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Deflating Rishi Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Deflating Rishi Sunak – politicalbetting.com
When Rishi Sunak says he aims to halve inflation, British voters think he aims to get… (7 June)Prices to decrease 47%Prices to increase more slowly 42%Don't know 11% pic.twitter.com/0llokiJO2Q
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...and I speak as a Maths teacher of 34 years' experience
RIP Ted Kaczynski, inspiration for the most understated footnote ever
https://twitter.com/balumcarnes/status/1667594570501062656
Unless their wages are rising faster than prices, they don't give a crap about a 'recovering economy'.
Now it's possible people will be better off in real terms by polling day, but it's a long way from certain.
FPT:
"Boris Quits" is well down the Mail's homepage - below the Amazon children survival story (lead), lady anglers quitting the team because of inclusion of a transwoman, Harry & Meghan, Dancing on Ice/Philip Schofield, UFOs, Channel4 Bloodbath, Coercive husband, Deportation madness (x2), More Schofield, Britney Spears, Football, WAGS, Assisted Suicide, Holly Willoughby dresses, Alien Invasion, Philip Schofield again, Marcus Rashford split, until finally:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12181049/The-poisonous-inside-story-led-Johnson-bombshell-resignation.html
Unlike the Sun, which is running "Boris isn't finished" stories.....looks like the Mail thinks he is.....
Even those who don't understand how inflation works understand when they can't buy things they used to be able to.
And now mortgage deals are getting hit.
Meanwhile the tories are in open civil war.
The idea of swingback is a total joke. If there's a swing in the polls it will come from a week or so's time ... to Labour.
First principle of politics: be united.
For months now, the Tories have been in "Bye bye Boris....anyway....." mode.
The man [Johnson] is a coward. Whenever faced with the consequences of his actions, he ducks. Whenever confronted with a choice that requires some courage, he swerves. Whenever asked to make good on a promise, he betrays. Whenever the choice is fight or flight, he flees.
In the richly storied history of British politics, there has been no ascent, peak, decline and fall quite like it. Some people have a go at trying to compare him with previous tenants of Number 10, but that is a futile quest. We have never seen anyone quite like him in Downing Street before and, if we are a lucky country, we will never do so again. Being Boris Johnson, he is exiting the stage without a shred of humility, a scintilla of remorse or a sliver of recognition that he brought this on himself.
He could have sought to have the committee’s verdict – which I am told is coruscating – overturned by the Commons. Someone who authentically believed himself to have suffered a miscarriage of justice might have attempted that. That he has chosen not to appeal to the Commons is an implied acknowledgment of how low his standing has sunk even among the Conservative MPs who put him in Number 10.
There is no martyr to see here. There is a man who serially debased the high office that he was never fit to hold. There is a man who turned government into a carnival of clowning, chaos and chicanery. There is a man who presided over an appalling regime of lockdown-busting and law-breaking in Downing Street which triggered entirely justified public outrage and was poison for the people’s faith in government.
Some of the officials who saw him at close quarters at Number 10 came away from the experience wondering whether he actually understood the difference between right and wrong and whether he ever really grasped the distinction between the truth and lies. Unless he has entirely succumbed to delusions, there must surely be a portion of his brain which knows that the person responsible for the destruction of his political career stares back him at him whenever he looks in a mirror. Yet he can never acknowledge, at least not in public, what is obvious even to some of those who were once counted among his most ardent supporters. It is the way of the coward to flinch from confronting the inescapable truth that the architect of Boris Johnson’s downfall is Boris Johnson.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/10/boris-johnson-allies-coordinated-attack-rishi-sunak/
This will of course rumble on because of the three (or more?) by-elections themselves, which will only add to the sense of disunity.
The Boris wing of the party. Or, rather, the wing of the party with whom Boris hitched a ride, are by no means finished. They are vociferous with powerful allies. And unfortunately for Rishi Sunak, they represent a part of the electorate that no other tory can reach - the kind who get in a lather about migrants, trans rights, and the bbc etc.
Meanwhile Nigel Farage, in full-on Trumpian mode, has declared that there's an establishment plot to reverse Brexit.
The tories are toast.
It is hard to disagree with you and Starmer is on course for a majority government in October 24
We are witnessing a 'Corbyn style' civil war in the conservative party but at least the first element has happened, in so far as Johnson has walked off with his malign entitlement attacking each and everyone, but himself thereby creating many opponents from his own side
I understand the privileges committee are very angry at the manner of Johnson's resignation, and the language used, that when they meet tomorrow to authorise the release their report, they are also considering further sanctions on Johnson which is inevitable
Parliament is sovereign and Johnson's Trump like behaviour has no place in our Parliament whatsoever, and it is essential that this threat to Parliament's authority is extinguished
The conservative party is facing meltdown not least from the voting public and the only hope for them is the majority of their mps vocally and publicly support Sunak at this time
It will be very interesting to see where we are in 6 months time, but for now a civil war is taking place but we all want to see Johnson and his sycophants marginalised, as has happened with Corbyn in labour
(Sample size 4,065, fieldwork 19-31 May)
Lab 39 (+7)
Con 32 (-12)
That's a slightly smaller swing that national polls are currently showing.
This would put Lab right on the boundary of getting a majority - it needs to gain 124 seats and this poll suggests it would gain 123-125 seats.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/10/labour-lead-tories-battleground-seats-poll-conservatives-election
Journalism needs to take a long hard look at itself in the mirror.
According to a poll for Best for Britain, Brighton Pavilion would elect a Labour MP for the first time since 2010 if an election was held tomorrow.
The poll put Labour support in the constituency at 32.7 per cent, up almost 10 per cent from their result in the last general election.
However, support for the Greens is forecast to crater; from 57.2 per cent at the 2019 election to just 28.4 per cent - a staggering 28.8 per cent drop.
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23578348.greens-will-lose-brighton-seat-next-election-poll-claims/?ref=ebln&nid=944
The Times has done it again. Anyone on here who still denies the lab leak theory is spouting Chinese propaganda. COVID leaked from the Chinese lab and then China, with the help of useful idiots in the West, covered it up and called anyone who disagreed a racist.
And on a happier subject, congratulations to Manchester City, a Team for all seasons.
The fault is ours (well, yours...) for not taking notice.
And, no, I don't mean they won't gain seats. I'm confident they'll be up on 2019. But it doesn't take much for dreams of 50 seats to turn into a mushy 18 or 19.
And, no, we will not move on from this yet. Not until we, the British people, have had our full say at the ballot box.
This clusterfuckshitshow does not preclude us ALSO including the cost of living crisis.
The Conservative brand is Ratnered.
https://twitter.com/k_flynny369/status/1667483144872706049?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
Brexit has not been a success so far. Any establishment ‘plot’ is simply to make it work better. Labour are being criticised for their reluctance to roll back brexit more.
The target for the Lib Dems must be one more seat than the Scottish nationalists. That way, they’ll get a voice in parliament, as the third party.
Maybe I’m too unforgiving, but it will be many more years until I trust the Sunday Times’ reporting of a pandemic virus after all the lies they told about HIV.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/11/new-nhs-guidance-could-prevent-same-sex-care-for-women
Or even a blonde one
I did read it this morning with the ridiculous JRM piece and it is as sycophantic as ever for the malign Johnson
Indeed, even my wife was angry and said shall we cancel it, but I know how much she enjoys the puzzles so no but, as I say at times on here, just ignore it if it gets to you and if necessary have a cup of tea (or coffee) and a rich tea biscuit
I quote Orwell’s description of doublethink almost in full because I think it offers a useful lens to understand the psychological state of the UK on the weekend that Boris Johnson — perhaps the most consequential British politician of this century — announced his retirement from parliament, if not yet from politics.
Seven years on, we are facing the worst cost of living crisis in history. Our economy has spluttered, trade in goods has fallen and life expectancy for the poorest may be falling, too. The lives of real people up and down the nation — in Remain and Leave areas — are diminished, crueller, thinner. Most of the free-trade deals vanished in a puff of smoke — Johnson couldn’t even deliver free trade across the United Kingdom. The much-vaunted extra money for the NHS? Patients face the longest waiting lists in history. The slash and burn of “unnecessary” regulations? Much of the absurd Retained EU Law Bill was scrapped when Brexiters came face to face with what it would actually mean.
The point is that almost every claim of Brexiters has collided with reality and crumbled. And yet we are still lost in a labyrinth a majority voted for, our politicians searching for a vocabulary that hints at the disaster of Brexit without admitting it, that seeks to tackle its symptoms without addressing its cause. Welcome to Doublethink Britain
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/johnsons-brexit-chicanery-has-led-us-into-doublethink-britain-78xj5bnrm
More broadly, policy regarding China for the last 20 years has been astoundingly naive in almost all areas. There is no independent public sphere in China, the government has its hand in everything, this should be obvious to anyone who has had any dealings with China.
Grant Shapps tells @SophyRidgeSky repeatedly that the World has moved on from Boris Johnson
‘Of course it’s moved on. Factually things have moved on’
Johnson and his allies disagree
It’s 8.37am - could be a long day ahead
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1667798300127313922?s=20
It may yet turn out that the virus had a natural origin but the evidence for that never looked overwhelming.
Interesting BBC article on Kong Yiji and unhappy memes from unemployed graduates in China:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-65425941
If economic prospects decline I wonder if that will have a material impact on the prospects of things kicking off against Taiwan as a distraction.
Rumours of the Mail having moved on from BADS (Boris Arslikhan Derangement Syndrome) have been greatly exaggerated.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12182029/MAIL-SUNDAY-COMMENT-Boris-tiger-undone-minuscule-nibbling-mice.html
Another is that victims of cons rarely call out the grifter properly; that would entail admitting that they (the victim) had done something stupid, greedy, dishonest or worse.
For the Conservatives, that's a problem. Because the British right has been had by an extraordinary conman. Nadine and Nigel are just the latest victims, and they deserve less sympathy than most.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_gojozdxok
Brilliant!
I think this @EmmaBurnell_ piece makes a fairly persuasive case that a logical place for Boris to end up would be as leader of Reform UK.
Not sure how likely, but the party is ideologically flexible and theoretically speaks to the 2019 coalition.
https://twitter.com/psythor/status/1667802215875002369?s=46
Could help to send the Tories down to a defeat of historic proportions.
From 2017 when Mrs May was in trouble.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2017/09/16/infamy-infamy-theyve-all-got-in-for-may/
What is problematic for him though is his low public opinion poll ratings, he seems like someone who hasn't come to terms with the fact that his time has passed.
“and that was Tiger Undone by Miniscule Nibbling Mice”
Labour may rely on gains from the SNP in Scotland therefore to get even a narrow overall majority UK wide
Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life.
He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial.
He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true.
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/boris-johnson-tom-bower-book-review-rory-stewart/
Eventually, personal experience catches up - people no longer grumble about mass unemployment, because although individuals still struggle, it's evident that most people are now able to get a job, and the main problem is now shortages of applicants. But there was a long lag time before people believed it.
Boris Johnson’s legacy? He has ruined Britain’s place in the world | Michael Heseltine
https://twitter.com/GdnPolitics/status/1667807776192733184
He'll rage and moan and scheme, and retain influence and support, not abandoned relevance entirely.
Tactical voting by Labour supporters could give Lib Dems and extra 8 seats.
All at the Tories expense.
If someone is brought down by political pygmies they were not a substantial figure themselves. If the argument is there were so many of the little figures they were able to do it then that also shows they were not great since they provoked enough small figures to bring them down.
My guestimate is around 30 seats.
It's more difficult to guage the likely score for the SNP because their fortunes stand on more of a knife-edge. I think they'd be doing well to score above 30 though.
Having said that, I think the trend favours the LibDems, especially if we pull off a victory in Mid Beds. Train loads are going there today.
Avoiding technical recession for exanple doesn't matter if people who used to feel comfortable feel they have to tighten their belts.
A cliché but true.
What an indictment of the system though that a Party can win 5% of the national vote but have little chance of winning a seat.
IIRC Jon Stewart got a bit of stick for being open at least to the idea of lab leak.
Get the price down to £105 if you want public gratitude, PM.