No seat is safe: Tory by-election defences – politicalbetting.com
No seat is safe: Tory by-election defences – politicalbetting.com
Sometimes one question gives you every answer. Are we living through another 1996, or another 1991?
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https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1674746053030031361?s=20
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/just-stop-oil-pride-protest-b2367714.html
This year's local elections at the same stage of the cycle in England were NEV Labour 35%, Tories 26% and LDs 20%.
So Tories and LDs little different from 1995 but Labour much lower. On a forced choice of Sunak or Starmer as PM rather than just electing their local council I suspect some LD voters in May will go back to the Tories at a general election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_United_Kingdom_local_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Kingdom_local_elections
Well. Often forgotten that John Smith had huge poll leads, too.
As it stands Labour and Starmer are not without their problems, but they look like they can outrun the Tories and Sunak.
Hence the narrative shift to "maybe 2010 is the template; Labour recovered strongly in the runup to that election and Cameron nearly blew it." True, but some of the factors at play there (a big UKIP vote to squeeze; a real sense of pulling back from the economic brink) simply don't apply this time. And if the surge is going to happen, it needs to get going soon.
There are always Events, dear boy, but as time passes they will have to be damn big ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1997_United_Kingdom_general_election
The latest advice for travellers from the UK to France is to "avoid areas where riots are taking place" and check their travel insurance "provides sufficient cover"."
https://news.sky.com/story/foreign-office-issues-new-advice-for-uk-travellers-to-france-amid-ongoing-riots-12912791
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/jul/01/councils-in-england-hit-by-unsustainable-450m-bill-for-free-bus-passes
Black Wednesday probably sealed Major's Tories' fate with hindsight, and Smith would've won had he lived.
But, whatever you think of the man and his legacy, Blair really did seal the deal and turned a win into a landslide.
Essentially around 44,000 houses cannot be built despite having planning permission because of an issue to do with 'nutrient neutrality', which means that Councils cannot discharge conditions attached to planning permissions to allow work to start on site. In a very crude summary, the reason for this is that new housing development can add to 'nutrient loads' on protected european habitats sites - despite the fact that most of the problem is usually generated by agriculture and lack of investment in water infrastructure on the part of utility companies.
So even if you get planning permission, and spend years of time and hundreds of thousands of pounds in doing so, and pay off the landowners etc, then you slam straight in to an effective ban on housebuilding, which the government have little interest in doing anything about, other than to try and deflect blame by handing out pathetic 100k grants for local authorities to do solve the problem - although they could solve it immediately by submitting to judgement on this absurd case.
Good commentary by a planning lawyer: "If anyone voted for Brexit thinking that these sorts of problems would become a thing of the past, more fool them."
https://simonicity.com/2023/06/30/cg-fry-aa-post-pp/
Super cunning plan to get Smith on strike.
Anderson drops Head off Tongue.
Next ball Smith caught off Tongue.
I voted for Brexit thinking our politicians should and could then be more accountable to these sort of problems.
I voted for Brexit thinking that politicians being able to blame the EU then say "nothing I can do about it" would become a thing of the past.
An Australian lady in front of me missed both of those wickets at the loo. The England fan next to her says “you need to leave more often”.
The toppling of Mrs T and the disaster of the poll tax were awful, but actually most voters were not bankrupted by them. Compared with today government was modestly competent.
After the ERM disaster ordinary people lost their trust in the ordinary competence of the government, for good reason. Ordinary people were bankrupted by it. The Tories of course never recovered.
The sub issue is this: in 1991/2 Labour was still leftish; in 1996/7 it was Christian Democrat.
In 2023 the Tories have bankrupted their support base, except for older house owners (they have bankrupted their children of course).
This is 1996. The Tories cannot recover, unless Labour produces a leftish programme. They won't.
ICM were the first company to take Shy Tories seriously and try to factor their shyness into their polling.
See those red dots, about one a month, quite a way below all the others? That's ICM. Hence "gold standard" and "worst poll for Labour is the accurate one" tropes for PBers of a certain age.
The ICM/Guardian polls for 1996 were in the range Lab 45-50, Con 28-32, Lib 14-21
Now everyone tries to squeeze people out of their shyness, because it gives the right answers. The polls over the last week? Lab 43-48, Con 24-31, Lib 8-13. (Everyone is down a bit, becuase Greens and RefUK are up.)
It really is that bad for the Conservatives, and I don't see what cavalry is coming to save them.
However, I reckon it's more likely England will be chasing around 450 and get nowhere near.....
At least in this country - I assume the Australian version was better.
Amusing adverts though.
In the summer of 1992 the discussions were whether the Conservatives would ever lose.
@visegrad24
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Statement by the French police unions saying it’s a civil war & that the police will have to form "the resistance" as gov. is weak
“The police are in combat because we are at war. Tomorrow we’ll be in resistance & the gov. will have to become aware of it”
https://twitter.com/visegrad24
They have done the same with most of the "foriegn" lagers you see widely advetised in the Uk, Stella etc etc etc
You're just too blind to see it.
A general election next year will only be five years since Corbyn's defeat in 2019, and four years since Corbyn was declared persona non grata following his response to the report into anti-semitism in the Labour party.
You can be sure that there will be lots of social media advertising from astroturf groups warning voters of the dangers lurking in the Labour party. I'm not convinced that Labour and Starmer have the campaigning abilities to present a message that would neutralise that fearmongering.
The consensus was Labour couldn't possibly win with a Boundary re-distribution and all. Nor could they possibly produce a more Centrist manifesto.
He might not have been as popular as Smith would have been in Scotland or among old style Labour voters but Blair was very popular among younger and more affluent voters and in southern England.
It also set the direction of travel for Blair's most significant policy successes - they didn't commit to Tory spending policy purely to avoid scaring the horses.
https://youtu.be/uWxcnl8PL_o
Only the LDs really get much bigger swings to them in by elections from the Conservatives than the national polls would suggest, as they are the classic protest vote for the middle of the road voter and also they are far better on the ground activists than Labour, flooding the area with multiple leaflets and workers and also getting more accurate canvass data
Not to mention the ability to make themselves look ridiculous - I don't think even the current government has reached the nadir of John Major's 'spam fritter' moment.
The only thing left for Starmer & Co. is to avoid a May style self destruct during the campaign.
Which is why, I think, they are being very, very cautious.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/01/tories-mass-exodus-parliament-mps-quit-commons
So am I.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46692421
Edit: but how about Ms Coffey and the turnips?
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/mar/18/therese-coffeys-eat-turnips-message-leaves-bitter-taste-after-uks-biggest-grower-gives-up
Starmer doesn’t need to be Blair to win, but the size of Labour’s win in 1997 was in large part due to Blair.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/07/01/trump-2020-election-arizona-governor-doug-ducey/
… The extent of Trump’s efforts to cajole Ducey into helping him stay in power have not before been reported, even as other efforts by Trump’s lawyer and allies to pressure Arizona officials have been made public. Ducey told reporters in December 2020 that he and Trump had spoken, but he declined to disclose the contents of the call then or in the more than two years since. Although he disagreed with Trump about the outcome of the election, Ducey has sought to avoid a public battle with Trump...
"Christie said, noting about Trump: “I don’t think he’s ever gone up against somebody who knows how to do what he does. He’s never run against somebody from New Jersey who understands what the New York thing is and what he’s all about. For people like me, who’ve grown up here and lived my whole life in this atmosphere, he’s just one of a lot of people I know who have that personality. He knows I know what his game is.” "
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/opinion/chris-christie-florida-trump.html
You just don't seem able to appreciate how utterly despised your lot are the moment.
But Old Bexley & Sidcup was a 10% swing when polls were roughly tied nationally, a national swing of 5-6%. So it still showed a better swing to Labour when challenging.
Departing Tory MPs who spoke to the Observer cited a whole range of reasons for deciding to leave Westminster. “You shouldn’t underestimate the extent to which being an MP has become not particularly pleasant,” said one. “The amount of abuse that’s thrown at us has increased, the conditions have become worse.”
Politicians, as a whole, have an image of acting immaturely, behaving with partisan spirit, not answering questions, making excuses, and seeing issues in rough shades of black and white. They hurl meaningless abuse while ignoring the question. They pretend to see no good in the other side.
So is it surprising that they are treated roughly?
However all MPs regardless of party face much more abuse than pre 2000, particularly because of the growth of social media.
Before at most they would get the odd abusive letter or be shouted at occasionally in their local street
For example, one thing I thought was not on was Matt Hancock during the pandemic, any time he was ever seen out in public spending an hour or two with his kids, people took photos and all over social media.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp
But before that scandal even broke, people were taking photos of him with his kids, and basically going f##k get back to work you lazy f##ker, why aren't you at work etc.
That was not on.
(I did actually get that as an answer in a politics essay once.)