands down to move to Westminster the Leadership passes automatically to Delyth who should strengthen their vote in the Valleys for Senedd election in 2026(?). Rhun would still maintain a major leadership role as UK spokesman and would feature heavily in UK broadcasting (Question Time etc).

    But will Plaid act like grownups or will the bickering factions (Leanne) make too much noise....

    QTWTAIN if past form is any guide.

    Incidentally where would Rhun stand if he went for Westminster? Presumably Ynys Môn but it would be a 'brave' move politically even in the current Tory doldrums.
    He has said he wants to stand in Ynys Môn where he has a strong personal vote - 'brave' but not unrealistic. Recent UK polls show Plaid winning here in any case, but it is close.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    It says more about their not wanting to unneccessarily alienate the other's voters, for reasons that are obvious, than it does about the actual chances of a coalition.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    I’d be amazed if he stayed on. He might even resign his seat after a while - at his age there are all sorts of other things he could do.

    As likely as not it’ll lead to a rightward lurch and the Cons becoming sort of Diet UKIP for a bit. If I could bet on them proposing reintroduction of capital punishment, I would.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,097
    edited May 2023
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Agreed.

    What will happen is that all the boiling rage in the party will burst to the surface. There will be a massive internecine civil war.

    The roots of that go back several years and people like JRM will be in the firing line.

    After the bloodletting, what then? Will the Conservative party split, as it has threatened? Will they continue with their unelectable lurch to the right, as I suspect? Or will they return to one nation toryism, which I hope?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited May 2023

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Penddu2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Penddu2 said:

    Will Plaid act like grownups? If they do they should annoint Rhun as Leader with Delyth as Deputy. That would shore up the heartlands vote and should ensure they maximise their MPs in 2024 (?). Then when Rhun stands down to move to Westminster the Leadership passes automatically to Delyth who should strengthen their vote in the Valleys for Senedd election in 2026(?). Rhun would still maintain a major leadership role as UK spokesman and would feature heavily in UK broadcasting (Question Time etc).

    But will Plaid act like grownups or will the bickering factions (Leanne) make too much noise....

    QTWTAIN if past form is any guide.

    Incidentally where would Rhun stand if he went for Westminster? Presumably Ynys Môn but it would be a 'brave' move politically even in the current Tory doldrums.
    He has said he wants to stand in Ynys Môn where he has a strong personal vote - 'brave' but not unrealistic. Recent UK polls show Plaid winning here in any case, but it is close.
    Couple of things would give me pause, in his shoes:

    1) The rise of English immigration to the island since 2019, looking for cheap housing in a lovely location with decent (well, compared to most of West Wales) transport links;

    2) Ynys Môn last unseated a sitting MP in 1950.

    As against that, he undoubtedly does have a personal vote and one of the English immigrants in question is the MP who by all accounts is a bit of a muppet as well.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I tend to agree, though C&S and an ‘alliance’ or some other such term could be possible, wherein the LDs get a few policies in - rather than actual cabinet membership and running ministries.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    DavidL said:

    IanB2 said:

    The tricky bet is ‘year Sunak is replaced as Tory leader’. Which could be 2025 even with a certain 2024 GE.

    That would be my reservation too. Plus if Starmer wins with a minority government and a not particularly stable looking coalition so that a second election looks likely it is entirely possible that Sunak stays on, particularly if he continues to poll better than his party. The Tories are not exactly overloaded with talent either.

    I think that the current odds reflect these uncertainties and that this is not as clear example of mispricing as @Quincel suggests.
    I’d be really surprised if Sunak stayed on after losing. He’s probably go of his own accord, but even if he didn’t the knives would be out.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Heathener said:

    IanB2 said:

    October 2024

    I think so too. Before the 27th when the clocks go back.

    The reason it will probably be before the clocks go back is not taking us back to a bygone era, it's because a lot of people get pretty depressed about the shortening days and darker afternoons. It's psychological. Dec 2019 was a one-off re. 'Get Brexit Done'.
    Yes, Oct 11th or 18th, 2024.

    No-one wants to campaign in the dark, the clocks going back is a negatively symbolic time for many, and the heating won’t be on yet, so fuel bills not coming in.

    2019 was a one-off, as that Parliament had broken down and was incapable of doing anything.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    Before we get to election timing we need to consider election strategy. Sunak has 5 pledges - supposedly the people's pledges - and they're failing on all of them. Short of a miraculous turnaround in H2 they will have failed on the list of "judge me on these" tasks.

    Which means Sunak will spend the summer (possibly autumn) working on a pivot - how to move away from failed promises onto things that are both deliverable and will fire up what is left of the pro-Golliwog vote.

    What they are, how well they rate with the public, how they actually measure against them - all of these are key to when the election actually comes. Whilst I agree with the "surely it will be before the end of BST 2024" arguments the potential for a wild card / black swan play remains high. Desperate - and lets not forget monumentally stupid - Tory MPs about to be dumped onto the dole may force other options...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    FPT:

    I’ve just been listening to some interesting discussion about Tucker. It appears that Fox has him in handcuffs, such that he can’t work for anyone else until January 2025, are still paying him his salary, and intend to throw a lot of lawyers at keeping him under their contract but with no show. There’s a rumour that the pulling of his show, was a condition of the agreement between Fox and Dominion.

    If he’s not allowed to sign for another media company, or set up his own on Youtube, then just about the only platform he has left is his personal Twitter account. So he approached Musk, and he’s going to be the pilot user for Twitter’s attempts to monetise video on the platform. Musk will likely cover his production costs, and give him the lion’s share of the advertising revenue for the next two years. Apparently there’s no contract in place, because Carlson can’t sign one, just the Twitter terms of service that will apply to everyone who wants to use the new video platform.

    Tucker’s Twitter account has 7m followers. His Tweet from last night now has 63m views in nine hours, and the video 10m views.
    https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1656037032538390530

    Elon’s reply to Tucker has 21m views
    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1656079504778092544
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Heathener said:

    I feel a Jun/Jul 24 feels most likely, a lot rests on the economy and perhaps Tory MPs who feel bringing it on will at least clear the air, it is not like the govt has a clear agenda.

    The newspapers and msm, who love elections, will play a part here because at the turn of the year they will be asking the question in earnest.

    Sunak, assuming it's him, won't want to look frit. So I don't rule out summer '24 either.
    Agreed - on balance I feel October is more likely but it’s 60/40. I guess there’s an outlier chance of this year (which I’d be thrilled by tbh, and even Brenda from Bristol wouldn’t be complaining) but this lot want to limp on as long as possible.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Heath stayed on to fight the second 1974 election in the October when the February election was somewhat indecisive. I can see a repeat of that: where SKS gains, say, 70 seats, enough to put Sunak out of office but not enough to create a solid coalition and it is inevitable that there will be a second election in a fairly short timescale. The Tories would not want to risk that election being called when they were leaderless.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    May 24 has one thing going for it. As Con are defending a high watermark from the 2020 component of the 2021 local elections, the chance of an LE result perceived as good enough to trigger a June election is negligible.

    More likely is a woe is me LE reaction if those elections are standalone and the depressing effect that may have on any GE called later..

    Calling the GE on the day of the locals would avoid that particular bout of fallout. To me, that's the best argument to be made for May.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    ydoethur said:

    Penddu2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Penddu2 said:

    Will Plaid act like grownups? If they do they should annoint Rhun as Leader with Delyth as Deputy. That would shore up the heartlands vote and should ensure they maximise their MPs in 2024 (?). Then when Rhun stands down to move to Westminster the Leadership passes automatically to Delyth who should strengthen their vote in the Valleys for Senedd election in 2026(?). Rhun would still maintain a major leadership role as UK spokesman and would feature heavily in UK broadcasting (Question Time etc).

    But will Plaid act like grownups or will the bickering factions (Leanne) make too much noise....

    QTWTAIN if past form is any guide.

    Incidentally where would Rhun stand if he went for Westminster? Presumably Ynys Môn but it would be a 'brave' move politically even in the current Tory doldrums.
    He has said he wants to stand in Ynys Môn where he has a strong personal vote - 'brave' but not unrealistic. Recent UK polls show Plaid winning here in any case, but it is close.
    Couple of things would give me pause, in his shoes:

    1) The rise of English immigration to the island since 2019, looking for cheap housing in a lovely location with decent (well, compared to most of West Wales) transport links;

    2) Ynys Môn last unseated a sitting MP in 1950.

    As against that, he undoubtedly does have a personal vote and one of the English immigrants in question is the MP who by all accounts is a bit of a muppet as well.
    Do English people not also vote Plaid? Plenty of migrants from Englandshire vote SNP in Scotland (or did, anyway).
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    edited May 2023
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Wilson in 1970?

    But the "kick out the rascals" aspect of political culture is stronger now, so I doubt Sunak would be thanked for wanting to hang around.

    The bigger question is this- if not in government, what are the Conservatives for, exactly?

    ETA: Ah, Tory. My mistake. Not enough coffee yet.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Heath stayed on to fight the second 1974 election in the October when the February election was somewhat indecisive. I can see a repeat of that: where SKS gains, say, 70 seats, enough to put Sunak out of office but not enough to create a solid coalition and it is inevitable that there will be a second election in a fairly short timescale. The Tories would not want to risk that election being called when they were leaderless.
    Heath stayed for two reasons:

    1) There was an expectation of an imminent further election which meant nobody wanted to be caught in the middle of a divisive leadership contest (this incidentally also postponed the removal of Home for a few months in 1964-65);

    2) There was at that time no mechanism for ejecting a leader, and Heath would not resign. In fact, he never did officially resign, instead asking Home to oversee a revision of the rules and then agreeing to hold an election under the new rules. Which he duly lost.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Andy_JS said:

    Penddu2 said:

    When will the boundary changes come in??

    I think it's around July this year, assuming it's approved by parliament.

    https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/2023-review/
    I have genuinely no idea what difference this will make, nor the extent to which it will favour any party. I guess extra seats in London ought to favour Labour a bit? Not huge differences, but fine margins could make the difference between minority and majority government.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Ghedebrav said:

    ydoethur said:

    Penddu2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Penddu2 said:

    Will Plaid act like grownups? If they do they should annoint Rhun as Leader with Delyth as Deputy. That would shore up the heartlands vote and should ensure they maximise their MPs in 2024 (?). Then when Rhun stands down to move to Westminster the Leadership passes automatically to Delyth who should strengthen their vote in the Valleys for Senedd election in 2026(?). Rhun would still maintain a major leadership role as UK spokesman and would feature heavily in UK broadcasting (Question Time etc).

    But will Plaid act like grownups or will the bickering factions (Leanne) make too much noise....

    QTWTAIN if past form is any guide.

    Incidentally where would Rhun stand if he went for Westminster? Presumably Ynys Môn but it would be a 'brave' move politically even in the current Tory doldrums.
    He has said he wants to stand in Ynys Môn where he has a strong personal vote - 'brave' but not unrealistic. Recent UK polls show Plaid winning here in any case, but it is close.
    Couple of things would give me pause, in his shoes:

    1) The rise of English immigration to the island since 2019, looking for cheap housing in a lovely location with decent (well, compared to most of West Wales) transport links;

    2) Ynys Môn last unseated a sitting MP in 1950.

    As against that, he undoubtedly does have a personal vote and one of the English immigrants in question is the MP who by all accounts is a bit of a muppet as well.
    Do English people not also vote Plaid? Plenty of migrants from Englandshire vote SNP in Scotland (or did, anyway).
    My experience - although bear in mind this is based on West Wales - is that Plaid's close identification with Welsh language issues makes that more difficult. English incomers tended to vote for English parties.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Wilson in 1970?

    But the "kick out the rascals" aspect of political culture is stronger now, so I doubt Sunak would be thanked for wanting to hang around.

    The bigger question is this- if not in government, what are the Conservatives for, exactly?
    Always knew Wilson was just a TOR-y.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    I’m inclined to agree that late 2024 is more likely than early 2024, but with one caveat …

    The next locals could also end up looking really bad for the Tories given how well they did, relatively speaking, when the same councils and mayoralities were last fought. If there is some indication of progress by next May, the smart move might be to go for broke on the back of a tax cutting budget before a locals defeat narrative, and further talk of tactical voting, sets in. It would give the troops hope. After all, the later Sunak goes, the stronger the message is, internally as well as externally, that he thinks the Tories will lose.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,284
    edited May 2023
    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    Steady as she goes


  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited May 2023
    Mundo said:

    Long term lurker, very occasional poster:

    On the subject of GE date, I do not rule out August 2024. Whilst this would be remarkably unusual, there are two potentially huge advantages to the Tories.

    1. The left leaning student population of cities such as Bristol will be absent. Indeed the new freshers year would most likely not even be registered in their university town.

    2. Parents of school aged children will possibly be abroad on holiday, whereas more right leaning older / retired voters avoid August holidays due to increased costs.

    Question is whether or not Sunak is a sufficiently unconventional thinker to take this risk.

    Against that, is that the media will crucify the government for ruining *their* holidays.

    October likely still sees most of the students voting in their ‘home’ constituencies, because of the registration timelines.

    Keep posting BTW.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    Steady as she goes


    Steady? Lib Dem surge more like.
    #morelike
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    Sandpit said:

    Mundo said:

    Long term lurker, very occasional poster:

    On the subject of GE date, I do not rule out August 2024. Whilst this would be remarkably unusual, there are two potentially huge advantages to the Tories.

    1. The left leaning student population of cities such as Bristol will be absent. Indeed the new freshers year would most likely not even be registered in their university town.

    2. Parents of school aged children will possibly be abroad on holiday, whereas more right leaning older / retired voters avoid August holidays due to increased costs.

    Question is whether or not Sunak is a sufficiently unconventional thinker to take this risk.

    Against that, is that the media will crucify the government for ruining *their* holidays.

    October likely still sees most of the students voting in their ‘home’ constituencies, because of the registration timelines.

    Keep posting BTW.
    I’m thinking next May:

    - avoids a poor LE result ahead of an election
    - Doesn’t disrupt holidays
    - Demonstrates a lack of desperation
    - 2 months after a big tax giveaway budget
    - economy sufficiently recovered and inflation sufficiently down. Leave too long and more could go wrong
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Sandpit said:

    FPT:

    I’ve just been listening to some interesting discussion about Tucker. It appears that Fox has him in handcuffs, such that he can’t work for anyone else until January 2025, are still paying him his salary, and intend to throw a lot of lawyers at keeping him under their contract but with no show. There’s a rumour that the pulling of his show, was a condition of the agreement between Fox and Dominion.

    If he’s not allowed to sign for another media company, or set up his own on Youtube, then just about the only platform he has left is his personal Twitter account. So he approached Musk, and he’s going to be the pilot user for Twitter’s attempts to monetise video on the platform. Musk will likely cover his production costs, and give him the lion’s share of the advertising revenue for the next two years. Apparently there’s no contract in place, because Carlson can’t sign one, just the Twitter terms of service that will apply to everyone who wants to use the new video platform.

    Tucker’s Twitter account has 7m followers. His Tweet from last night now has 63m views in nine hours, and the video 10m views.
    https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1656037032538390530

    Elon’s reply to Tucker has 21m views
    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1656079504778092544

    ‘Free speech’ = giving more platforms to privileged right wingers.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    And the one thing the party is still well provided with is an abundance of ambitious backstabbers.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    TimS said:

    Steady as she goes


    Steady? Lib Dem surge more like.
    #morelike
    Their full blooded support for the GRR bill bearing fruit?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Sandpit, leaving aside the legal aspects etc it'll be interesting to see how Twitter (and Tucker's) video attempts go.

    YouTube has been the undisputed king of that for a long time. Twitch has outdone it on live-streaming, though that's also something YouTube offers. Microsoft's streaming effort Mixer[sp] failed fairly quickly (they pulled the plug, after a poor strategy of throwing huge sums at big names like the Fortnite chap whose name escapes me instead of trying to foster a healthy mid-tier of streamers).
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.

    I never had a problem with the LDs going into coalition with the Tories. It made total sense. What surprised me was that initial enthusiasm and glee with which they joined the Tories in attacking Labour. Politically, I think they made a huge mistake in doing that as so many of their votes came from former Labour voters who had rejected the Tories, too. Greg Hands (over)uses that Liam Byrne Treasury note but many now forget that it was LD David Laws who made it public, in defiance of the convention that led Byrne to write it in the first place. They realised too late in the 2013-2015 cycle that the Bromance was a big error and paid a big price as a result. Even now, there are a lot of people inside Labour - across the party, not on just one wing - who are highly suspicious of them, to the extent that I think Starmer would struggle internally to sell any kind of formal deal involving LDs within a Labour-led government. If one is needed, it will be nods and winks, not handshakes.

  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    TimS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Mundo said:

    Long term lurker, very occasional poster:

    On the subject of GE date, I do not rule out August 2024. Whilst this would be remarkably unusual, there are two potentially huge advantages to the Tories.

    1. The left leaning student population of cities such as Bristol will be absent. Indeed the new freshers year would most likely not even be registered in their university town.

    2. Parents of school aged children will possibly be abroad on holiday, whereas more right leaning older / retired voters avoid August holidays due to increased costs.

    Question is whether or not Sunak is a sufficiently unconventional thinker to take this risk.

    Against that, is that the media will crucify the government for ruining *their* holidays.

    October likely still sees most of the students voting in their ‘home’ constituencies, because of the registration timelines.

    Keep posting BTW.
    I’m thinking next May:

    - avoids a poor LE result ahead of an election
    - Doesn’t disrupt holidays
    - Demonstrates a lack of desperation
    - 2 months after a big tax giveaway budget
    - economy sufficiently recovered and inflation sufficiently down. Leave too long and more could go wrong
    Yes, May could also work for the reasons you outline - so long as the economic factors are there.

    Sunak’s five pledges need to have been seen to be successful, and the tax cuts need to be both substantial and actually in people’s pockets, before the vote.

    Much also depends on what this winter’s energy bills look like, so need to keep up the efforts in Ukraine.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,870
    Ghedebrav said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    I’d be amazed if he stayed on. He might even resign his seat after a while - at his age there are all sorts of other things he could do.

    As likely as not it’ll lead to a rightward lurch and the Cons becoming sort of Diet UKIP for a bit. If I could bet on them proposing reintroduction of capital punishment, I would.
    Becoming diet UKIP, who lost all their councillors last week? Or even diet Reform, who only won 6? I would be delighted if the Tories did that. It would hopefully highlight their departure from reality and keep them out of power for longer.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169

    TimS said:

    Steady as she goes


    Steady? Lib Dem surge more like.
    #morelike
    Their full blooded support for the GRR bill bearing fruit?
    I suspect the Venn diagram overlap between people inclined to vote Lib Dem and bothered about whether a woman can have a penis is fairly thin.

    Having said that an activist down here did say the other night that she had been getting the question on the doorsteps. Not so much recently but back in the early spring.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    I'm guessing, but partly because the PO/Fujitsu team would have had *reams* of data showing that the computer system was good, fully tested and had no problems. I also believe that there's a part of human nature that makes us 'trust' a computer over a fellow human being: after all, computers do not lie or dissemble, and are obviously impartial (/sarcasm).

    As I've mentioned before, this is where I believe the biggest threat from AI lies: not in the fact that AI would do something terrible, but that people will 'trust' obviously faulty output *because* it came from an AI. "If the computer says it, it must be correct..."
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited May 2023

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, having more voters who are actually paying attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Perhaps so, but I agree with those thinking confidence and supply more likely.
    Literally the only argument in favour of coalition is the carrot of ministerial posts.
    Which would lay them open to the later accusation of ambition over principle (exemplified by Clegg).

    A government which requires LibDem support implies the likelihood of electoral reversal at the subsequent election. Maintaining a degree of independence would be simple self preservation - and also correct as a matter of principle.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited May 2023

    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    I'm guessing, but partly because the PO/Fujitsu team would have had *reams* of data showing that the computer system was good, fully tested and had no problems. I also believe that there's a part of human nature that makes us 'trust' a computer over a fellow human being: after all, computers do not lie or dissemble, and are obviously impartial (/sarcasm).

    As I've mentioned before, this is where I believe the biggest threat from AI lies: not in the fact that AI would do something terrible, but that people will 'trust' obviously faulty output *because* it came from an AI. "If the computer says it, it must be correct..."
    Which is exactly what we’ve seen from recent implementations of AI chat bots, which assert total nonsense with confidence.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    If AI are asserting total nonsense with confidence that makes them seem very human.

    See also astrology.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    Heathener said:

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Agreed.

    What will happen is that all the boiling rage in the party will burst to the surface. There will be a massive internecine civil war.

    The roots of that go back several years and people like JRM will be in the firing line.

    After the bloodletting, what then? Will the Conservative party split, as it has threatened? Will they continue with their unelectable lurch to the right, as I suspect? Or will they return to one nation toryism, which I hope?
    The Conservative party is going to be a very interesting place after the election. My feeling is that they need to lance the right wing boil at some point and the fastest way to do that is to allow the right access to the driving seat for a while, just to demonstrate how poor their motoring skills actually are. The party can then move on as a mainstream vehicle for lower taxes, more moderate regulation and a bit of law n order. The interesting question is how the Tories respond to the UK becoming closer to the EU as is likely in the next decade. If they are smart they will position themselves in the vanguard of that, but the risk is that it energises the right and makes it harder for the party to embrace the mainstream.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited May 2023

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Sandpit, leaving aside the legal aspects etc it'll be interesting to see how Twitter (and Tucker's) video attempts go.

    YouTube has been the undisputed king of that for a long time. Twitch has outdone it on live-streaming, though that's also something YouTube offers. Microsoft's streaming effort Mixer[sp] failed fairly quickly (they pulled the plug, after a poor strategy of throwing huge sums at big names like the Fortnite chap whose name escapes me instead of trying to foster a healthy mid-tier of streamers).

    I don't think it will work, since it cuts against Twitter's defining business model.
    We will see.

    As an aside, it now gives Fox a strong incentive to brief and leak against Carlson.
    And they'll have plenty of material.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Yes, the Tory party is ruthless. Then again, Conservatives have been in power for nearly 50 of the last 73 years, so that ruthlessness might just work.

    Compare with Labour: when they've stuck with an election loser e.g. Kinnock, Corbyn), they've mostly lost again (Wilson being the only exception?).
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited May 2023
    Nigelb said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Perhaps so, but I agree with those thinking confidence and supply more likely.
    Literally the only argument in favour of coalition is the carrot of ministerial posts.
    Which would lay them open to the later accusation of ambition over principle (exemplified by Clegg).

    A government which requires LibDem support implies the likelihood of electoral reversal at the subsequent election. Maintaining a degree of independence would be simple self preservation - and also correct as a matter of principle.
    One other issue: LDs could legitimately claim a role in English 'home' matters, but only if their coalition power [edit: in the relevant votes] rested solely on MPs voted in by constituencies in England. To use MPs from Scottish or Welsh constituencies would bring back all the old arguments about the West Lothian Question and the student fees in particular.

    Edit: the same is true, of course, of the other Unionist parties - Slab and, indeed, the Tories.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    IanB2 said:

    The tricky bet is ‘year Sunak is replaced as Tory leader’. Which could be 2025 even with a certain 2024 GE.

    Indeed that is very likely, with multiple candidates and hustings etc. Last summer took a couple of months to deliver us Ms Truss.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.

    I never had a problem with the LDs going into coalition with the Tories. It made total sense. What surprised me was that initial enthusiasm and glee with which they joined the Tories in attacking Labour. Politically, I think they made a huge mistake in doing that as so many of their votes came from former Labour voters who had rejected the Tories, too. Greg Hands (over)uses that Liam Byrne Treasury note but many now forget that it was LD David Laws who made it public, in defiance of the convention that led Byrne to write it in the first place. They realised too late in the 2013-2015 cycle that the Bromance was a big error and paid a big price as a result. Even now, there are a lot of people inside Labour - across the party, not on just one wing - who are highly suspicious of them, to the extent that I think Starmer would struggle internally to sell any kind of formal deal involving LDs within a Labour-led government. If one is needed, it will be nods and winks, not handshakes.

    This isn't true. Laws found the note and mentioned it to Osborne. In his book Laws then said he was taken aback to find the Tories harping on about it.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited May 2023
    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    Yes, but one assumes that Fujitsu went on about all the testing and proofing that they'd done, and an important - and under-reported - aspect of this whole sorry tale is that the supplier was lying to its customer.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    edited May 2023
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, the absence of voters who were really paying much attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    With hindsight I’m amazed that the coalition didn’t engineer more (any?) principled differences of opinion for public consumption. Didn’t bother the Tories of course but it should have been a prerequisite for the LDs. As you suggest, too much naïveté from nice guy Nick.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    Er, we have had rather enough of experts, thanks.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    Steady as she goes


    Steady? Lib Dem surge more like.
    #morelike
    Their full blooded support for the GRR bill bearing fruit?
    I suspect the Venn diagram overlap between people inclined to vote Lib Dem and bothered about whether a woman can have a penis is fairly thin.

    Having said that an activist down here did say the other night that she had been getting the question on the doorsteps. Not so much recently but back in the early spring.
    Surely The Goldie Looking Chain's "Your Mother's Got a Penis" settled this question for good?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.

    I never had a problem with the LDs going into coalition with the Tories. It made total sense. What surprised me was that initial enthusiasm and glee with which they joined the Tories in attacking Labour. Politically, I think they made a huge mistake in doing that as so many of their votes came from former Labour voters who had rejected the Tories, too. Greg Hands (over)uses that Liam Byrne Treasury note but many now forget that it was LD David Laws who made it public, in defiance of the convention that led Byrne to write it in the first place. They realised too late in the 2013-2015 cycle that the Bromance was a big error and paid a big price as a result. Even now, there are a lot of people inside Labour - across the party, not on just one wing - who are highly suspicious of them, to the extent that I think Starmer would struggle internally to sell any kind of formal deal involving LDs within a Labour-led government. If one is needed, it will be nods and winks, not handshakes.

    I agree, and that's broadly my take, coloured by my own experience of having been doing the same thing locally at the same time.

    But there are as many people who argue that the LibDems should have thrown themselves more wholeheartedly into selling the government, and the mistake was trying to be seen as internal critics. I think this is wrong - and the fact that the junior partner always suffers from coalitions around the world suggests that there may not actually be a way to avoid the damage?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, the absence of voters who were really paying much attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    With hindsight I’m amazed that the coalition didn’t engineer more (any?) principled public differences of opinion for public consumption. Didn’t bother the Tories of course but it should have been a prerequisite for the LDs. As you suggest, too much naïveté from nice guy Nick.
    Nice ?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    Yes, but one assumes that Fujitsu went on about all the testing and proofing that they'd done, and an important - and under-reported - aspect of this whole sorry tale is that the supplier was lying to its customer.
    It's been well over a decade since I looked into the technical side of this scandal: did the PO and Fujitsu run the old and new systems in parallel for a period before turning off the old system? I guess not?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, having more voters who are actually paying attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    The other reality was that the so-called "rainbow coalition" idea was a non-starter. Forget the political ramifications of all other parties cobbling together to keep the Tories out of power and just do the maths.

    There simply wasn't a majority to be had for a rainbow coalition. It would have been hugely unstable, with endless bickering until it rapidly fell over and another GE followed which surely the Tories would have won comfortably. Same result had the Tories tried to do it alone for a few months.

    Forming a stable government with the Tories was the only game in town for Clegg. Whilst C&S had its supporters, I understand the argument that having argued for years about other parties than the big two it would be daft to pass up the opportunity once given. So coalition wasn't crazy, only the way they went about it.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited May 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    I'm guessing, but partly because the PO/Fujitsu team would have had *reams* of data showing that the computer system was good, fully tested and had no problems. I also believe that there's a part of human nature that makes us 'trust' a computer over a fellow human being: after all, computers do not lie or dissemble, and are obviously impartial (/sarcasm).

    As I've mentioned before, this is where I believe the biggest threat from AI lies: not in the fact that AI would do something terrible, but that people will 'trust' obviously faulty output *because* it came from an AI. "If the computer says it, it must be correct..."
    Which is exactly what we’ve seen from recent implementations of AI chat bots, which assert total nonsense with confidence.
    Yes but Leon and his earlier betas have been doing that for years....
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    TimS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Mundo said:

    Long term lurker, very occasional poster:

    On the subject of GE date, I do not rule out August 2024. Whilst this would be remarkably unusual, there are two potentially huge advantages to the Tories.

    1. The left leaning student population of cities such as Bristol will be absent. Indeed the new freshers year would most likely not even be registered in their university town.

    2. Parents of school aged children will possibly be abroad on holiday, whereas more right leaning older / retired voters avoid August holidays due to increased costs.

    Question is whether or not Sunak is a sufficiently unconventional thinker to take this risk.

    Against that, is that the media will crucify the government for ruining *their* holidays.

    October likely still sees most of the students voting in their ‘home’ constituencies, because of the registration timelines.

    Keep posting BTW.
    I’m thinking next May:

    - avoids a poor LE result ahead of an election
    - Doesn’t disrupt holidays
    - Demonstrates a lack of desperation
    - 2 months after a big tax giveaway budget
    - economy sufficiently recovered and inflation sufficiently down. Leave too long and more could go wrong
    I don't think public finances are in the sort of state to have either a big tax giveaway, or for that matter a public sector spend. A problem for Reeves too.

    I think October 2024. The May locals will be forgotten by then.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861
    Mundo said:

    Long term lurker, very occasional poster:

    On the subject of GE date, I do not rule out August 2024. Whilst this would be remarkably unusual, there are two potentially huge advantages to the Tories.

    1. The left leaning student population of cities such as Bristol will be absent. Indeed the new freshers year would most likely not even be registered in their university town.

    2. Parents of school aged children will possibly be abroad on holiday, whereas more right leaning older / retired voters avoid August holidays due to increased costs.

    Question is whether or not Sunak is a sufficiently unconventional thinker to take this risk.

    Welcome Mundo,

    I think the student anti-tory vote in term time has less of an effect than is often claimed. Two examples that I know well: Bristol West might just possibly switch back to LD without the student vote, but even if it does that doesn't help the tories. Exeter has remained labour since 1997 and was considered a safe seat even in GE 2019, if the tories gain Exeter out of term time then they will comfortably win a national majority. I expect that many Constituencies with a high student population will have a similar story. OIn the other hand an election out of university term times means that the student population is much more evenly spread out across the country, and Sunak probably doesn't want even more non-tory voters in the Red-Wall and more marginal home county constituencies.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    Nigelb said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, the absence of voters who were really paying much attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    With hindsight I’m amazed that the coalition didn’t engineer more (any?) principled public differences of opinion for public consumption. Didn’t bother the Tories of course but it should have been a prerequisite for the LDs. As you suggest, too much naïveté from nice guy Nick.
    Nice ?
    I did consider putting it in sarky inverted commas but it’s early in the day.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    It is ironic that the party in love with the idea of PR and coalitions was worse at the latter than the party that doesn't want them.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, having more voters who are actually paying attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    The other reality was that the so-called "rainbow coalition" idea was a non-starter. Forget the political ramifications of all other parties cobbling together to keep the Tories out of power and just do the maths.

    There simply wasn't a majority to be had for a rainbow coalition. It would have been hugely unstable, with endless bickering until it rapidly fell over and another GE followed which surely the Tories would have won comfortably. Same result had the Tories tried to do it alone for a few months.

    Forming a stable government with the Tories was the only game in town for Clegg. Whilst C&S had its supporters, I understand the argument that having argued for years about other parties than the big two it would be daft to pass up the opportunity once given. So coalition wasn't crazy, only the way they went about it.
    The LDs actually got a disproportionate amount of influence compared to their parliamentary representation, mostly because of the 'Quad' chummery; four blokes who essentially had pretty similar outlooks. You can't blame Clegg et al for taking this opportunity.

    The narrative of 'sold out their principles for power' (despite the inherent lack of logic in that assertion) had taken hold though, and tuition fees strapped a jetpack on it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Nice header. Do people think there's much chance of Rishi staying Tory leader even if defeated in next election?

    My sense was he doesn't fancy being leader of opposition and so would probably resign in that case...

    There is zero chance of him staying if he loses power. The last Tory PM not to be defenestrated on losing power in an election was Churchill in 1945. Even if we widen it to 'losing an election' that still takes us back to Heath in 1966, and he'd only been party leader a year.
    Yes, the Tory party is ruthless. Then again, Conservatives have been in power for nearly 50 of the last 73 years, so that ruthlessness might just work.

    Compare with Labour: when they've stuck with an election loser e.g. Kinnock, Corbyn), they've mostly lost again (Wilson being the only exception?).
    I was reflecting on an extraordinary stat last night.

    Tony Blair won three general elections with majorities of 179, 167 and 66.

    The last non-Tory other than Blair to win two or more majorities of more than 10 seats was William E. Gladstone, who was first elected Liberal leader in the House of Commons in 1865.

    That's how dominant they have been since the 1867 Reform Act.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited May 2023

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, the absence of voters who were really paying much attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    With hindsight I’m amazed that the coalition didn’t engineer more (any?) principled differences of opinion for public consumption. Didn’t bother the Tories of course but it should have been a prerequisite for the LDs. As you suggest, too much naïveté from nice guy Nick.
    True, but then local media and national media are different. If we had a significant public difference of view, it would get written up 'straight' in the local paper by some school-leaver aspiring journo, and that would be the end of the matter. If the headline or story were favourable we could keep a copy for future use online or in our leaflets as we wished. And Labour wouldn't say much about it as it didn't suit their narrative.

    If in national government a difference had emerged between a LibDem minister and their Tory counterpart, it would have dominated media coverage for ages, with all manner of other politicians being repeatedly asked about it and all manner of journos looking to get a bit of career advancement on the back of 'uncovering' some new angle or tempting some junior minister into saying something dumb. And all the time the opposition would be making hay and going on about "chaos" and "division".

    Which is a problem for any government, coalition or not - the media pressure to try and wedge the tiniest of internal differences and hence the huge pressure on senior politicians to tow the party line and keep their own thoughts to themselves are not good for our democracy IMHO.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.

    I never had a problem with the LDs going into coalition with the Tories. It made total sense. What surprised me was that initial enthusiasm and glee with which they joined the Tories in attacking Labour. Politically, I think they made a huge mistake in doing that as so many of their votes came from former Labour voters who had rejected the Tories, too. Greg Hands (over)uses that Liam Byrne Treasury note but many now forget that it was LD David Laws who made it public, in defiance of the convention that led Byrne to write it in the first place. They realised too late in the 2013-2015 cycle that the Bromance was a big error and paid a big price as a result. Even now, there are a lot of people inside Labour - across the party, not on just one wing - who are highly suspicious of them, to the extent that I think Starmer would struggle internally to sell any kind of formal deal involving LDs within a Labour-led government. If one is needed, it will be nods and winks, not handshakes.

    This isn't true. Laws found the note and mentioned it to Osborne. In his book Laws then said he was taken aback to find the Tories harping on about it.

    I am pretty sure I recall Laws presenting it to the world. But if I am misremembering, that surely tells its own story!

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    Shameful.

    A number of councils that vetoed the expansion of cost of living support such as food banks and made cuts to public services spent tens of thousands of pounds on coronation celebrations over the weekend - despite polls showing most Brits were not interested in the ceremony.

    Conservative-run Bromley council, which spent £50,000 on the coronation, refused to fund so-called "warm banks" during the winter, saying the £2,500 cost per centre "isn’t a good use" of money.

    According to Open Democracy, the council said it would be taking the money to fund the coronation celebrations from its community fund, which is traditionally used to give grants to charities.


    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/council-facing-bankruptcy-spent-£50k-on-coronation-celebrations-124845953.html

    If we do any more coronations then Royals should pay for it themselves, or a special tax on monarchists should be applied.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    If AI are asserting total nonsense with confidence that makes them seem very human.

    See also astrology.

    As part of my MA I did a module on “Magic, Science and Religion” in the Renaissance. What really struck me was how much people really believed in astrology. While they were completely wrong, of course, but many of the ways they interrogated that belief became modern science.

    Slightly later than the period I studied was Isaac Newton. His, to modern eyes, somewhat, shall we say, esoteric beliefs are regarded as a sideshow and embarrassment to modern science. But he really really believed in them. They were far more important to him than his lasting legacy.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.
    Agree; I think Clegg was a little too nice, and a little too naive, for senior level politics. He came to the top pretty quickly, after all.

    I was in coalition myself with the Tories on the council for the first four years, and you do have to play hard ball in an arrangement like that. The accusation most commonly thrown at our administation by Labour wasn't that we were propping up the Tories, but that the LibDems were really running the council, which always made me smile, even though it wasn't really true. But being seen to stand up to pressure from the larger party is important, whereas the inexperienced LibDem ministers were a little too keen to be loyal, in public, even though most of them achieved (and blocked) a fair bit in private.

    Of course it's more difficult at national level, because of the differences in media focus and attitude, having more voters who are actually paying attention, and the differences between parliamentary government (where parliament's ability to direct the executive is actually pretty limited, as we saw during the May era) and the council executive model.
    The other reality was that the so-called "rainbow coalition" idea was a non-starter. Forget the political ramifications of all other parties cobbling together to keep the Tories out of power and just do the maths.

    There simply wasn't a majority to be had for a rainbow coalition. It would have been hugely unstable, with endless bickering until it rapidly fell over and another GE followed which surely the Tories would have won comfortably. Same result had the Tories tried to do it alone for a few months.

    Forming a stable government with the Tories was the only game in town for Clegg. Whilst C&S had its supporters, I understand the argument that having argued for years about other parties than the big two it would be daft to pass up the opportunity once given. So coalition wasn't crazy, only the way they went about it.
    They did a grand job of keeping the possibility alive during negotiations to get a good deal from the Tories, though. Apart from the obvious gaffes on tuition fees and AV, the LibDems handled the coalition agreement pretty well - most of their team had been there and had the T-shirt from their time as councillors. They were poorer in seeing how national government would play out in the media, and in particular how electorally worthless their myriad technical wins would prove to be.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Mundo said:

    Long term lurker, very occasional poster:

    On the subject of GE date, I do not rule out August 2024. Whilst this would be remarkably unusual, there are two potentially huge advantages to the Tories.

    1. The left leaning student population of cities such as Bristol will be absent. Indeed the new freshers year would most likely not even be registered in their university town.

    2. Parents of school aged children will possibly be abroad on holiday, whereas more right leaning older / retired voters avoid August holidays due to increased costs.

    Question is whether or not Sunak is a sufficiently unconventional thinker to take this risk.

    Against that, is that the media will crucify the government for ruining *their* holidays.

    October likely still sees most of the students voting in their ‘home’ constituencies, because of the registration timelines.

    Keep posting BTW.
    I’m thinking next May:

    - avoids a poor LE result ahead of an election
    - Doesn’t disrupt holidays
    - Demonstrates a lack of desperation
    - 2 months after a big tax giveaway budget
    - economy sufficiently recovered and inflation sufficiently down. Leave too long and more could go wrong
    I don't think public finances are in the sort of state to have either a big tax giveaway, or for that matter a public sector spend. A problem for Reeves too.

    I think October 2024. The May locals will be forgotten by then.
    The only reason to go earlier than October would be if the Conservatives believed that they could win by doing so. An argument along the lines of "go in April because that's as good as it might get" may be true, but I can't see politicians going for it.

    So- what has to happen for Conservatives to be in a position that looks like winning, and how likely is that to happen?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    Yes, but one assumes that Fujitsu went on about all the testing and proofing that they'd done, and an important - and under-reported - aspect of this whole sorry tale is that the supplier was lying to its customer.
    It's been well over a decade since I looked into the technical side of this scandal: did the PO and Fujitsu run the old and new systems in parallel for a period before turning off the old system? I guess not?
    The "old" system was stacks of paper and forms. I expect it got dumped the day the computer terminal arrived.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861

    IanB2 said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I don't agree, although we can be reasonably confident there won't be another Tory one in our lifetimes. The key will be that next time they'll try to do it differently, badge it differently, and settle for a "slice" of the government as happens in Germany rather than becoming just a layer in the whole cake.

    After all, what is thrown at LibDems is not that they made a coalition at all, but that they propped up the Tories. Having had a coalition with both major parties in living memory is more solution, than problem redoubled.
    In reality the LibDems drove both a lot of good policy (gay marriage, pupil premium, raised income tax threshold) and restrained the more base instincts of the Tory party (as witnessed by what they did from 2015 onwards).

    Not that anyone progressive wanted to give them a fair hearing at the time - because they also provided succour to a lot of terrible legislation. LDs voted more loyally for shit Tory bills than Tory MPs did. Steve Webb heavily linking himself to Lansley's terrible NHS Destruction bill.

    Clegg especially seemed enamoured with his Dave bromance, unwilling to maintain a suitable distance of break it off until he last minute. More visible and public arguments, having rebellions against shit bills like Tory MPs, making a principled stand here and there - all would have made both an immediate difference to the 2015 near ELE and their reputation afterwards.

    I expect any future coalition to be run very differently.

    I never had a problem with the LDs going into coalition with the Tories. It made total sense. What surprised me was that initial enthusiasm and glee with which they joined the Tories in attacking Labour. Politically, I think they made a huge mistake in doing that as so many of their votes came from former Labour voters who had rejected the Tories, too. Greg Hands (over)uses that Liam Byrne Treasury note but many now forget that it was LD David Laws who made it public, in defiance of the convention that led Byrne to write it in the first place. They realised too late in the 2013-2015 cycle that the Bromance was a big error and paid a big price as a result. Even now, there are a lot of people inside Labour - across the party, not on just one wing - who are highly suspicious of them, to the extent that I think Starmer would struggle internally to sell any kind of formal deal involving LDs within a Labour-led government. If one is needed, it will be nods and winks, not handshakes.

    Although a strong anti-tory, this is also my sentiment. I was in favour of the country moving towards coalition governments, GE 2020 has knocked back coalition governments in the UK hard. I have sporadically in more detail posted, that the Lib-Dems really blew it in that first week by not negotiating hard over the coalition agreement. Then once in government, the Lib-Dem ministers were often actively supporting Tory policies, rather than a more neutral "this is a Conservative policy in the coalition agreement".
    As the LDs are only ever going to get into government as part of a coalition, they really should have been sharper, when given the chance.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    edited May 2023
    Heathener said:

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.

    No chance of Jan 2025.

    Probably Oct 2024 with a smaller chance of May 2024 to coincide with the local elections or June 2024 following any reasonable result for CON in those local elections.

    Barring unreasonably unforeseen events it will be Rishi, Keir and Ed leading the major parties into the election.

    Neither Keir nor Ed are ruling out a coalition with each other, which I find interesting.
    I would prefer a LAB/LD coalition - in practice more likely to be LD confidence and supply - to LAB majority government.
    After the last Coalition Govt there will never be another LD coalition imho.
    I'm not so sure. I think you're tainted, as
    are others, by the fact that it was a Con-LibDem coalition which was always going to be politically tricky. It was really a coalition of the two public schoolboys, not the parties.

    I like the talk of coalitions because I think it helps Labour, who will win a thumping majority.
    Really. I recall Blair offering the Lib Dems certain promises that were dumped post the 97 landslide. The Lib Dems should shut such talk down and pronto.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    I'm guessing, but partly because the PO/Fujitsu team would have had *reams* of data showing that the computer system was good, fully tested and had no problems. I also believe that there's a part of human nature that makes us 'trust' a computer over a fellow human being: after all, computers do not lie or dissemble, and are obviously impartial (/sarcasm).

    As I've mentioned before, this is where I believe the biggest threat from AI lies: not in the fact that AI would do something terrible, but that people will 'trust' obviously faulty output *because* it came from an AI. "If the computer says it, it must be correct..."
    Which is exactly what we’ve seen from recent implementations of AI chat bots, which assert total nonsense with confidence.
    Yes but Leon and his earlier betas have been doing that for years....
    The difference being that, on this forum at least, we are pretty good at keeping each other honest, and if we can’t stand up facts (as opposed to opinions) then most of us will walk the comment back.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    Really disappointing piece from Quincel.

    I was planning on doing a piece along these lines on Sunday.

    I'm now convinced that May or July 2024 will be when the next GE will be held.

    Normally I'd say June 2024 but that will clash with Euro 2024 and bandwidth issues.

    If Sunak goes long to October/November then there's the risk that the US Presidential election could dominate.

    The last thing Sunak needs is Trump endorsing the Tories.

    Or RDS saying the Tories should listen to the ghastly and ludicrous popinjay that Kemi Badenoch.

    A Trump endorsement will be worth at least 5% to the Tory opponents.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,284
    edited May 2023
    Phil said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Re the post office scandal:

    Does anyone know why and how the courts ever came to assume that "computer data is correct"? It seems like a strange thing for anyone to have ever believed in the first place, given how easy it is for bugs to be present in computer code.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Aftermath

    "Call for reform on digital evidence
    In May 2021, the British Computer Society (the official body for IT professionals in the UK) called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct.[342][343]

    The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors.[344]"

    I believe (but will have to dig up some references to be sure) that the legal principle of computer infallibility came about during the early days of computing, when it was suggested in court that all a computer was doing was executing simple mathematical principles & as such could reasonably be assumed to be operating correctly.

    At the time, this was possibly a basically correct, if simplistic view, that became established by case law. The problem was that it very rapidly became completely out of touch with reality as systems became more complex than “a box that can do nothing more than process a pile of punched cards that represent a set of bank accounts”.

    By the time the PO Horizon system was implemented it was a ludicrously out of touch principle. But the legal system can be very hard to shift, even when it’s completely wrong: Judges hate overturning principles on which previous cases have been decided, even if they are manifestly unfair & will often refuse to do so no matter how convincing the evidence.
    Interesting. But surely even in the early days of computing it was possible for bugs/errors to find their way into programs?
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