WTAF? He's supposed to be running the country, not schmoozing around in front of half full baseball stadiums.
Beyond the actual pointlessness of it all, why on earth does he think publicising it on his twitter account helps him one iota?
He is on a formal visit to the US and was invited to go to the baseball as part of his visit, don't try and suggest Starmer wouldn't jump at the chance to throw first pitch at the baseball if he gets the chance on a US visit if he becomes PM!
Of course he would and it would only be polite
The idea Starmer would not attend social events in the course of his duties is utter nonsense
You can make a reasonable case for it.
However, voters aren't entirely reasonable. And the public's perception of Rishi includes senses that a) he's a bit to fond of photo ops and b) he'd rather be in America than the UK. Doesn't matter if they're fair or not, those perceptions exist.
The baseball thing plays into both of those negatives; again, doesn't matter if that's fair or not. If Sunak's political antennae were better tuned, his response to the invitation would have been "lovely to be asked, but I have to be seen to be here for business not pleasure."
But Sunak's undoubted talents don't include well tuned political antennae.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
All of the failures of acquiescent modern BBC journalism on show on R4 Today this morning. A ten minute interview with the head of Palantir Technologies, to spout his panglossian cliches about AI and data grabbing, with virtually no pushback from Nick Robinson whatsoever. Essentially a long company advert, except on an issue with very far-reaching social, moral and military implications for all of us. Brian Redhead in the '80s would have had none of it, nor even John Humphrys in the 1990s.
It’s interesting how people listen to the same thing and hear different things. The thing I took away from the interview was Nick Robinson arguing that the UK was irrelevant in the AI issue, he even called the UK a “tiddler” compared to the U.S. and EU and China which was debunked quite forcefully by the head of Palantir who explained quite clearly to Nick Robinson that we have a very useful approach to privacy and data that the EU doesn’t have, we have a large proportion of the top Unis in the world, we have a great number of experts and a legal and cultural openness to be able to be a key player.
So whilst you see an advert for Palantir I see one for the UK despite our media’s finest trying to do the country down. Perhaps the British media might find that one day instead of criticising the country for being crap they could realise that the crappest part is the media and sort themselves out before casting their prejudices.
I would say he was just quoting from Rafael Behr's article there, right at the end of the interview.
On all the substantive points, there was absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever, in a way that I suspect John Humphrys would have been laughing at if he was listening.
No challenges whatsoever to the idea that any recent worries about A.I. "are pushed by people who don't have their product ready yet", that AI developments across the board should not be challenged because their main importance is in maintaining military supremacy, or why exactly why he was so pleased that the UK had a more "pragmatic" approach to data protection than many other western countries ; or what any of this meant.
Speaking personally, I found it one of the most worrying interviews I've heard on the BBC in a longtime, both in respect of the interviewiee's supremely confident commercial-military fanaticism on an issue affecting all of us, and as an indication that as our public broadcaster the BBC is no longer able to hold such people to account.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
I assume you are referring to HOL reform and PR but frankly with the serious issues facing the UK over the next few years constitutional reform is not going to be seen as a priority
We can't resolve the big issues *without* constitutional reform. People have had enough of politicians tinkering around the edges, they want wholesale reform.; Scotland divided. NI on the brink, England angry after the Brexit failed to deliver anything - even the reality that everyone needs to tactical vote is seen as a problem.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
There are extremist parties elected under FPTP too: see India, Bosnia and even the US. Other countries with PR don’t have significant extremist parties doing well: e.g., South Africa, New Zealand, Malta, Ireland, Japan.
Trump may be extreme but he was elected President in a Republic, the US Congress is overwhelmingly still the 2 traditional parties of Republicans and Democrats with FPTP and both party leaderships worked together to raise the debt ceiling and passed that last week.
As I said the anti immigration New Zealand First has often won seats with PR and held the balance of power in the last decade, SF are top party in Ireland and the ex political wing of the IRA, South Africa has a Marxist left EFF party with over 40 seats in its Parliament via PR.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Nearly 4m people voted for Farage's party in 2015. I dislike him and his politics, but I am a democrat. And you can't deny democracy by going straight to Hitler. If "we can't have democracy because Hitler" was a valid argument then we should just stop having elections because...
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
I assume you are referring to HOL reform and PR but frankly with the serious issues facing the UK over the next few years constitutional reform is not going to be seen as a priority
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
I hope at least for a change for a change of emphasis. More focus on helping families, and not just those earning at least £100 000 a year, removal of the 2 child limit for benefits that is counterproductive and cruel. More house building. Limited mitigation of the damage caused by Brexit. Some rebuilding of trust, including within the Union.
Labour has a realistic opportunity of being quite radical while appearing to be technocratic. Whether it will be, I don't know.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Nearly 4m people voted for Farage's party in 2015. I dislike him and his politics, but I am a democrat. And you can't deny democracy by going straight to Hitler. If "we can't have democracy because Hitler" was a valid argument then we should just stop having elections because...
Hitler may well never have come to power under FPTP, instead the Reichstag would have been dominated by traditional Conservative and Christian Democrat parties and the Social Democrats from 1920-1930 with the Nazis never having won a seat.
If you want Farage to get MPs with PR you also have to accept Farage may well end up Kingmaker one election and in the Cabinet and then maybe even one day UK PM
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
I assume you are referring to HOL reform and PR but frankly with the serious issues facing the UK over the next few years constitutional reform is not going to be seen as a priority
We can't resolve the big issues *without* constitutional reform. People have had enough of politicians tinkering around the edges, they want wholesale reform.; Scotland divided. NI on the brink, England angry after the Brexit failed to deliver anything - even the reality that everyone needs to tactical vote is seen as a problem.
I am not disagreeing with you, but labour have not even suggested they would back PR though I do expect them to roll out Brown's ideas on devolution
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Nearly 4m people voted for Farage's party in 2015. I dislike him and his politics, but I am a democrat. And you can't deny democracy by going straight to Hitler. If "we can't have democracy because Hitler" was a valid argument then we should just stop having elections because...
Hitler may well never have come to power under FPTP, instead the Reichstag would have been dominated by traditional Conservative and Christian Democrat parties and the Social Democrats in the 1920s with the Nazis never having won a seat.
If you want Farage to get MPs with PR you also have to accept Farage may well end up Kingmaker one election and in the Cabinet and then maybe even one day UK PM
Gosh, seriously interesting. What was the electoral system?
WTAF? He's supposed to be running the country, not schmoozing around in front of half full baseball stadiums.
Beyond the actual pointlessness of it all, why on earth does he think publicising it on his twitter account helps him one iota?
He is on a formal visit to the US and was invited to go to the baseball as part of his visit, don't try and suggest Starmer wouldn't jump at the chance to throw first pitch at the baseball if he gets the chance on a US visit if he becomes PM!
Of course he would and it would only be polite
The idea Starmer would not attend social events in the course of his duties is utter nonsense
Yes, it's pretty pointless, but it goes with the territory.
Caroline Lucas won’t be standing as a candidate in the next election.
I wonder what this means for Brighton Pavilion. A Labour win?
Quite possibly - wards in her constituency were some of the few not eviscerated by Labour in the locals.
It'll be interesting and I'd expect it to be much closer (though that note on the locals may suggest the opposite) - she definitely had a big personal vote. But my impression is that most people on the left think a single Green MP is a helpful reminder to the Commons of environment issues (I expect Corbyn to win again too if he stands, partly for similar reasons - many people like to have a few gadflies keeping the big parties honest). But the Green collapse in the locals was striking - does anyone here know what in particular prompted it?
If may mean that Green chances in Bristol diminish as the party will pour its resources in Brighton.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Nearly 4m people voted for Farage's party in 2015. I dislike him and his politics, but I am a democrat. And you can't deny democracy by going straight to Hitler. If "we can't have democracy because Hitler" was a valid argument then we should just stop having elections because...
Hitler may well never have come to power under FPTP, instead the Reichstag would have been dominated by traditional Conservative and Christian Democrat parties and the Social Democrats in the 1920s with the Nazis never having won a seat.
If you want Farage to get MPs with PR you also have to accept Farage may well end up Kingmaker one election and in the Cabinet and then maybe even one day UK PM
Gosh, seriously interesting. What was the electoral system?
Germany had proportional representation in the 1920s and early 1930s
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
Caroline Lucas won’t be standing as a candidate in the next election.
I wonder what this means for Brighton Pavilion. A Labour win?
Quite possibly - wards in her constituency were some of the few not eviscerated by Labour in the locals.
It'll be interesting and I'd expect it to be much closer (though that note on the locals may suggest the opposite) - she definitely had a big personal vote. But my impression is that most people on the left think a single Green MP is a helpful reminder to the Commons of environment issues (I expect Corbyn to win again too if he stands, partly for similar reasons - many people like to have a few gadflies keeping the big parties honest). But the Green collapse in the locals was striking - does anyone here know what in particular prompted it?
If may mean that Green chances in Bristol diminish as the party will pour its resources in Brighton.
Probably, having experienced the Greens in power, people didn't like the reality of it.
Interesting assessment from the Institute for the Study of War of the effect of the flooding on Russian defences on the east bank of the Dnipro.
If the Russians did blow the dam, the lack of coordination on their part is astonishing. But could it have been the Ukrainians after all?
The destruction of the KHPP dam is affecting Russian military positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The flooding has destroyed many Russian first line field fortifications that the Russian military intended to use to defend against Ukrainian attacks. Rapid flooding has likely forced Russian personnel and military equipment in Russian main concentration points in Oleshky and Hola Prystan to withdraw. Russian forces had previously used these positions to shell Kherson City and other settlements on the west (right bank) of Kherson. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces relocated their personnel and military equipment from five to 15 kilometers from the flood zone, which places Russian forces out of artillery range of some settlements on the west (right bank) of the Dnipro River they had been attacking.[6] The flood also destroyed Russian minefields along the coast, with footage showing mines exploding in the flood water.[7] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo, however, claimed that the destruction of the KHPP is beneficial to the Russian defenses because it will complicate Ukrainian advances across the river.[8] Saldo’s assessment of the situation ignores the loss of Russia’s first line of prepared fortifications. The amount of Russian heavy equipment lost in the first 24 hours of flooding is also unclear. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
Why would the Ukrainians do that? It makes zero strategic sense.
It was Russian incompetence and/or willingness to sacrifice assets so it didn’t look like it was them
Yes, it makes no sense for the Ukranians to have done it and what is perhaps more releant, they lack the means. It isn't easy to destroy a modern dam.
The Russians on the ther hand possessed the means and the motive. On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out sheer incompetent mismanagement. We've seen plenty of that in this war.
Plus, of course, the Russians had been keeping the sluice gates closed for the last several weeks with the effect that the reservoir was at its maximum and coming over the top of the dam in places. That looks to me like a deliberate policy to maximise the damage that was going to be caused when they blew it.
I suspect that their timing was off and what they wanted to do was to catch the Ukrainian attack on the ground that was going to be flooded, taking out many of these fancy, new, western tanks. They presumably thought that the attack was under way.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
Interesting assessment from the Institute for the Study of War of the effect of the flooding on Russian defences on the east bank of the Dnipro.
If the Russians did blow the dam, the lack of coordination on their part is astonishing. But could it have been the Ukrainians after all?
The destruction of the KHPP dam is affecting Russian military positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The flooding has destroyed many Russian first line field fortifications that the Russian military intended to use to defend against Ukrainian attacks. Rapid flooding has likely forced Russian personnel and military equipment in Russian main concentration points in Oleshky and Hola Prystan to withdraw. Russian forces had previously used these positions to shell Kherson City and other settlements on the west (right bank) of Kherson. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces relocated their personnel and military equipment from five to 15 kilometers from the flood zone, which places Russian forces out of artillery range of some settlements on the west (right bank) of the Dnipro River they had been attacking.[6] The flood also destroyed Russian minefields along the coast, with footage showing mines exploding in the flood water.[7] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo, however, claimed that the destruction of the KHPP is beneficial to the Russian defenses because it will complicate Ukrainian advances across the river.[8] Saldo’s assessment of the situation ignores the loss of Russia’s first line of prepared fortifications. The amount of Russian heavy equipment lost in the first 24 hours of flooding is also unclear. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
Why would the Ukrainians do that? It makes zero strategic sense.
It was Russian incompetence and/or willingness to sacrifice assets so it didn’t look like it was them
Yes, it makes no sense for the Ukranians to have done it and what is perhaps more releant, they lack the means. It isn't easy to destroy a modern dam.
The Russians on the ther hand possessed the means and the motive. On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out sheer incompetent mismanagement. We've seen plenty of that in this war.
Plus, of course, the Russians had been keeping the sluice gates closed for the last several weeks with the effect that the reservoir was at its maximum and coming over the top of the dam in places. That looks to me like a deliberate policy to maximise the damage that was going to be caused when they blew it.
I suspect that their timing was off and what they wanted to do was to catch the Ukrainian attack on the ground that was going to be flooded, taking out many of these fancy, new, western tanks. They presumably thought that the attack was under way.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Classic Russian disinformation.
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians * It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
My recollection of those days is that Blair was much more collegiate in style, than some later PM’s have been.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
My recollection of those days is that Blair was much more collegiate in style, than some later PM’s have been.
Blair was more a Liberal than a Socialist, he would have been fine with a coalition government with the LDs under PR.
Prescott was more a Socialist than a Liberal, he would certainly not have been fine replacing a majority Labour government under FPTP with a coalition government with the Liberals under PR
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
If only he'd fired Brown...
Yes, he should have moved him in 2001. It would have saved Labour and the country a whole heap of trouble.
Caroline Lucas won’t be standing as a candidate in the next election.
I wonder what this means for Brighton Pavilion. A Labour win?
Quite possibly - wards in her constituency were some of the few not eviscerated by Labour in the locals.
It'll be interesting and I'd expect it to be much closer (though that note on the locals may suggest the opposite) - she definitely had a big personal vote. But my impression is that most people on the left think a single Green MP is a helpful reminder to the Commons of environment issues (I expect Corbyn to win again too if he stands, partly for similar reasons - many people like to have a few gadflies keeping the big parties honest). But the Green collapse in the locals was striking - does anyone here know what in particular prompted it?
If may mean that Green chances in Bristol diminish as the party will pour its resources in Brighton.
Greens were not seen to have run the council well, coming up with plans for areas without consultation and ramming through extra bike lanes causing more traffic jams. The Green council leader & Deputy leader both stood in my ward and both lost. It will be interesting to see who Labour select - if they haven't got a candidate already. Another Peter Kyle would be good, another Lloyd Russell-Misogynist not. Rumour has it that the new Labour Council leader, Bella Sankey, a Starmer protege (it is said), is being groomed for higher things....
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
If only he'd fired Brown...
Yes, he should have moved him in 2001. It would have saved Labour and the country a whole heap of trouble.
Brown to be fair to him blocked Blair taking us into the Euro with his economic tests
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power........
Not at all, my dear young HY. Why do you think up to 20% of the country would like to see a Corbynite left party and te same for a Farage style Reform party? There is far more danger under the present voting system where is is comparatively easy for extremists to take over the entire party. They took over the Labour Party not so long ago, and the present profile of the Conservative leadership speaks for itself.
If you have strict proportional representation (which would have to be country-wide), then parties can easily split up, so that different shades of opinion are fairly represented. At present, if you are a Conservative supporter, you are forced to vote for the official Conservative candidate - don't you? - whatever sub-set of Conservatism he supports. Or vote for another party, as lots of traditional decent Conservatives did at the recent local elections.
If you have the best form of PR - the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member constituencies - a candidate would have to get at least 20% of support in that constituency to get elected. And if there is that amount of support for his position and policies, then those views have a right to be represented.
Up to now, the Conservative Party has benefited from our broken voting system. The appearance of bodies like the one fronted by Carol Vorderman helps to remove some of that distortion, as a look at their recommendations for the recent council elections shows.
I have the impression that now it is the Conservative point of view that is seriously under-represented on my local council. And the Labour point of view too, because there are no Labour councillors at all.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Nearly 4m people voted for Farage's party in 2015. I dislike him and his politics, but I am a democrat. And you can't deny democracy by going straight to Hitler. If "we can't have democracy because Hitler" was a valid argument then we should just stop having elections because...
Hitler may well never have come to power under FPTP, instead the Reichstag would have been dominated by traditional Conservative and Christian Democrat parties and the Social Democrats from 1920-1930 with the Nazis never having won a seat.
If you want Farage to get MPs with PR you also have to accept Farage may well end up Kingmaker one election and in the Cabinet and then maybe even one day UK PM
If people want Farage let them vote for Farage.
You either support democracy or you don't. Your posts have twice now said that people should not be allowed to vote for Farage if there is a chance that he could become important. That is *not* democracy.
Interesting assessment from the Institute for the Study of War of the effect of the flooding on Russian defences on the east bank of the Dnipro.
If the Russians did blow the dam, the lack of coordination on their part is astonishing. But could it have been the Ukrainians after all?
The destruction of the KHPP dam is affecting Russian military positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The flooding has destroyed many Russian first line field fortifications that the Russian military intended to use to defend against Ukrainian attacks. Rapid flooding has likely forced Russian personnel and military equipment in Russian main concentration points in Oleshky and Hola Prystan to withdraw. Russian forces had previously used these positions to shell Kherson City and other settlements on the west (right bank) of Kherson. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces relocated their personnel and military equipment from five to 15 kilometers from the flood zone, which places Russian forces out of artillery range of some settlements on the west (right bank) of the Dnipro River they had been attacking.[6] The flood also destroyed Russian minefields along the coast, with footage showing mines exploding in the flood water.[7] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo, however, claimed that the destruction of the KHPP is beneficial to the Russian defenses because it will complicate Ukrainian advances across the river.[8] Saldo’s assessment of the situation ignores the loss of Russia’s first line of prepared fortifications. The amount of Russian heavy equipment lost in the first 24 hours of flooding is also unclear. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
Why would the Ukrainians do that? It makes zero strategic sense.
How would it not make strategic sense to destroy the Russian defences? The flood water isn't going to stay there.
It renders that front impassable for weeks. And devastates a region of their own country for a decade.
If you read the assessment I quoted, you'll see that it casts doubt on the Russian assertion that the destruction of the dam is of any benefit to their defences.
That however does not mean they didn't think it would be and it had consequences for their defences they did not forsee. Lets face it the whole invasion has been a cock up from start to finish so its easily believable that they would only think of the effect on ukraine and not consider the damage to their own defences
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
If only he'd fired Brown...
Yes, he should have moved him in 2001. It would have saved Labour and the country a whole heap of trouble.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power........
Not at all, my dear young HY. Why do you think up to 20% of the country would like to see a Corbynite left party and te same for a Farage style Reform party? There is far more danger under the present voting system where is is comparatively easy for extremists to take over the entire party. They took over the Labour Party not so long ago, and the present profile of the Conservative leadership speaks for itself.
If you have strict proportional representation (which would have to be country-wide), then parties can easily split up, so that different shades of opinion are fairly represented. At present, if you are a Conservative supporter, you are forced to vote for the official Conservative candidate - don't you? - whatever sub-set of Conservatism he supports. Or vote for another party, as lots of traditional decent Conservatives did at the recent local elections.
If you have the best form of PR - the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member constituencies - a candidate would have to get at least 20% of support in that constituency to get elected. And if there is that amount of support for his position and policies, then those views have a right to be represented.
Up to now, the Conservative Party has benefited from our broken voting system. The appearance of bodies like the one fronted by Carol Vorderman helps to remove some of that distortion, as a look at their recommendations for the recent council elections shows.
I have the impression that now it is the Conservative point of view that is seriously under-represented on my local council. And the Labour point of view too, because there are no Labour councillors at all.
As about 15 to 20% of the country are hard right and 15 to 20% of the country are hard left, only FPTP keeps them voting Tory or Labour.
See the European elections where when we had PR Farage's party won twice, in 2014 and 2019.
Sunak is also not Farage and Starmer is not Corbyn. With PR Farage and Corbyn would still be leading their own parties with lots of MPs in Parliament
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Classic Russian disinformation.
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians * It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
Another example of the tendency of some on PB to go ad hominem if they disagree with something, especially about the war. Are you seriously suggesting that Chris - who has posted nearly 10,000 times without an obvious political agenda - is a Russian stooge?
The fact is that we don't know the cause of the dam collapse for sure, though the balance of evidence so far suggests the Russians. It's awful and much worse things are happening in the war and will continue to happen as long as it lasts. The basic issue remains the war and whether the aim should be a negotiated settlement or a total Ukrainian victory.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
You forgot one thing
all the people now praising current policies will be attacking those policies and vice versa
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Nearly 4m people voted for Farage's party in 2015. I dislike him and his politics, but I am a democrat. And you can't deny democracy by going straight to Hitler. If "we can't have democracy because Hitler" was a valid argument then we should just stop having elections because...
Hitler may well never have come to power under FPTP, instead the Reichstag would have been dominated by traditional Conservative and Christian Democrat parties and the Social Democrats from 1920-1930 with the Nazis never having won a seat.
If you want Farage to get MPs with PR you also have to accept Farage may well end up Kingmaker one election and in the Cabinet and then maybe even one day UK PM
If people want Farage let them vote for Farage.
You either support democracy or you don't. Your posts have twice now said that people should not be allowed to vote for Farage if there is a chance that he could become important. That is *not* democracy.
They can still vote for Farage under FPTP, just PR makes it more likely Farage will not only win MPs but end up Kingmaker or even in government. In 2015 with PR UKIP, which won about 13% but only got 1 MP, would have won close to 90 MPs and held the balance of power over Cameron. Whereas under FPTP Cameron won a majority
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
I assume you are referring to HOL reform and PR but frankly with the serious issues facing the UK over the next few years constitutional reform is not going to be seen as a priority
We can't resolve the big issues *without* constitutional reform. People have had enough of politicians tinkering around the edges, they want wholesale reform.; Scotland divided. NI on the brink, England angry after the Brexit failed to deliver anything - even the reality that everyone needs to tactical vote is seen as a problem.
I am not disagreeing with you, but labour have not even suggested they would back PR though I do expect them to roll out Brown's ideas on devolution
Roll out? They've been rolled out more times than the red carpet at No 10 has for foreign VIPs.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Labour will never introduce PR, unless it’s the unavoidable price of a coalition with the Liberals.
Interesting assessment from the Institute for the Study of War of the effect of the flooding on Russian defences on the east bank of the Dnipro.
If the Russians did blow the dam, the lack of coordination on their part is astonishing. But could it have been the Ukrainians after all?
The destruction of the KHPP dam is affecting Russian military positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The flooding has destroyed many Russian first line field fortifications that the Russian military intended to use to defend against Ukrainian attacks. Rapid flooding has likely forced Russian personnel and military equipment in Russian main concentration points in Oleshky and Hola Prystan to withdraw. Russian forces had previously used these positions to shell Kherson City and other settlements on the west (right bank) of Kherson. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces relocated their personnel and military equipment from five to 15 kilometers from the flood zone, which places Russian forces out of artillery range of some settlements on the west (right bank) of the Dnipro River they had been attacking.[6] The flood also destroyed Russian minefields along the coast, with footage showing mines exploding in the flood water.[7] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo, however, claimed that the destruction of the KHPP is beneficial to the Russian defenses because it will complicate Ukrainian advances across the river.[8] Saldo’s assessment of the situation ignores the loss of Russia’s first line of prepared fortifications. The amount of Russian heavy equipment lost in the first 24 hours of flooding is also unclear. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
Why would the Ukrainians do that? It makes zero strategic sense.
It was Russian incompetence and/or willingness to sacrifice assets so it didn’t look like it was them
Yes, it makes no sense for the Ukranians to have done it and what is perhaps more releant, they lack the means. It isn't easy to destroy a modern dam.
The Russians on the ther hand possessed the means and the motive. On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out sheer incompetent mismanagement. We've seen plenty of that in this war.
Plus, of course, the Russians had been keeping the sluice gates closed for the last several weeks with the effect that the reservoir was at its maximum and coming over the top of the dam in places. That looks to me like a deliberate policy to maximise the damage that was going to be caused when they blew it.
I suspect that their timing was off and what they wanted to do was to catch the Ukrainian attack on the ground that was going to be flooded, taking out many of these fancy, new, western tanks. They presumably thought that the attack was under way.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Classic Russian disinformation.
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians * It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
There’s two convincing explanations for the dam:
1. The Russians blew it up with explosives from the inside.
2. The Russians closed the sluice gates until water oper-topped the structure (we know that much is true), and that the water caused the dam to fail.
Which turns out to be the correct explanation will be known with time, but it’s pretty clear which side are responsible. Either way, it’s a war crime.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Classic Russian disinformation.
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians * It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
Another example of the tendency of some on PB to go ad hominem if they disagree with something, especially about the war. Are you seriously suggesting that Chris - who has posted nearly 10,000 times without an obvious political agenda - is a Russian stooge?
The fact is that we don't know the cause of the dam collapse for sure, though the balance of evidence so far suggests the Russians. It's awful and much worse things are happening in the war and will continue to happen as long as it lasts. The basic issue remains the war and whether the aim should be a negotiated settlement or a total Ukrainian victory.
Of course not.
But he is picking up lots of Russian disinformation in the interests of being “objective”. You don’t give equal weight to every piece of BS.
This one is (relatively) clear. It was the Russians. Whether it was planned/panic or local tactical/strategic is less clear
Interesting assessment from the Institute for the Study of War of the effect of the flooding on Russian defences on the east bank of the Dnipro.
If the Russians did blow the dam, the lack of coordination on their part is astonishing. But could it have been the Ukrainians after all?
The destruction of the KHPP dam is affecting Russian military positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The flooding has destroyed many Russian first line field fortifications that the Russian military intended to use to defend against Ukrainian attacks. Rapid flooding has likely forced Russian personnel and military equipment in Russian main concentration points in Oleshky and Hola Prystan to withdraw. Russian forces had previously used these positions to shell Kherson City and other settlements on the west (right bank) of Kherson. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces relocated their personnel and military equipment from five to 15 kilometers from the flood zone, which places Russian forces out of artillery range of some settlements on the west (right bank) of the Dnipro River they had been attacking.[6] The flood also destroyed Russian minefields along the coast, with footage showing mines exploding in the flood water.[7] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo, however, claimed that the destruction of the KHPP is beneficial to the Russian defenses because it will complicate Ukrainian advances across the river.[8] Saldo’s assessment of the situation ignores the loss of Russia’s first line of prepared fortifications. The amount of Russian heavy equipment lost in the first 24 hours of flooding is also unclear. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
Why would the Ukrainians do that? It makes zero strategic sense.
It was Russian incompetence and/or willingness to sacrifice assets so it didn’t look like it was them
Yes, it makes no sense for the Ukranians to have done it and what is perhaps more releant, they lack the means. It isn't easy to destroy a modern dam.
The Russians on the ther hand possessed the means and the motive. On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out sheer incompetent mismanagement. We've seen plenty of that in this war.
Plus, of course, the Russians had been keeping the sluice gates closed for the last several weeks with the effect that the reservoir was at its maximum and coming over the top of the dam in places. That looks to me like a deliberate policy to maximise the damage that was going to be caused when they blew it.
I suspect that their timing was off and what they wanted to do was to catch the Ukrainian attack on the ground that was going to be flooded, taking out many of these fancy, new, western tanks. They presumably thought that the attack was under way.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
That's an interesting idea. I have no view either way but it fits with something a Russian friend told me, that the Russian Government is weirdly legalistic. Not in the way that the rule of law is strong, or that people are overly litigious, but more in the way that the wording, rather than the intent, of the law are paramount. This leads the state to employ strangely wordy and technical reasons as to why it has the power to do something*. My opinion is that this weird fetishisation (my word, not hers) acts as a veneer on the raw power that is exercised by the state.
In the case of the Dam, deliberately bringing about a situation where the Dam is likely to fail wouldn't actually stand up in court because it's about intent as well as action. From my A-Levels, I seem to recall that even an unintended escape of water from a dam would result in liability, in the UK (or maybe just England).
* I read a book about Nuremberg, coincidentally just before the Ukraine War, and in it they said that the Soviet Judges (or rather Judge, the second 'judge' might have been the first Judge's handler) actually made some very interesting and innovative contributions to the format of the tribunal.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
If only he'd fired Brown...
Yes, he should have moved him in 2001. It would have saved Labour and the country a whole heap of trouble.
History will be kinder to Brown
He was a terrible PM
If only we had known what was coming later...
Brown does not deserve it. His rash actions precipitated the demise of the final salary pension.
Just because what came after was not up to much either doesn’t make Brown deserving of any less contempt than the others.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
My recollection of those days is that Blair was much more collegiate in style, than some later PM’s have been.
Blair was more a Liberal than a Socialist, he would have been fine with a coalition government with the LDs under PR.
Prescott was more a Socialist than a Liberal, he would certainly not have been fine replacing a majority Labour government under FPTP with a coalition government with the Liberals under PR
Prescott is a Labour man, a trade unionist not a Socialist. There’s a difference.
Interesting assessment from the Institute for the Study of War of the effect of the flooding on Russian defences on the east bank of the Dnipro.
If the Russians did blow the dam, the lack of coordination on their part is astonishing. But could it have been the Ukrainians after all?
The destruction of the KHPP dam is affecting Russian military positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The flooding has destroyed many Russian first line field fortifications that the Russian military intended to use to defend against Ukrainian attacks. Rapid flooding has likely forced Russian personnel and military equipment in Russian main concentration points in Oleshky and Hola Prystan to withdraw. Russian forces had previously used these positions to shell Kherson City and other settlements on the west (right bank) of Kherson. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces relocated their personnel and military equipment from five to 15 kilometers from the flood zone, which places Russian forces out of artillery range of some settlements on the west (right bank) of the Dnipro River they had been attacking.[6] The flood also destroyed Russian minefields along the coast, with footage showing mines exploding in the flood water.[7] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo, however, claimed that the destruction of the KHPP is beneficial to the Russian defenses because it will complicate Ukrainian advances across the river.[8] Saldo’s assessment of the situation ignores the loss of Russia’s first line of prepared fortifications. The amount of Russian heavy equipment lost in the first 24 hours of flooding is also unclear. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
Why would the Ukrainians do that? It makes zero strategic sense.
It was Russian incompetence and/or willingness to sacrifice assets so it didn’t look like it was them
Yes, it makes no sense for the Ukranians to have done it and what is perhaps more releant, they lack the means. It isn't easy to destroy a modern dam.
The Russians on the ther hand possessed the means and the motive. On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out sheer incompetent mismanagement. We've seen plenty of that in this war.
Plus, of course, the Russians had been keeping the sluice gates closed for the last several weeks with the effect that the reservoir was at its maximum and coming over the top of the dam in places. That looks to me like a deliberate policy to maximise the damage that was going to be caused when they blew it.
I suspect that their timing was off and what they wanted to do was to catch the Ukrainian attack on the ground that was going to be flooded, taking out many of these fancy, new, western tanks. They presumably thought that the attack was under way.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
They didn't tell their soldiers that they were being sent to invade Ukraine in February last year. Do we need an explanation for their units on the left bank not knowing the dam was going to be blown?
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Classic Russian disinformation.
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians * It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
Another example of the tendency of some on PB to go ad hominem if they disagree with something, especially about the war. Are you seriously suggesting that Chris - who has posted nearly 10,000 times without an obvious political agenda - is a Russian stooge?
The fact is that we don't know the cause of the dam collapse for sure, though the balance of evidence so far suggests the Russians. It's awful and much worse things are happening in the war and will continue to happen as long as it lasts. The basic issue remains the war and whether the aim should be a negotiated settlement or a total Ukrainian victory.
The aim should be to free Ukrainian civilians from Russian occupation. Everything the Russians have done points to their complete disregard for the welfare of civilians in areas under their control, and their active persecution of those suspected of not being loyal to Mother Russia.
If that can be achieved through negotiations then great, but otherwise we should be prepared to use other means.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
The BfB MRP is a bit suspect. By implication it says the Lib Dems will be left with 7 seats, which is at odds of predictions of 30 or so elsewhere. It would seem very strange, in the current climate, for them to lose half their MPs when all reports are of their potential to gain from the Conservatives. The loss of all the LD seats in Scotland is a recurring 'bug' in MRP methodology.
The best bet is to assume that 20 more seats will go to the Lib Dems than predicted. 4 or 5 from the SNP, 15 from the Tories (or them not falling to Labour as per the model).
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power........
Not at all, my dear young HY. Why do you think up to 20% of the country would like to see a Corbynite left party and te same for a Farage style Reform party? There is far more danger under the present voting system where is is comparatively easy for extremists to take over the entire party. They took over the Labour Party not so long ago, and the present profile of the Conservative leadership speaks for itself.
If you have strict proportional representation (which would have to be country-wide), then parties can easily split up, so that different shades of opinion are fairly represented. At present, if you are a Conservative supporter, you are forced to vote for the official Conservative candidate - don't you? - whatever sub-set of Conservatism he supports. Or vote for another party, as lots of traditional decent Conservatives did at the recent local elections.
If you have the best form of PR - the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member constituencies - a candidate would have to get at least 20% of support in that constituency to get elected. And if there is that amount of support for his position and policies, then those views have a right to be represented.
Up to now, the Conservative Party has benefited from our broken voting system. The appearance of bodies like the one fronted by Carol Vorderman helps to remove some of that distortion, as a look at their recommendations for the recent council elections shows.
I have the impression that now it is the Conservative point of view that is seriously under-represented on my local council. And the Labour point of view too, because there are no Labour councillors at all.
As about 15 to 20% of the country are hard right and 15 to 20% of the country are hard left, only FPTP keeps them voting Tory or Labour.
See the European elections where when we had PR Farage's party won twice, in 2014 and 2019.
Sunak is also not Farage and Starmer is not Corbyn. With PR Farage and Corbyn would still be leading their own parties with lots of MPs in Parliament
Oh dear, young HY! The EU elections were fought on the party list system, based on regions. If you remember, the EU insisted that we should fight EU elections with some system of PR, and the party list system, imposed on us by the then Labour government, was the least proportional one that the Labour Government could get away with. In other words, it was the one where the Party kept greatest control, and individual voters had least say.
I am still awaiting evidence to support your assertion that 20% of the country is hard right and another 20% hard left. If anything, the vast increase in support for the Lib Dems at the recent local elections would suggest that you might be mistaken.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
Returning to this, it's just reductionist, simplistic nonsense to think that PR is responsible for all these things. Aaron Lijphart's seminal work demonstrated that PR is associated with more effective political parties, but it is a modest effect. Countries' political systems are determined by their histories.
Case in point, Linke don't do well because Germany has PR. Their existence is because of the history of German reunification. Israel's political problems wouldn't evaporate if they switched to FPTP: you'd still get liberal MPs elected in Tel Aviv and hardline MPs elected in settler communities. Arab areas would return Arab MPs, and Russian immigrant areas would return MPs concerned with Russian immigrant concerns.
Another counter-example... France has two-round FPTP and, as you point out frequently, the FN are doing well there.
I always thought Carol Vorderman was a Tory for some reason. Huh.
She was. Like all the most interesting people, she seems to have moved to the left as she has got older. Or maybe the Tories just became harder to support. Either way, I think the fact they now have her as an enemy is indicative of their general fuckedness.
They thought the tanks were about to cross the river? Difficult to believe.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Classic Russian disinformation.
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians * It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
Another example of the tendency of some on PB to go ad hominem if they disagree with something, especially about the war. Are you seriously suggesting that Chris - who has posted nearly 10,000 times without an obvious political agenda - is a Russian stooge?
The fact is that we don't know the cause of the dam collapse for sure, though the balance of evidence so far suggests the Russians. It's awful and much worse things are happening in the war and will continue to happen as long as it lasts. The basic issue remains the war and whether the aim should be a negotiated settlement or a total Ukrainian victory.
The basic issue is defeating the invasion. That's isn't going to happen by negotiation in the current circumstances.
Meanwhile, on Russian state TV a Russian general casually proposes destroying the Kyiv reservoir dam to drown millions of people in the Ukrainian capital. “We are not holier than the Pope, are we?” https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1666713509735055362
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
My recollection of those days is that Blair was much more collegiate in style, than some later PM’s have been.
Blair was more a Liberal than a Socialist, he would have been fine with a coalition government with the LDs under PR.
Prescott was more a Socialist than a Liberal, he would certainly not have been fine replacing a majority Labour government under FPTP with a coalition government with the Liberals under PR
Prescott is a Labour man, a trade unionist not a Socialist. There’s a difference.
The idea that Two Jags is a socialist is quite funny. As OKC says, he's a party man.
Chris Mullin's reminiscences of him as a minister are not at all flattering. A ditherer and an incoherent thinker ill-suited to administration.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Ah, I was thinking of the SNP (if we can call them left!) and the situation in Scotland. I hadn't realised that the Tories had implemented something similar! The party of the free market has certainly developed some odd ideas around the meaning of 'free'.
I think under Rishi the Tories are going to get a hammering not far from 1997 levels, with an overall Labour majority, but it won't be due to Carol Vorderman or "tactical voting operations", it will be because the Tories don't deserve our votes at the minute.
The one saving grace preventing a complete Tory wipeout 1997 style is that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I always thought Carol Vorderman was a Tory for some reason. Huh.
She was. Like all the most interesting people, she seems to have moved to the left as she has got older. Or maybe the Tories just became harder to support. Either way, I think the fact they now have her as an enemy is indicative of their general fuckedness.
The Tories now being a bunch of right wing extremists on many issues (see the completely insane focus on woke) are just scaring socially liberal people away.
And Carol Vorderman is a big problem for the Tories. The problem with tactical voting is that voters need someone to do the maths to tell them which party is the best bet for an anti-tory vote at the ballot box.
And the one thing Carol Vorderman has is a reputation for being very good at Maths - so I do expect you will see people following the advice and swapping their Labour vote to Lib Dem or vice versa as appropriate.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
There are extremist parties elected under FPTP too: see India, Bosnia and even the US. Other countries with PR don’t have significant extremist parties doing well: e.g., South Africa, New Zealand, Malta, Ireland, Japan.
Trump may be extreme but he was elected President in a Republic, the US Congress is overwhelmingly still the 2 traditional parties of Republicans and Democrats with FPTP and both party leaderships worked together to raise the debt ceiling and passed that last week.
As I said the anti immigration New Zealand First has often won seats with PR and held the balance of power in the last decade, SF are top party in Ireland and the ex political wing of the IRA, South Africa has a Marxist left EFF party with over 40 seats in its Parliament via PR.
Trump may be extreme, but he was elected, under FPTP. I wasn't actually thinking of Trump: I was thinking more of the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and other members of the House Freedom Caucus. They are Republicans in name, but as extreme as most of your examples. I note you cannot respond to my other examples here, India and Bosnia. Add Bangladesh too!
Under PR, South Africa has elected a one-party majority government in every election since the end of apartheid. (You can argue it's not been a very good government, but it certainly wasn't dependent on anyone holding the balance of power.) The UK has had an extremist party holding the balance of power more often (the DUP in 2017). I note you cannot respond to my other examples here, Japan and Malta. Even Sinn Féin in Ireland is not that convincing: the party definitely has extremist roots, but today's Sinn Féin has moved a long way towards the centre.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
My legal advice to any residential landlord is straightforward. Sell. And to any would-be residential landlord. Don’t bother.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
If Blair was stopped by Prescott it is only because he wanted to be. In 1997 he really could have done whatever he liked.
My recollection of those days is that Blair was much more collegiate in style, than some later PM’s have been.
Blair was more a Liberal than a Socialist, he would have been fine with a coalition government with the LDs under PR.
Prescott was more a Socialist than a Liberal, he would certainly not have been fine replacing a majority Labour government under FPTP with a coalition government with the Liberals under PR
I always thought that Blair was just an Opportunist. We disagree again, young HY.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
I think under Rishi the Tories are going to get a hammering not far from 1997 levels, with an overall Labour majority, but it won't be due to Carol Vorderman or "tactical voting operations", it will be because the Tories don't deserve our votes at the minute.
The one saving grace preventing a complete Tory wipeout 1997 style is that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
However Rishi Sunak is no John Major either.
The Windsor Accord was a pretty solid achievement, and I suspect that keeping the lid on the bastards in his party takes more skill and determination than you'd think. Best PM since Blair without a doubt.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
My legal advice to any residential landlord is straightforward. Sell. And to any would-be residential landlord. Don’t bother.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Good riddance if so.
Would help restore balance to both the housing market and the economy to have houses be an expense to live in, rather than an "investment" to accrue risk free gains, without the risk of negative equity and without the risk of having to pay your own mortgage because the housing shortage means you'll always have a tenant no matter how run down your property is.
Going back to 1980s with people getting on the ladder with affordable homes doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Labour will never introduce PR, unless it’s the unavoidable price of a coalition with the Liberals.
And even then LAB would try as hard as possible to water it down to just apply to local elections, and any elected replacement for House of Lords, not for the Commons.
I always thought Carol Vorderman was a Tory for some reason. Huh.
She was. Like all the most interesting people, she seems to have moved to the left as she has got older. Or maybe the Tories just became harder to support. Either way, I think the fact they now have her as an enemy is indicative of their general fuckedness.
Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying. I remember her on QT seemingly quite right wing (well centre right). Maybe she has simply stayed the same while the Tory Party have marched off into the looney tune wilderness.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Labour will never introduce PR, unless it’s the unavoidable price of a coalition with the Liberals.
And even then LAB would try as hard as possible to water it down to just apply to local elections, and any elected replacement for House of Lords, not for the Commons.
Do people think pr for national elections could be introduced without a referendum? Technically yes it could however I think politically the answer is no.
If there is a referendum do you think PR would win? I personally think the answer is no.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
My legal advice to any residential landlord is straightforward. Sell. And to any would-be residential landlord. Don’t bother.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Good riddance if so.
Would help restore balance to both the housing market and the economy to have houses be an expense to live in, rather than an "investment" to accrue risk free gains, without the risk of negative equity and without the risk of having to pay your own mortgage because the housing shortage means you'll always have a tenant no matter how run down your property is.
Going back to 1980s with people getting on the ladder with affordable homes doesn't sound like a problem to me.
But that isn’t what’s happening is it? It’s leaving people homeless or paying unaffordable rents instead.
Like Labour’s VAT on private education policy this is arse about face. You want to deal with an unaffordable housing market and crap landlords in it for the cash? Build more houses so prices drop and rental returns fall.
(Yes, I know you’ve been arguing for this for years.)
I always thought Carol Vorderman was a Tory for some reason. Huh.
She’s discovered there are ‘likes’, ‘retweets’ and daytime TV talking heads slots by being a high profile twitter gobshite. She’s not alone.
Is it just that thought? Her tactical voting campaign seems quite well thought through (at least at first blush). And, as a genuinely superior mathematician, she has the credentials.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Any problems with supply are solely due to the fact that construction hasn't kept pace with population. The only answer to that is to build more, but the Government are siding with NIMBYs instead.
If a landlord sells up and exits the market then that doesn't adjust supply and demand net because either the landlord sells to another landlord (so no net change) or they sell to someone who used to be a tenant but is now an owner occupier instead (so 1 fewer supply, 1 fewer demand, no net change).
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Labour will never introduce PR, unless it’s the unavoidable price of a coalition with the Liberals.
And even then LAB would try as hard as possible to water it down to just apply to local elections, and any elected replacement for House of Lords, not for the Commons.
Do people think pr for national elections could be introduced without a referendum? Technically yes it could however I think politically the answer is no.
If there is a referendum do you think PR would win? I personally think the answer is no.
I think how people vote in referendums is frequently to answer some other question than the one on the ballot paper. The AV referendum vote failed because people were voting on whether they liked that the LibDems went into a coalition. The EU referendum was about immigration and austerity much more than it was really about EU membership. So, I think a referendum on PR could win precisely because referendums are unpredictable and can hinge on other issues!
I would say that's a pretty muddled article, speaking personally. There are the two separate issues of woke as "political correctness gawn mad" and a catch-all for reactionary bores, and then genuine or specific issues to do with modern identity politics, but that article is a mess.
It quickly veers off into generalised Fox-talking points about "Cultural Marxism". and by the end we're even on to Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, which are the classic conspiracist tropes.
The problem is the lack of a reasonable centre space, to discuss some of the issues connected with modern "woke", without lapsing either into saloon-bar boredom about the "modern world today", or conspiracist twaddle.
Both right and left are to blame for this, and sadly that article is not that space,
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
My legal advice to any residential landlord is straightforward. Sell. And to any would-be residential landlord. Don’t bother.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Good riddance if so.
Would help restore balance to both the housing market and the economy to have houses be an expense to live in, rather than an "investment" to accrue risk free gains, without the risk of negative equity and without the risk of having to pay your own mortgage because the housing shortage means you'll always have a tenant no matter how run down your property is.
Going back to 1980s with people getting on the ladder with affordable homes doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Of course, but there’s always a need for people to take short term lettings. You can’t have labour mobility without that. Imagine if the only way to take up a job in another part of the country is to buy a house there, or live in a hotel.
Essentially, that market was killed off, from 1965-88. Existing tenants got a one-off benefit, at the expense of future tenants.
People who had let out houses found they were devalued, once they were stuck with protected tenants. Frequently, they sold out to people like Nicholas Hoogstraten who had their own ways of persuading such tenants to leave.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Yes, I was being sarcastic. I think the Tory objective is to help better off renters who want to buy by forcing landlords to sell up, but in the short term at least the effect is to reduce the supply of homes to rent, pushing up rents and hurting renters, especially those who have no intention/ability to become homeowners. As even a fleeting acquaintance with economic logic would tell them, the problem isn't landlords but an insufficient supply of homes, that is boosting both rents and house prices. Build build build! And build council houses especially.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Any problems with supply are solely due to the fact that construction hasn't kept pace with population. The only answer to that is to build more, but the Government are siding with NIMBYs instead.
If a landlord sells up and exits the market then that doesn't adjust supply and demand net because either the landlord sells to another landlord (so no net change) or they sell to someone who used to be a tenant but is now an owner occupier instead (so 1 fewer supply, 1 fewer demand, no net change).
Build, build, build to boost supply.
Would argue that isn't quite true - when the children move out of this house, both will be buying houses and not renting properties first.
But yep the solution is build, build build which is why I suggested getting pension funds focussed on doing so.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Labour will never introduce PR, unless it’s the unavoidable price of a coalition with the Liberals.
And even then LAB would try as hard as possible to water it down to just apply to local elections, and any elected replacement for House of Lords, not for the Commons.
Agreed. I think too few realise the scale of opposition to PR in the party. The Labour Party is a vehicle to win general elections and govern alone, not as lead partner in a rainbow coalition.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
From Labour backbench MPs perspective, Prescott was right.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Labour will never introduce PR, unless it’s the unavoidable price of a coalition with the Liberals.
And even then LAB would try as hard as possible to water it down to just apply to local elections, and any elected replacement for House of Lords, not for the Commons.
Do people think pr for national elections could be introduced without a referendum? Technically yes it could however I think politically the answer is no.
If there is a referendum do you think PR would win? I personally think the answer is no.
Politically I think the critical determinant is whether it's a manifesto commitment. If it's in the manifesto, and they are elected on that manifesto, then there's no issue. This is one reason why Labour opponents to PR will fight to keep a commitment to PR out of the manifesto.
If it's not in the manifesto then I suspect that Labour MPs and Lords opposed to PR will be able to force a referendum, and the cross-party opposition will make it hard for a referendum to be won.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Tax changes, regulatory requirements, and the delay and expense of obtaining possession in the courts.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
My legal advice to any residential landlord is straightforward. Sell. And to any would-be residential landlord. Don’t bother.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Good riddance if so.
Would help restore balance to both the housing market and the economy to have houses be an expense to live in, rather than an "investment" to accrue risk free gains, without the risk of negative equity and without the risk of having to pay your own mortgage because the housing shortage means you'll always have a tenant no matter how run down your property is.
Going back to 1980s with people getting on the ladder with affordable homes doesn't sound like a problem to me.
But that isn’t what’s happening is it? It’s leaving people homeless or paying unaffordable rents instead.
Like Labour’s VAT on private education policy this is arse about face. You want to deal with an unaffordable housing market and crap landlords in it for the cash? Build more houses so prices drop and rental returns fall.
(Yes, I know you’ve been arguing for this for years.)
Yes that is my preferred solution and the only long term solution.
But having crap landlords exploiting our limited supply makes things even worse not better. Especially when those landlords are disproportionately influential towards policy making.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
My legal advice to any residential landlord is straightforward. Sell. And to any would-be residential landlord. Don’t bother.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Good riddance if so.
Would help restore balance to both the housing market and the economy to have houses be an expense to live in, rather than an "investment" to accrue risk free gains, without the risk of negative equity and without the risk of having to pay your own mortgage because the housing shortage means you'll always have a tenant no matter how run down your property is.
Going back to 1980s with people getting on the ladder with affordable homes doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Of course, but there’s always a need for people to take short term lettings. You can’t have labour mobility without that. Imagine if the only way to take up a job in another part of the country is to buy a house there, or live in a hotel.
Essentially, that market was killed off, from 1965-88. Existing tenants got a one-off benefit, at the expense of future tenants.
People who had let out houses found they were devalued, once they were stuck with protected tenants. Frequently, they sold out to people like Nicholas Hoogstraten who had their own ways of persuading such tenants to leave.
The Labour policy - or at least an outline of what it might be - seems to be to empower councils to build social housing, and to do so more cheaply than is now possible by granting them the powers to acquire land without the current 'hope premium'.
That in itself wouldn't kill the rental market - but it might well place a strong downward pressure on market rents.
Comments
However, voters aren't entirely reasonable. And the public's perception of Rishi includes senses that a) he's a bit to fond of photo ops and b) he'd rather be in America than the UK. Doesn't matter if they're fair or not, those perceptions exist.
The baseball thing plays into both of those negatives; again, doesn't matter if that's fair or not. If Sunak's political antennae were better tuned, his response to the invitation would have been "lovely to be asked, but I have to be seen to be here for business not pleasure."
But Sunak's undoubted talents don't include well tuned political antennae.
[Pence] and his team believe that there is a path. But seeing it does, to a degree, require a belief in the supernatural.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/07/mike-pence-longshot-bid-trump-president-00100838
On all the substantive points, there was absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever, in a way that I suspect John Humphrys would have been laughing at if he was listening.
No challenges whatsoever to the idea that any recent worries about A.I. "are pushed by people who don't have their product ready yet", that AI developments across the board should not be challenged because their main importance is in maintaining military supremacy, or why exactly why he was so pleased that the UK had a more "pragmatic" approach to data protection than many other western countries ; or what any of this meant.
Speaking personally, I found it one of the most worrying interviews I've heard on the BBC in a longtime, both in respect of the interviewiee's supremely confident commercial-military fanaticism on an issue affecting all of us, and as an indication that as our public broadcaster the BBC is no longer able to hold such people to account.
As I said the anti immigration New Zealand First has often won seats with PR and held the balance of power in the last decade, SF are top party in Ireland and the ex political wing of the IRA, South Africa has a Marxist left EFF party with over 40 seats in its Parliament via PR.
But, we also remember that when Labour last got 400 or so seats, they swiftly became as corrupt as the government they had replaced.
And, ideas like stopping new oil and gas exploration don’t fill us with any confidence.
Labour has a realistic opportunity of being quite radical while appearing to be technocratic. Whether it will be, I don't know.
If you want Farage to get MPs with PR you also have to accept Farage may well end up Kingmaker one election and in the Cabinet and then maybe even one day UK PM
If may mean that Green chances in Bristol diminish as the party will pour its resources in Brighton.
Of course, if Blair hadn’t won such a big majority in 97, then he would have instituted PR along the lines advocated by Lord Jenkins. It was Prescott who stopped him.
The BBC is floating an alternative possibility - that the dam had already been damaged last year, and the Russians deliberately raised to water level in the hope that it would fail. At least that would account for their apparently not knowing exactly when it would happen.
Labour would only have won 283 MPs with PR in 1997, compared to the 418 Labour MPs elected under FPTP in 1997
Flood Twitter with alternative explanations, amplify those which gain traction and drown out the truth
So far today you’ve given us:
* May be it was the Ukrainians
* It was an accident, damaged in fighting don’t you know. But maybe the Russians were just a little bit culpable
What’s next? MH17 hidden in the reservoir and the Ukrainians wanted to drain it to discredit the Russians?
Prescott was more a Socialist than a Liberal, he would certainly not have been fine replacing a majority Labour government under FPTP with a coalition government with the Liberals under PR
If you have strict proportional representation (which would have to be country-wide), then parties can easily split up, so that different shades of opinion are fairly represented. At present, if you are a Conservative supporter, you are forced to vote for the official Conservative candidate - don't you? - whatever sub-set of Conservatism he supports. Or vote for another party, as lots of traditional decent Conservatives did at the recent local elections.
If you have the best form of PR - the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member constituencies - a candidate would have to get at least 20% of support in that constituency to get elected. And if there is that amount of support for his position and policies, then those views have a right to be represented.
Up to now, the Conservative Party has benefited from our broken voting system. The appearance of bodies like the one fronted by Carol Vorderman helps to remove some of that distortion, as a look at their recommendations for the recent council elections shows.
I have the impression that now it is the Conservative point of view that is seriously under-represented on my local council. And the Labour point of view too, because there are no Labour councillors at all.
You either support democracy or you don't. Your posts have twice now said that people should not be allowed to vote for Farage if there is a chance that he could become important. That is *not* democracy.
He was a terrible PM
If only we had known what was coming later...
See the European elections where when we had PR Farage's party won twice, in 2014 and 2019.
Sunak is also not Farage and Starmer is not Corbyn. With PR Farage and Corbyn would still be leading their own parties with lots of MPs in Parliament
The fact is that we don't know the cause of the dam collapse for sure, though the balance of evidence so far suggests the Russians. It's awful and much worse things are happening in the war and will continue to happen as long as it lasts. The basic issue remains the war and whether the aim should be a negotiated settlement or a total Ukrainian victory.
all the people now praising current policies will be attacking those policies and vice versa
Yes, new labour were just as venal, self serving and corrupt as the Tories they replaced.
I’d hope SKS’s labour would rise above that but I have my doubts.
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
1. The Russians blew it up with explosives from the inside.
2. The Russians closed the sluice gates until water oper-topped the structure (we know that much is true), and that the water caused the dam to fail.
Which turns out to be the correct explanation will be known with time, but it’s pretty clear which side are responsible. Either way, it’s a war crime.
But he is picking up lots of Russian disinformation in the interests of being “objective”. You don’t give equal weight to every piece of BS.
This one is (relatively) clear. It was the Russians. Whether it was planned/panic or local tactical/strategic is less clear
In the case of the Dam, deliberately bringing about a situation where the Dam is likely to fail wouldn't actually stand up in court because it's about intent as well as action. From my A-Levels, I seem to recall that even an unintended escape of water from a dam would result in liability, in the UK (or maybe just England).
* I read a book about Nuremberg, coincidentally just before the Ukraine War, and in it they said that the Soviet Judges (or rather Judge, the second 'judge' might have been the first Judge's handler) actually made some very interesting and innovative contributions to the format of the tribunal.
Just because what came after was not up to much either doesn’t make Brown deserving of any less contempt than the others.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
If that can be achieved through negotiations then great, but otherwise we should be prepared to use other means.
The best bet is to assume that 20 more seats will go to the Lib Dems than predicted. 4 or 5 from the SNP, 15 from the Tories (or them not falling to Labour as per the model).
I am still awaiting evidence to support your assertion that 20% of the country is hard right and another 20% hard left. If anything, the vast increase in support for the Lib Dems at the recent local elections would suggest that you might be mistaken.
Case in point, Linke don't do well because Germany has PR. Their existence is because of the history of German reunification. Israel's political problems wouldn't evaporate if they switched to FPTP: you'd still get liberal MPs elected in Tel Aviv and hardline MPs elected in settler communities. Arab areas would return Arab MPs, and Russian immigrant areas would return MPs concerned with Russian immigrant concerns.
Another counter-example... France has two-round FPTP and, as you point out frequently, the FN are doing well there.
Meanwhile, on Russian state TV a Russian general casually proposes destroying the Kyiv reservoir dam to drown millions of people in the Ukrainian capital. “We are not holier than the Pope, are we?”
https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1666713509735055362
Chris Mullin's reminiscences of him as a minister are not at all flattering. A ditherer and an incoherent thinker ill-suited to administration.
I think under Rishi the Tories are going to get a hammering not far from 1997 levels, with an overall Labour majority, but it won't be due to Carol Vorderman or "tactical voting operations", it will be because the Tories don't deserve our votes at the minute.
The one saving grace preventing a complete Tory wipeout 1997 style is that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
However Rishi Sunak is no John Major either.
And Carol Vorderman is a big problem for the Tories. The problem with tactical voting is that voters need someone to do the maths to tell them which party is the best bet for an anti-tory vote at the ballot box.
And the one thing Carol Vorderman has is a reputation for being very good at Maths - so I do expect you will see people following the advice and swapping their Labour vote to Lib Dem or vice versa as appropriate.
Under PR, South Africa has elected a one-party majority government in every election since the end of apartheid. (You can argue it's not been a very good government, but it certainly wasn't dependent on anyone holding the balance of power.) The UK has had an extremist party holding the balance of power more often (the DUP in 2017). I note you cannot respond to my other examples here, Japan and Malta. Even Sinn Féin in Ireland is not that convincing: the party definitely has extremist roots, but today's Sinn Féin has moved a long way towards the centre.
One thing we can be sure of is that in the next Parliament, security of tenure will be matched by a return to “fair” (ie very unfair) rents. In essence, a reversion to 1965-88.
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Would help restore balance to both the housing market and the economy to have houses be an expense to live in, rather than an "investment" to accrue risk free gains, without the risk of negative equity and without the risk of having to pay your own mortgage because the housing shortage means you'll always have a tenant no matter how run down your property is.
Going back to 1980s with people getting on the ladder with affordable homes doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Not sure how I feel about this. I tend to regard ‘woke’ as a catch all for anything people don’t like as progress. However it makes some fair points.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-the-west-was-won-by-woke/
If there is a referendum do you think PR would win? I personally think the answer is no.
Like Labour’s VAT on private education policy this is arse about face. You want to deal with an unaffordable housing market and crap landlords in it for the cash? Build more houses so prices drop and rental returns fall.
(Yes, I know you’ve been arguing for this for years.)
If a landlord sells up and exits the market then that doesn't adjust supply and demand net because either the landlord sells to another landlord (so no net change) or they sell to someone who used to be a tenant but is now an owner occupier instead (so 1 fewer supply, 1 fewer demand, no net change).
Build, build, build to boost supply.
It quickly veers off into generalised Fox-talking points about "Cultural Marxism". and by the end we're even on to Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, which are the classic conspiracist tropes.
The problem is the lack of a reasonable centre space, to discuss some of the issues connected with modern "woke", without lapsing either into saloon-bar boredom about the "modern world today", or conspiracist twaddle.
Both right and left are to blame for this, and sadly that article is not that space,
Essentially, that market was killed off, from 1965-88. Existing tenants got a one-off benefit, at the expense of future tenants.
People who had let out houses found they were devalued, once they were stuck with protected tenants. Frequently, they sold out to people like Nicholas Hoogstraten who had their own ways of persuading such tenants to leave.
But yep the solution is build, build build which is why I suggested getting pension funds focussed on doing so.
If it's not in the manifesto then I suspect that Labour MPs and Lords opposed to PR will be able to force a referendum, and the cross-party opposition will make it hard for a referendum to be won.
But having crap landlords exploiting our limited supply makes things even worse not better. Especially when those landlords are disproportionately influential towards policy making.
That in itself wouldn't kill the rental market - but it might well place a strong downward pressure on market rents.