It is hard to see what has happened in the past week to explain the shift apart from the fracas with the Home Secretary and Sunak’s decision not to sack her. He came out of that affair not very well.
Very interesting pieces of Alzheimer’s research identifying a potential bio marker present in preclinical individuals. Very important, since trying to treat patients who have already developed the disease - and conducting clinical trials with them - is somewhere between very difficult and impossible,
Validation of a biomarker that predicts #Alzheimer's disease in multiple cohorts by assessing astrocyte reactivity (Ast+) in >1,000 people without cognitive impairment https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1663211379933995010
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
Very interesting pieces of Alzheimer’s research identifying a potential bio marker present in preclinical individuals. Very important, since trying to treat patients who have already developed the disease - and conducting clinical trials with them - is somewhere between very difficult and impossible,
Validation of a biomarker that predicts #Alzheimer's disease in multiple cohorts by assessing astrocyte reactivity (Ast+) in >1,000 people without cognitive impairment https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1663211379933995010
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
He’s crap. He’s sub-Major, let’s be honest.
It’s only in comparison with the deranged Truss and the flamboyant larceny of Johnson that he seems “fine”.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine.
Clearly the British people don't agree with you.
If this was 2010 I believe Rishi would be firmly in the lead.
He's just not got the ability of say Blair and he's not got the bullshit of Johnson.
He is basically SKS but defending a long period of Government that most people consider at best ineffective.
I am not particularly enthusiastic about Sir Keir but I have this absolute sense that in the purdah period of the General Election campaign, he is going to make Rishi Sunak look totally out of his depth. Sunak does NOT like close scrutiny and is amateurish. It's not surprising his own party preferred the execrable Liz Truss over him.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
He’s crap. He’s sub-Major, let’s be honest.
It’s only in comparison with the deranged Truss and the flamboyant larceny of Johnson that he seems “fine”.
Yep
A desperately weak leader. Probably the weakest PM of my lifetime.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
Got the nation through the pandemic. Avoided the worst of the energy shock by supporting everyone. Opened the Elizabeth Line. Ended decades of acrimony about the EU.* Destroyed the threat of UKIP.** Saw Liverpool finally win the League.
*Sure, at the expense of decades of acrimony about Brexit, but hey. **By turning the Conservative Party INTO UKIP…
When the gong sounds at 10 pm on the evening of the next General Election, and Labour's majority appears in red emblazoned across your screens ... I will try to desist from saying 'I told you so'. It will be far too exciting and interesting for that.
One thing to look out for is that we want no more of Portillo faux-contrition moments. That can come later. They deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
You probably are right, but your hubris is off the scale.
Still doing a deep dive on migration. I’ve discovered a brilliant new sub genre of Anglophobic Irish nationalist
Ireland is going through quite a serious migrant crisis of its own, and these Irish Brit-haters think it is somehow a UK conspiracy to flood Ireland via the ulster border. Also they hate the head of the ‘pro-migrant’ Gardai, coz he has ‘links with MI5’
When the gong sounds at 10 pm on the evening of the next General Election, and Labour's majority appears in red emblazoned across your screens ... I will try to desist from saying 'I told you so'. It will be far too exciting and interesting for that.
One thing to look out for is that we want no more of Portillo faux-contrition moments. That can come later. They deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Pride comes before a fall Heathener. I very much want to see the back of this dreadful Government, but remember the spectre of 1992.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
You probably are right, but your hubris is off the scale.
Well, except that I don't work for Labour or the LibDems so this is an objective assessment rather than a personal self-aggrandisement. I've been right about Conservative wins before (Cameron in 2015) and the Brexit vote and Biden's win in 2020 when I made a tidy packet whilst others panicked (Florida).
And I was infamously and spectacularly wrong about Putin's invasion.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
This. There’s nothing wrong with Rishi. It’s the rabble he leads and the Tory brand that have meant they have next to 0 chance next year
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
1. Abroad is divided into an annoying number of subsections, because foreigners refuse to recognise their inherent shared foreignness - the narcissism of small distinctions, I think this is called. "Foreign and begins with M" covers a lot of possibilities, as wikipedia or google maps will confirm.
2. I am not seeing an answer to my question. Lab maj? Lab min? Not actually good enough at being right to say?
Note however 34% preferring Sunak to Starmer as PM is significantly higher than the headline 25-30% Tory voteshare in most polls including this one.
If the Tories got 34% at the next general election they would lose yes but honourably so, in fact with slightly more seats than Howard got in 2005 rather than the 1997 or 2001 style landslide defeat the headline voting intention suggests the Tories are heading for
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
I imagine people had harder lives back then even if they were poshos.
And I wonder if people looked older in b&w pictures.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
I cannot recall a poster so full of hubris that even labour supporters are cautioning you
The one thing that will galvanise conservative support is complacency, arrogance and hubris demonstrated so ably by yourself
Just be satisfied that Starmer is very likely to be PM in late 2024
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
He’s crap. He’s sub-Major, let’s be honest.
It’s only in comparison with the deranged Truss and the flamboyant larceny of Johnson that he seems “fine”.
John Major seems to come out better with every year that passes after his humiliating defeat in 1997.
In fact 26 years since he left office, Major is still the longest serving Conservative PM since Thatcher and still won the most votes for any PM in history in his surprise 1992 re election victory. He left a growing economy and balanced budget for New Labour and low inflation, secured an opt out from the Euro while keeping the UK in the EU, won the Gulf War with Bush 41 and set the way for peace in Northern Ireland.
Very interesting talk and Q and A by Sir John at the Oxford Union in March here
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
1. Abroad is divided into an annoying number of subsections, because foreigners refuse to recognise their inherent shared foreignness - the narcissism of small distinctions, I think this is called. "Foreign and begins with M" covers a lot of possibilities, as wikipedia or google maps will confirm.
2. I am not seeing an answer to my question. Lab maj? Lab min? Not actually good enough at being right to say?
Answer to your question: Labour [anything] is good enough. Another 5 years of the current shower would be beyond agony...
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
Interesting. We have seen a succession of relatively young PMs, Mrs May (62 at resignation) being the oldest since Thatcher (66). Sunak, Truss, Cameron, Blair, and Major were all PM in their 40s, Johnson and Brown in their 50s.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
My rent isn't rising because I don't rent.
My mortgage isn't rising because its been paid off.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
So is the interest I'm getting on my savings.
While the supermarkets have near continuous 25% off wine offers
And there are many millions of oldies and GenXers similar to me.
As for affordable housing then that is very location dependent.
And full employment gives opportunities for those teenagers who prefer to get a job or training rather than go to university.
Now are there many millions of others who are struggling ?
Of course there are - young southerners with graduate debt especially so.
What we're seeing is a widening difference between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling with little hope.
Which is what I said in my initial comment.
We've likely seen such differences previously but, for example, whereas the 1980s were much easier for the southern middle class compared with the northern working class the opposite situation is now happening. Both surprising and ironic.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
Interesting. We have seen a succession of relatively young PMs, Mrs May (62 at resignation) being the oldest since Thatcher (66). Sunak, Truss, Cameron, Blair, and Major were all PM in their 40s, Johnson and Brown in their 50s.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
I cannot recall a poster so full of hubris that even labour supporters are cautioning you
The one thing that will galvanise conservative support is complacency, arrogance and hubris demonstrated so ably by yourself
Just be satisfied that Starmer is very likely to be PM in late 2024
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
Interesting. We have seen a succession of relatively young PMs, Mrs May (62 at resignation) being the oldest since Thatcher (66). Sunak, Truss, Cameron, Blair, and Major were all PM in their 40s, Johnson and Brown in their 50s.
Quite a difference to the US gerontocracy.
Indeed, very marked contrast. After the next US election, Biden will be 82 and Trump 78! DeSantis, by contrast, will be 46, and there’s every chance of that age difference becoming apparent during the campaign, in the younger man’s favour.
Had a great couple of days on my Wembley trip. Will be drinking Bedford dry to celebrate the mighty Owls promotion. Noon checkout tomorrow looks like a good decision
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
My rent isn't rising because I don't rent.
My mortgage isn't rising because its been paid off.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
So is the interest I'm getting on my savings.
While the supermarkets have near continuous 25% off wine offers
And there are many millions of oldies and GenXers similar to me.
As for affordable housing then that is very location dependent.
And full employment gives opportunities for those teenagers who prefer to get a job or training rather than go to university.
Now are there many millions of others who are struggling ?
Of course there are - young southerners with graduate debt especially so.
What we're seeing is a widening difference between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling with little hope.
Which is what I said in my initial comment.
We've likely seen such differences previously but, for example, whereas the 1980s were much easier for the southern middle class compared with the northern working class the opposite situation is now happening. Both surprising and ironic.
There is a chunk, a hefty chunk, of the population doing very nicely, thank you. But how big is it?
You need to have a mortgage all but paid off, but not be so old as to worry about the issues in health and social care.
It's a heft chunk of the population, but it doesn't look like a winning chunk. Especially when all the other voters are burying hatchets and looking to hurt the government above all else.
Had a great couple of days on my Wembley trip. Will be drinking Bedford dry to celebrate the mighty Owls promotion. Noon checkout tomorrow looks like a good decision
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
This. There’s nothing wrong with Rishi. It’s the rabble he leads and the Tory brand that have meant they have next to 0 chance next year
The parliamentary Tory party has consisted almost exclusively of obnoxious baying c***s, poshos, a few selfmade men who almost everybody likes to despise, and the occasional barrow boy with a funny haircut, ever since I can remember. We've gone from hug a hoodie to levelling up. That's how out of touch they are, for all their expenditure on focus groups. Almost all of them have complete contempt for the majority of the electorate. But they keep winning elections. I think they'll win the next one too. Immigration.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
I cannot recall a poster so full of hubris that even labour supporters are cautioning you
The one thing that will galvanise conservative support is complacency, arrogance and hubris demonstrated so ably by yourself
Just be satisfied that Starmer is very likely to be PM in late 2024
Had a great couple of days on my Wembley trip. Will be drinking Bedford dry to celebrate the mighty Owls promotion. Noon checkout tomorrow looks like a good decision
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
My rent isn't rising because I don't rent.
My mortgage isn't rising because its been paid off.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
So is the interest I'm getting on my savings.
While the supermarkets have near continuous 25% off wine offers
And there are many millions of oldies and GenXers similar to me.
As for affordable housing then that is very location dependent.
And full employment gives opportunities for those teenagers who prefer to get a job or training rather than go to university.
Now are there many millions of others who are struggling ?
Of course there are - young southerners with graduate debt especially so.
What we're seeing is a widening difference between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling with little hope.
Which is what I said in my initial comment.
We've likely seen such differences previously but, for example, whereas the 1980s were much easier for the southern middle class compared with the northern working class the opposite situation is now happening. Both surprising and ironic.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
I don't think that's the case for most working people, though, which is a problem for the government.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
My rent isn't rising because I don't rent.
My mortgage isn't rising because its been paid off.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
So is the interest I'm getting on my savings.
While the supermarkets have near continuous 25% off wine offers
And there are many millions of oldies and GenXers similar to me.
As for affordable housing then that is very location dependent.
And full employment gives opportunities for those teenagers who prefer to get a job or training rather than go to university.
Now are there many millions of others who are struggling ?
Of course there are - young southerners with graduate debt especially so.
What we're seeing is a widening difference between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling with little hope.
Which is what I said in my initial comment.
We've likely seen such differences previously but, for example, whereas the 1980s were much easier for the southern middle class compared with the northern working class the opposite situation is now happening. Both surprising and ironic.
There is a chunk, a hefty chunk, of the population doing very nicely, thank you. But how big is it?
You need to have a mortgage all but paid off, but not be so old as to worry about the issues in health and social care.
It's a heft chunk of the population, but it doesn't look like a winning chunk. Especially when all the other voters are burying hatchets and looking to hurt the government above all else.
Given the propensity of oldies to vote and that 40% would normally win an election the Conservatives should have a solid base. Especially as the anti-Conservative vote would likely be more concentrated in university and inner city constituencies for example.
But all moot when a political party goes out of its way to aggravate as many people as possible.
It would be interesting to know though the details of those people who do have mortgages.
Someone who has £10k left on a mortgage they took out twenty years ago is in a very different situation to someone with a £200k mortgage taken out this year.
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
Interesting. We have seen a succession of relatively young PMs, Mrs May (62 at resignation) being the oldest since Thatcher (66). Sunak, Truss, Cameron, Blair, and Major were all PM in their 40s, Johnson and Brown in their 50s.
Quite a difference to the US gerontocracy.
Though before Biden and Trump, Clinton and Obama were Presidents in their 40s and Bush 43 was President in his 50s.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Come on - antisemetism is racist.
Jews Don't Count
The quoting of book titles isn't always acceptable.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
You are like a broken record.
It must be annoying to listen to someone who is right
"Tories are toast" is too obvious to be interesting. Lab maj vs Lab min government is the live issue. What's the answer?
Oooh do we have a new bot? Hello. Is a name like 'Miklosvar' a little too obvious? What news from Moscow?
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
Were you around in 1997? The Tories got hammered because of sleaze and Camelot. They were seen as corrupt and Labour were seen not as saviours of the NHS or of anything else for that matter, but as the future. The landscape is totally different now.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
This. There’s nothing wrong with Rishi. It’s the rabble he leads and the Tory brand that have meant they have next to 0 chance next year
The parliamentary Tory party has consisted almost exclusively of obnoxious baying c***s, poshos, a few selfmade men who almost everybody likes to despise, and the occasional barrow boy with a funny haircut, ever since I can remember. We've gone from hug a hoodie to levelling up. That's how out of touch they are, for all their expenditure on focus groups. Almost all of them have complete contempt for the majority of the electorate. But they keep winning elections. I think they'll win the next one too. Immigration.
No they aren't. In 1997 most Tory MPs had been to private school and Oxbridge, now most Tory MPs have been to state school and non Oxbridge universities.
The Tory Parliamentary Party is much less posh than it was. Labour on the other hand has gone the other way. The number of Labour working class MPs who worked on the shop or factory floor or down the mines is a fraction of what it was 50-100 years ago. While the vast majority of Labour MPs are now middle class and went to university
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
My rent isn't rising because I don't rent.
My mortgage isn't rising because its been paid off.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
So is the interest I'm getting on my savings.
While the supermarkets have near continuous 25% off wine offers
And there are many millions of oldies and GenXers similar to me.
As for affordable housing then that is very location dependent.
And full employment gives opportunities for those teenagers who prefer to get a job or training rather than go to university.
Now are there many millions of others who are struggling ?
Of course there are - young southerners with graduate debt especially so.
What we're seeing is a widening difference between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling with little hope.
Which is what I said in my initial comment.
We've likely seen such differences previously but, for example, whereas the 1980s were much easier for the southern middle class compared with the northern working class the opposite situation is now happening. Both surprising and ironic.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
I don't think that's the case for most working people, though, which is a problem for the government.
Remember to account for oldies and their triple lock pension increases.
As for workers there are some who are getting higher percentage pay rises than price rises and others who while getting lower percentage pay rises than price rises are getting higher monetary pay rises than price rises.
The key determinant of how well individuals are doing is pretty much their housing situation.
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
This. There’s nothing wrong with Rishi. It’s the rabble he leads and the Tory brand that have meant they have next to 0 chance next year
The parliamentary Tory party has consisted almost exclusively of obnoxious baying c***s, poshos, a few selfmade men who almost everybody likes to despise, and the occasional barrow boy with a funny haircut, ever since I can remember. We've gone from hug a hoodie to levelling up. That's how out of touch they are, for all their expenditure on focus groups. Almost all of them have complete contempt for the majority of the electorate. But they keep winning elections. I think they'll win the next one too. Immigration.
No they aren't. In 1997 most Tory MPs had been to private school and Oxbridge, now most Tory MPs have been to state school and non Oxbridge universities.
The Tory Parliamentary Party is much less posh than it was. Labour on the other hand has gone the other way. The number of Labour working class MPs who worked on the shop or factory floor or down the mines is a fraction of what it was 50-100 years ago. While the vast majority of Labour MPs are now middle class and went to university
Agreed, but I didn't say Tory MPs were mostly poshos. An obnoxious baying c*** doesn't have to be a posho.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
I’m not surprised. The constant barrage of negativity from the media ensures that.
Note that I am not implying all is rosy here, but the media have been in full on disaster mode since June 2016.
Look at the tweets I just posted from the USA, then compare them to Britain
Honestly, it’s ridiculous. The whole nation is having a nervous breakdown over some economic pain, and straining public services, but these are not akin to the catastrophes facing many other countries
eg We have nothing like the homeless/drug problem in America, a society ostensibly richer and ‘more successful’ than us
I wonder if the bigger a country is the bigger the extremes within it are.
Biden is doing a much better job than I expected and much of the USA will be doing very well - often for similar reasons why much of the UK is doing very well.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Come on - antisemetism is racist.
Jews Don't Count
The quoting of book titles isn't always acceptable.
I'm unsure whether you're making a general point, or saying that I've crossed that line
If the latter, I'm not at all sure how
I imagined that Robert, as a very sensible chap, was making the same point as me but with sarcasm
Just discovered something interesting. If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan. Strange. You don't think of him as old.
Interesting. We have seen a succession of relatively young PMs, Mrs May (62 at resignation) being the oldest since Thatcher (66). Sunak, Truss, Cameron, Blair, and Major were all PM in their 40s, Johnson and Brown in their 50s.
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
I’m not surprised. The constant barrage of negativity from the media ensures that.
Note that I am not implying all is rosy here, but the media have been in full on disaster mode since June 2016.
Look at the tweets I just posted from the USA, then compare them to Britain
Honestly, it’s ridiculous. The whole nation is having a nervous breakdown over some economic pain, and straining public services, but these are not akin to the catastrophes facing many other countries
eg We have nothing like the homeless/drug problem in America, a society ostensibly richer and ‘more successful’ than us
Get a grip, Britain
Why is anyone surprised that they have less money than they would have had without a global pandemic and a major war?
Junior doctors should take a pay cut for being stupid enough to demand a 23% wage increase in these circumstances
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Come on - antisemetism is racist.
Jews Don't Count
The quoting of book titles isn't always acceptable.
I'm unsure whether you're making a general point, or saying that I've crossed that line
If the latter, I'm not at all sure how
I imagined that Robert, as a very sensible chap, was making the same point as me but with sarcasm
It took me a while to understand your post. At first sight I didn't. And you can surely see how that's a bad thing.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Come on - antisemetism is racist.
Jews Don't Count
The quoting of book titles isn't always acceptable.
I'm unsure whether you're making a general point, or saying that I've crossed that line
If the latter, I'm not at all sure how
I imagined that Robert, as a very sensible chap, was making the same point as me but with sarcasm
It took me a while to understand your post. At first sight I didn't. And you can surely see how that's a bad thing.
I can see that it'd be a bad thing if participants to this site hadn't kept up with UK culture well enough to know that David Baddiel had written that book
What is Rishi offering the country? I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's offering not Truss and not Johnson. But as we saw with the polling, most people consider this Tory Party's period in Government a failure.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
The reason I got the Brexit vote right was that I listened to the kind of people who were disenfranchised by the Metropolitan elite, who were as tone deaf to the problems ordinary people were facing as you have appeared to be in your post. That's not meant to be offensive, I seriously mean it: you are totally out of touch.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
Out of touch, or simply demented?
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
Even voters who consider stopping unfortunates on boats a necessity doesn't stop them disliking the insensitivity of politicians promoting it. When Michael Howard asked voters to admit to having the same prejudices against gypsies he had they told him where to go. The campaign bombed and so did he.
This is where Sunak finds himself
If Sunak finds himself in the same position as Michael Howard, no doubt we can expect Labour to run racist posters against him.
Point of order: the Fagin ones were antisemitic rather than racist.
Come on - antisemetism is racist.
Jews Don't Count
The quoting of book titles isn't always acceptable.
I'm unsure whether you're making a general point, or saying that I've crossed that line
If the latter, I'm not at all sure how
I imagined that Robert, as a very sensible chap, was making the same point as me but with sarcasm
It took me a while to understand your post. At first sight I didn't. And you can surely see how that's a bad thing.
I can see that it'd be a bad thing if participants to this site hadn't kept up with UK culture well enough to know that David Baddiel had written that book
Had a great couple of days on my Wembley trip. Will be drinking Bedford dry to celebrate the mighty Owls promotion. Noon checkout tomorrow looks like a good decision
Rishi is pretty awful. An extremely wealthy nonentity who is out of his depth. He comes across as a schoolboy.
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
Rishi is fine. He's just not good enough to undo 13 years of failure
This. There’s nothing wrong with Rishi. It’s the rabble he leads and the Tory brand that have meant they have next to 0 chance next year
The parliamentary Tory party has consisted almost exclusively of obnoxious baying c***s, poshos, a few selfmade men who almost everybody likes to despise, and the occasional barrow boy with a funny haircut, ever since I can remember. We've gone from hug a hoodie to levelling up. That's how out of touch they are, for all their expenditure on focus groups. Almost all of them have complete contempt for the majority of the electorate. But they keep winning elections. I think they'll win the next one too. Immigration.
No they aren't. In 1997 most Tory MPs had been to private school and Oxbridge, now most Tory MPs have been to state school and non Oxbridge universities.
The Tory Parliamentary Party is much less posh than it was. Labour on the other hand has gone the other way. The number of Labour working class MPs who worked on the shop or factory floor or down the mines is a fraction of what it was 50-100 years ago. While the vast majority of Labour MPs are now middle class and went to university
In large part down to the decline in the numbers of people working down mines or or in factories any more, so hard to recruit as potential MPs. There are some who have been on working class service industry jobs, such as Rayner.
I wonder if the bigger a country is the bigger the extremes within it are.
Biden is doing a much better job than I expected and much of the USA will be doing very well - often for similar reasons why much of the UK is doing very well.
Large parts of America are really NOT doing well in a way we don’t comprehend in the UK
Comments
FPT Leon: "colorful"? Are you being impersonated by an American AI?
Very important, since trying to treat patients who have already developed the disease - and conducting clinical trials with them - is somewhere between very difficult and impossible,
Validation of a biomarker that predicts #Alzheimer's disease in multiple cohorts by assessing astrocyte reactivity (Ast+) in >1,000 people without cognitive impairment
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1663211379933995010
In the last week we have seen more chaotic manoeuvring from Suella, an absolute shambles on immigration, and a quite extraordinary announcement about price capping, and there's a disturbing undercurrent in the mortgage / lending market. They are managing the singularly impressive feat of appealing to nobody.
The tories are toast. Everybody knows it. I doubt whether opinion polls will change much right up to the day of the General Election.
SKS is a Tory and Labour are rubbish and not real Labour
He’s sub-Major, let’s be honest.
It’s only in comparison with the deranged Truss and the flamboyant larceny of Johnson that he seems “fine”.
I asked this yesterday and received no answer.
He's just not got the ability of say Blair and he's not got the bullshit of Johnson.
He is basically SKS but defending a long period of Government that most people consider at best ineffective.
Sunak is the Spurs of politics. Winning nothing.
Honestly except gay marriage, what have they honestly achieved? They couldn't even overhaul the planning laws to get more masts built!
A desperately weak leader. Probably the weakest PM of my lifetime.
Opened the Elizabeth Line.
Ended decades of acrimony about the EU.*
Destroyed the threat of UKIP.**
Saw Liverpool finally win the League.
*Sure, at the expense of decades of acrimony about Brexit, but hey.
**By turning the Conservative Party INTO UKIP…
One thing to look out for is that we want no more of Portillo faux-contrition moments. That can come later. They deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Indeed, I simply can’t think of one.
Even the Tory 1951-1964 administration, famously tired and debauched by its end, achieved historic housebuilding and considerable decolonisation.
Ireland is going through quite a serious migrant crisis of its own, and these Irish Brit-haters think it is somehow a UK conspiracy to flood Ireland via the ulster border. Also they hate the head of the ‘pro-migrant’ Gardai, coz he has ‘links with MI5’
Superb
And I was infamously and spectacularly wrong about Putin's invasion.
There is nothing un-interesting about the impending end of 13 yrs of Conservative Gov't and a new Labour one. Especially given the absolute shellacking the tories are in for on the day of the election, from a pincer Lab-LibDem movement.
It's going to be spectacular. 1997 Redux.
Of course that only benefits certain age groups in certain parts of the country and much of that might have happened anyway.
But don't underestimate how many people are doing very well.
Its the personalities of Conservative politicians which will bring them defeat not their policies.
If SKS is elected PM any time after October 11 2024, and serves five years, he'll be the oldest sitting PM since Harold Macmillan.
Strange. You don't think of him as old.
2. I am not seeing an answer to my question. Lab maj? Lab min? Not actually good enough at being right to say?
If the Tories got 34% at the next general election they would lose yes but honourably so, in fact with slightly more seats than Howard got in 2005 rather than the 1997 or 2001 style landslide defeat the headline voting intention suggests the Tories are heading for
And I wonder if people looked older in b&w pictures.
Things are bloody hard right now with eye-watering price increases in the supermarkets and horrendous utility bills. And 'affordable housing'? You are having a total laugh, right? Rental prices have rocketed and there's a terrible scarcity. Mortgage costs have been steadily rising and there's a shaky undercurrent at the moment in the lending market. I know people who have lost mortgage deals in just the last week.
No, most people are NOT doing very well. It's really, really, tough.
This is where Sunak finds himself
The one thing that will galvanise conservative support is complacency, arrogance and hubris demonstrated so ably by yourself
Just be satisfied that Starmer is very likely to be PM in late 2024
In fact 26 years since he left office, Major is still the longest serving Conservative PM since Thatcher and still won the most votes for any PM in history in his surprise 1992 re election victory. He left a growing economy and balanced budget for New Labour and low inflation, secured an opt out from the Euro while keeping the UK in the EU, won the Gulf War with Bush 41 and set the way for peace in Northern Ireland.
Very interesting talk and Q and A by Sir John at the Oxford Union in March here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W3vKLMtRgQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nutpaMhsfKE
I do wonder how he can read through the tears streaming down his cheeks....
Here’s a word cloud of modern Britain, published today.
https://twitter.com/luketryl/status/1663116848215347203?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg
Note that I am not implying all is rosy here, but the media have been in full on disaster mode since June 2016.
My mortgage isn't rising because its been paid off.
My pay rise is more than covering price rises.
So is the interest I'm getting on my savings.
While the supermarkets have near continuous 25% off wine offers
And there are many millions of oldies and GenXers similar to me.
As for affordable housing then that is very location dependent.
And full employment gives opportunities for those teenagers who prefer to get a job or training rather than go to university.
Now are there many millions of others who are struggling ?
Of course there are - young southerners with graduate debt especially so.
What we're seeing is a widening difference between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling with little hope.
Which is what I said in my initial comment.
We've likely seen such differences previously but, for example, whereas the 1980s were much easier for the southern middle class compared with the northern working class the opposite situation is now happening. Both surprising and ironic.
The reverse is also true, of course.
You need to have a mortgage all but paid off, but not be so old as to worry about the issues in health and social care.
It's a heft chunk of the population, but it doesn't look like a winning chunk. Especially when all the other voters are burying hatchets and looking to hurt the government above all else.
If they’ve nothing to hide why refuse to hand over the documents requested . This government is an absolute cesspit .
Athletics and cycling have different distances but with different participants in each.
Oh - not that kind of checkout…
I don't think that's the case for most working people, though, which is a problem for the government.
But all moot when a political party goes out of its way to aggravate as many people as possible.
It would be interesting to know though the details of those people who do have mortgages.
Someone who has £10k left on a mortgage they took out twenty years ago is in a very different situation to someone with a £200k mortgage taken out this year.
The average age of UK PMs taking office is 54
https://averagewiki.com/average-age-of-uk-prime-minister/
The streets of San Francisco
https://twitter.com/clownworld_/status/1661794713320697857?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
The streets of Philadelphia
https://twitter.com/4mischief/status/1663139738939711488?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
The streets of Chicago
https://twitter.com/abc7chicago/status/1663015439721529346?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
The Tory Parliamentary Party is much less posh than it was. Labour on the other hand has gone the other way. The number of Labour working class MPs who worked on the shop or factory floor or down the mines is a fraction of what it was 50-100 years ago. While the vast majority of Labour MPs are now middle class and went to university
As for workers there are some who are getting higher percentage pay rises than price rises and others who while getting lower percentage pay rises than price rises are getting higher monetary pay rises than price rises.
The key determinant of how well individuals are doing is pretty much their housing situation.
Honestly, it’s ridiculous. The whole nation is having a nervous breakdown over some economic pain, and straining public services, but these are not akin to the catastrophes facing many other countries
eg We have nothing like the homeless/drug problem in America, a society ostensibly richer and ‘more successful’ than us
Get a grip, Britain
Biden is doing a much better job than I expected and much of the USA will be doing very well - often for similar reasons why much of the UK is doing very well.
If the latter, I'm not at all sure how
I imagined that Robert, as a very sensible chap, was making the same point as me but with sarcasm
Thatcher was 65 when she was booted out.
Junior doctors should take a pay cut for being stupid enough to demand a 23% wage increase in these circumstances
It says £753 here but it references March 2022 so likely significantly higher now.
https://www.money.co.uk/mortgages/uk-mortgage-statistics-and-facts#:~:text=The UK demonstrates a mean,April 2021 to March 2022.
Even so £753 is a huge difference between those who have to pay and those who no longer do so.
Seattle
https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1660758006420881409?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
Portland
https://twitter.com/miss_misscat/status/1660466514804494337?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
New York
https://twitter.com/jeffyoungershow/status/1654513948899651587?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
Los Angeles
https://twitter.com/dawntj90/status/1629525612842065920?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
One more from Philadelphia
https://twitter.com/dailyloud/status/1662667431750385664?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg