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Can the LDs become the 3rd party once again? – politicalbetting.com
Can the LDs become the 3rd party once again? – politicalbetting.com
Ed Davey’s party might have been smashed in the Stop Corbyn Tory surge at GE2019 but they have had one of their best parliaments ever in terms of winning Westminster by elections. They’ve taken three seats (two of them from third place) from the Tories and have a great chance of gaining another in Mid Bedfordshire if Nadine is made a peer in BoJo’s resignation honours.
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I can't see the SNP falling far enough for them to be overtaken, although I do expect them to go backwards.
Food inflation has fallen for the first time in almost two years as lower energy and commodity costs filter through to some staples including milk, butter and fruit.
Food inflation fell to 15.4 per cent this month, from 15.7 per cent in April, according to figures compiled by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the data firm Nielsen. The last time food inflation slowed was in August 2021. In fresh food, inflation fell from 17.8 per cent in April to 17.2 per cent this month.
While May’s figure is a little lower than the food inflation seen in April, it is still the second fastest annual increase the BRC has measured. Also, overall shop price inflation has edged up to high of 9 per cent this month, from 8.8 per cent the month before. This was the result of labour costs, energy costs for shops, contract prices and a weak pound which is only just starting to recover.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-food-inflation-falls-for-the-first-time-in-almost-two-years-0tqr9xj5t
Have they ever gained that many in one election? I'm pretty sure the answer's 'not since 1923.'
See, I've started to do some deep dives, and I've started wondering if seats like Epsom & Ewell might be in play, add in tactical ABC voting, with Labour voters voting tactically en masse and you'd need only a 7.5% swing on top of that to overturn a near 18,000 majority.
I think it's a daft assumption, but Mr Eagles said 'even if the SNP don't lose many seats.' So I was taking that to extremes.
Personally I think it's realistic to assume the SNP might lose twenty seats, mostly to Labour, but a couple of things give me pause: (a) there are some seats they could also pick up from the Tories and (b) nobody has got rich in the last fifteen years betting against the SNP. Even in 2017 which was their worst performance by far since 2010 they still won 35 seats.
On paper that should answer the question with "yes". The SNP look set to lose a stack of seats, so a similar stack of LD gains swaps the two over.
It is not impossible but I am not confident the SNP will fold as much as predicted
In other news Moscow comes under drone attack
Ought to be more interesting odds than offered for Labour majority.
Indeed the local elections suggest if the next general election was in England alone Starmer would win most seats but fall short of a majority and need LD support to form a government. If Starmer does form a majority Labour government it will be Labour MPs in Wales and Labour gains from the SNP in Scotland that likely take him over the line
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000208
The difference now of course is that Scotland and Wales and NI have their own parliaments for most of their domestic policy if there is a UK Tory government they didn't elect. England doesn't if there is a UK Labour government it didn't elect, nor does it even have EVEL formally either after the government wrongly in my view scrapped it in 2021. While the SNP to their credit don't allow their MPs to vote on English law, there is no guarantee Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs won't vote on English domestic policy if Starmer needs their votes to get it through
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/may/29/we-cling-because-where-else-do-we-go-when-its-over-for-jimmy-anderson-cricket
...But of course Anderson is more than his limbs, more than his labour, more than his records, more than simply another guy in a cap. And when he goes he will take with him not just his skills but an idea: the idea that playing Test cricket for England can be a vocation. Not just an ambition. Not just part of a career. Not just a string to a bow. But the sort of thing to which one devotes their life, their waking moments, an end to which every fibre of improvement is directed. This, I think, is the part we are not remotely prepared for...
And good morning to all; not very sunny here today. Sadly!
£100.00
15.70% £15.70
£115.70
15.40% £17.82
£133.52
It is worth noting, of course, that (a) Scotland loses two seats at the next General Election, and (b) that the SNP's seat number is pretty volatile. If the SNP replicates their 2017 performance, they'd end up with with 34 to 35 seats.
However.... I think a couple of things make it unlikely (i.e. no more than a 15-20% shot), that the LDs will do it:
(1) A large number of the SNP's seats are at threat from the Conservatives, not Labour. And it is unlikely the Cons will be gaining many seats in Scotland.
(2) There are 10-12 "easy" LibDem gains, but after that it gets pretty tough for them,.
Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development
Exclusive: If elected next year, party would allow officials to buy up land at fraction of potential cost as part of ‘pro-building’ agenda
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/29/labour-allow-local-authorities-buy-land-cheaply-for-development
This sounds dull, but is probably dead important. After all, the money that goes to owners of arbitrarily rationed developable land is one of the big reasons we can't afford nice things.
You even have TSE talking about Epsom and Ewell now, which has never been targeted and the LDs have been doing spectacularly well in Surrey Heath (3 more seats will be added to their control of the council shortly after delayed election of the the locals through a death of a candidate)
PS I'm not expecting the last 2 to fall but all the others are on the cards.
There are two moving targets: SNP losses and Lib Dem gains. Both are now the central case.
The question is how many seats change hands in each category.
If the SNP lose net 15 seats, they are down to 30. If the Lib Dems gain 16, they are up to 30.
Even leaving aside the "Blue Wall" in the Home Counties, there are quite a few ex Lib Dem seats in Devon and Somerset, plus places like Cheltenham, that look nailed on for the Lib Dems next time. Equally, there are at least 15 seats that look like Labour gains from the SNP, especially in the the greater Glasgow area, and I see no SNP surge against the Tories in the North East and the Borders, so no likely SNP gains.
If counties like Surrey also swing Lib Dem, then Ed Davey will outdo Paddy Ashdown for gains.
I think the odds favour the Lib Dems over the SNP at this point.
https://liveuamap.com/en/2023/30-may-drone-hit-a-building-at-profsoyuznaya-street-in-moscow
And possibly makes them more significant players in the housing market than they have been since Thatcher.
Definitely not boring.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/why-scottish-tory-mps-will-no-longer-vote-on-english-only-issues-3015212
Will they? Probably not.
Morally Ukraine should be able to blow the shit out of anywhere in Russia but in Ukraine’s interest to be the good guys whatever provocation.
Which all leads to interesting speculation. A false flag by Russia? Ukraine giving back some of what they've been given? And attempt by Ukraine to get Russia to move more air defence from the front lines to rear areas such as Moscow or St Petersburg?
What's interesting is that Moscow is hundreds of kilometres from the Ukrainian border, and yet the Russia air-defence systems only take them out over Moscow, despite Russia's much-vaunted detection systems. Shades of Mathias Rust?
Comparisons to McGrath on that basis are in the latter's favour, but not by a lot. Certainly you would say that record is comparable to Walsh's.
And played more tests than anyone other than Tendulkar, who was a batsman and throughout his career was literally undroppable.
Fantastic athlete and a remarkable talent.
An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare.
And still we have people on this site pushing the myth that planning is not the root of the problem.
Planning permission being granted should not inflate the price of land. The fact that it does by a factor of 27,500% sums up everything wrong with the system.
Especially the 10,000 families in B&B-style accommodation.
At the moment Starmer is at least trying to tackle the problems in the country, and Sunak is just putting his head in the sand and siding with NIMBYs.
I hate to say it, but at this rate I'll end up voting Labour at the next election. And I still don't like Labour, but there seems to be no alternative.
We know the bomber gap was a mirage, but I now wonder how wrong the West was about the Soviet military throughout the entire Cold War.
On the other hand, the area is much tidier than when VT was there; and he was amazed that people now swim off the 'beach' at Weston.
It was interesting to hear a local's view on a new high-density development.
By 1980 council housing had become associated with slums in the sky and edge of conurbation sink estates or in the worst cases slums in the sky in edge of conurbation sink estates.
A thin scattering about of council houses, especially in unaffordable rural areas, would work better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_and_Rye_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1990s
In Hasting and Rye in 1992, the Tories had a 12.3 percentage point lead over the Lib Dems and a 31.8 percentage point lead over Labour.
In Epsom and Ewell in 2019, the Tories had a 30.1 percentage point lead over the Lib Dems and a 36.3 percentage point lead over Labour.
So whilst Labour start further back in Epsom and Ewell, the Lib Dems are much further back than they were in Hasting and Rye.
Yes, I know, boundary changes etc., but I think the point stands.
Overall, there were 235 seats with a bigger Tory share of the vote in 2019 than Epsom and Ewell. It really isn't Tory heartland.
Owner occupiers look after and care for their home and its surrounding area much better than BTL landlords and tenants do.
Our housing model will be fixed when there are sufficient empty houses that slumlords who buy to let end up having to pay their own mortgage, as they find that there's no tenants who want to let it because they can either let a well maintained home instead at an affordable amount or buy their own instead.
However there might be a strategy over this; like the incursion into Belgorod, it may force Russia to move forces around, to protect more of their territory and deplete the forces at the active front. In this case, and air defence moved away from the front to protect Moscow or other settlements they care about, cannot be used to defend the front.
Therefore the more likely options are some sort of Ukranian special forces operation, a pro-Ukraine Russian terrorist organisation, or a false flag by the Russian military.
The bigger the scale, the more likely the latter options - I doubt that UA special forces can get 30 drones close to Moscow, unless they’ve been buying up DJIs from China and bringing them in that way.
An interesting feature of Ukranian social media in the last few days, is that there are official posts telling people not to share photos online, the suggestion being that such photos can help the enemy calibrate and better target their attacks.
He has rather good favourability ratings with 25-40 year olds, particularly those in their 30s, who favour their taxes being lowered over redistribution. If he can solidify the 50-64 year old group and win a chunk of the older Millennials (big ask) then there's possibly a game still on:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/millennials-who-like-rishi-sunak-but-not-tories-could-help-him-win-lpsszkbd2
@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 43% (+1)
CON: 28% (-2)
LDEM: 12% (-1)
GRN: 7% (+3)
REF: 5% (-)
via
@RedfieldWilton
, 28 May
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1663451175151366144?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Build. More. Houses.
The total land area covered in housing is around 5% at the moment, so you’d be adding 40% to housing land, which would dramatically reduce the uplift, while still adding about £50k in tax to the average cost of a new-build house.
Sunak is running a hardcore core vote strategy. He's not aiming for the middle. Its a losing strategy and it deserves to lose unless he changes course.
The main swing to Labour since 2019 is from 40-65 year olds who own their own home with a mortgage after the cost of living rise and Truss and Kwarteng budget disaster. Most under 40 renters voted Labour in 2019 even when the Tories won a landslide nationally.
Yes it might be nice to get more 30 to 40 year olds on the housing ladder and win a few more Tory voters from younger age groups at general elections but as 2019 proved the Tories can win without them. Building more homes in the greenbelt also sees more over 50s vote LD or Independent locally, as the local elections this month proved when the Tories lost control of most of their southern and home counties councils in a NIMBY revolt over Tory councils local plans to allow more homes to be built on green fields near them
Given we are really struggling for areas that can generate significant tax, and need to build shedloads of houses, windfall gains on planning permission should absolutely be shared with the state instead of split between farmers, developers and dodgy councillors.
All serious policies have winners and losers, of course, and governing is just about balancing them appropriately. But non-homeowners have been getting the shitty end of the stick pretty much ever since I can remember.
My view is that we need more housing of all tenures. If all this does is build big council estates, it's still a positive. But (with apologies for rehashing a hobbyhorse of mine) what I'd really like to see if the public sector as private developer - or, rather, as developer of mixed neighbourhoods. One problem with the current model of delivery is that all building impacts the existing population: visual impact, environmental impact, severance, increased traffic, and so on - but developers - quite reasonably - have an interest only in what they sell to their customers; they need planning permission, but that is pretty binary. If councils were able to develop themselves, they could not only provide the housing stock (of all tenures) that they require but also improve the lot of the existing population. And also, as noted above, recycle revenues back into the public purse.
As with any potentially good policy, there are risks and there are downsides: the risk is that the public sector hasn't got the best of records for developing lovely neighbourhoods. But I think we have moved on sufficiently since the 60s that that risk can at least be managed. And the downside is that less profit will go to landowners. I'm trying to think of a way of phrasing this which doesn't sound like 'hooray, the baddies lose out' because that is not what I mean; it's genuinely to be regretted, because profit provides incentive to do things, and also because landowners [sorry - f key has packed in] oten aren't top-hatted baddies but are broadly owned companies in which many pension unds have shares. It's just that in my view loss o proit to devlopers is to be regretted less than a serious shortage o housing.
Just a suggestion.
The utility of the policy is obvious - with the proviso that the details will determine just how useful it is.
Hurrah!
It's already been delayed six months, and allegedly the delay has cost a lot of money.
https://www.geplus.co.uk/news/a428-black-cat-road-scheme-to-go-ahead-as-legal-action-ends-26-05-2023/
There's always hope. Even if it's the John Cleese in Clockwise "It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand." sort of hope. And it won't be easy to please the Sunak-curious millenials without annoying an equal number of older voters.
I wonder why the thirtysomethings are relatively keen on Sunak and the fiftysomethings relatively unkeen? (First guess, gen X really don't like having a PM obviously younger than us erm.. them.)
The Onward report found millennials were more likely to reject the “vibes” of the Conservative Party, with 62 per cent believing the party deserves to lose the next general election.
In focus groups, it was found the top three descriptions of the party were “dishonest”, “incompetent” and “out of touch”.
They were more favourable towards Sunak. Feedback included that he “might be able to sort the economy out” and “if he can’t solve it for Tories, nobody can”.
Unless one thinks that the price of the LDs going into coalition with Labour, will be to bend over to the NIMBYs, the LDs having learned their lesson when they bent over on tuition fees last time out?
IMHO, as someone generally preferring of a Conservative government, there’s plenty of evidence that today’s 30 somethings are not getting more conservative as they grow older, because they aren’t buying houses and not having children.
As life expectancy rises, so people don’t inherit until their 50s and 60s, there’s at least as many pensioners worried about their children not being able to buy a house, as there are worried about their children’s inheritance. Which leads to the explosion in reverse mortgages, the next massive mis-selling scandal, and something I’ve just had to talk my own parents out of doing.
Sunak ranks relatively higher in the Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak group of PMs than he does in the Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak group of PMs.
The house my parents moved into in their 20s was £55k; in my 20s it was worth £360k. It is an ex council house. Allowing more private developers (whose profits are protected in legislation) to build more high price houses (which is what they always do) and flog them off to landlords or people who use them as "investments" (see money laundering) will not help my generation.
Taking back unused houses from landlords and investors, bringing back affordable housing as a domain of the state and not housing associations, and defining affordable housing as something people can actually afford (instead of 80% of local market prices) is what is really needed.
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/how-many-empty-homes-are-there-in-the-uk/
Using a $1m S400 to hit a $10k DJI drone, is a good way to quickly run out of air defence capability.