By inauguration day in 2021 80% of the USA forces that had been there a year earlier had been withdrawn, closing 5 bases and more or less ceasing air support for Afghan and other NATO forces. Only 2500 were left.
In theory Biden could have announced a complete reversal, but in reality the die was cast. Worth noting that the UK had pulled out combat troops in 2014, leaving only a few advisors, training units and embassy guards.
*"The Art of the Deal" consisting of a deal remarkably like the Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler. That didn't have any representative of the country being negotiated over either.
The problem always was occupying Afghanistan indefinitely was simply not viable with Western electorates, we should have just got Bin Laden and got out
Indeed so, though of course Bin Laden was hiding out in our ally and Commonwealth country of Pakistan.
By inauguration day in 2021 80% of the USA forces that had been there a year earlier had been withdrawn, closing 5 bases and more or less ceasing air support for Afghan and other NATO forces. Only 2500 were left.
In theory Biden could have announced a complete reversal, but in reality the die was cast. Worth noting that the UK had pulled out combat troops in 2014, leaving only a few advisors, training units and embassy guards.
*"The Art of the Deal" consisting of a deal remarkably like the Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler. That didn't have any representative of the country being negotiated over either.
One can only imagine the deal Trump would have struck with Kim Yong-Un - complete US withdrawal from South Korea in exchange for a few platitudes. Within 18 months, North Korean troops would have been in Seoul and Inchon and Trump would have been blaming Congress, the Senate or anyone else.
It's also clear his supporters favour abandoning Ukraine to Putin by withdrawing all US military and financial support but let's be clear - Republicans have "form" when it comes to abandoning allies - Nixon and Kissinger handed South Vietnam to the Communist north.
Someone on here was complaining about Biden being "anti-British" - Trump would sell out NATO and abandon Europe to Putin if he thought he could get away with it. He's a naive fool when it comes to foreign policy and a much greater threat to us if re-elected than a second Biden term.
Trump is tough on China over Taiwan though
He is a braggart, but his foreign policy has always been isolationist, and likely to remain that way.
In general, the USA pulling back from its world wide hegemony would probably be a good thing, but Taiwan and Ukraine likely to suffer.
US foreign policy under both Trump and Biden is just a mess. In both cases it's because they are simply opportunity grabbing little shits, and have no concern for the best interests of anyone else, and certainly not the bigger anyone else that is the world.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Nikki Haley says "Hey" from a somewhere deep in the woods of New Hampshire.
More attractive a candidate than Christie, with less baggage overall, and fewer downsides for Trump supporters.
South Carolina steel magnolia contrasted with New Jersey discredited hack.
Or am I missing something here?
The fact that you like her pretty much eliminates her from consideration. (She's smart and able. She'd be a good President.)
Giuliani is not having a good week. (Somewhat NSFW)
Rudy Giuliani's former assistant, Noelle Dunphy, who accused the former NY mayor of sexual abuse, harassment and wage theft, has filed a series of transcripts of audio files and ... wow. https://twitter.com/seth_hettena/status/1686750210180198400
Giuliani seems like Trump but with less self control, wealth, and competence.
Giuliani cut crime in NYC when Mayor
He seems to have increased crime in the USA since.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
Back to matters polling and the week's YouGov (well, last week's as fieldwork was a week ago) shows a 20-point Labour lead with YouGov again at the lower end of Conservative vote share.
England has 46-26-11 which is a 16.5% swing from Conservative to Labour and a 10% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat. That still puts Labour firmly in landslide territory with 210-230 Conservative MPs losing their seats allowing for a bit of tactical voting.
I cannot believe you didn't discuss the YouGov Scottish subsample.
Lab 36% SNP 27% Con 13%
I didn't because I leave Scottish sub-samples to someone (or everyone) else. The England numbers are of far greater interest and import.
I’m not entirely clear on why Biden is quite so terrible as a Democratic candidate? Apart from being too old of course, but that seems to be par for current US politics - it’s an old person’s game these days apparently.
He's old and makes a few gaffes but nobody actually seems to be able to point out as a President what he's actually done badly or wrong.
For an old guy he's actually pretty spritely, I know he fell over but he got up way faster and easier than any of my relatives would at that age.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan was a chaotic mess. Inflation has been high in the US, arguably fuelled by federal spending, and growth sluggish. Illegal immigration over the Mexican border remains a problem. He's presided over pretty poor relations with China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
You can defend him on each of these points in certain respects, and can argue he's had successes too, and that's all fine - I'd tend to agree on some of that. But I don't think you can realistically say you can't point to Biden policy failures.
I see the Afghanistan withdrawal as clear sighted and somewhat cynical on Biden's part. He was quite clear Afghanistan wasn't a priority for America and had no compunction about letting it go. The mess was inevitable but could have been managed better. Was it a policy failure? As far as the American interest is concerned, which is what Biden would judge himself on, I don't think so. A net benefit for Ukraine I think as a large part of the US supplied weaponry was originally earmarked for Afghanistan.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am and given your usual anti-Lib Dem hysteria, I'm not surprised you're no fan of either Davey or Harris.
I can just imagine how much you'd enjoy the "new" special relationship between Prime Minister Davey and President Harris - surely better than any of the other options on offer.
If Trump is convicted of the charges he faces and jailed and yet he still does win the GOP nomination and the US Presidency again is that the first time a leader of a nation has been elected while serving jail time? Not just any nation either but the most powerful nation on earth still.
It is amusing you cannot be a county, district or parish councillor for 5 years here if you get even a 3 month suspended sentence and you cannot be an MP if serving a sentence of more than a year but you can be the most powerful man on earth and US President even if serving a sentence of years in jail at the time you are elected
Its a shame they are federal charges rather than state. I assume that as soon as he is elected (which obviously I hope never happens) he will be able to pardon himself. He would be unable to do that if it were a state or local offence.
There may be charges in the Georgia case this month, which I believe are state offences.
Back to matters polling and the week's YouGov (well, last week's as fieldwork was a week ago) shows a 20-point Labour lead with YouGov again at the lower end of Conservative vote share.
England has 46-26-11 which is a 16.5% swing from Conservative to Labour and a 10% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat. That still puts Labour firmly in landslide territory with 210-230 Conservative MPs losing their seats allowing for a bit of tactical voting.
I cannot believe you didn't discuss the YouGov Scottish subsample.
Lab 36% SNP 27% Con 13%
I didn't because I leave Scottish sub-samples to someone (or everyone) else. The England numbers are of far greater interest and import.
In terms of whether Labour can get an overall majority or not the Scottish numbers may end up more important
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
By inauguration day in 2021 80% of the USA forces that had been there a year earlier had been withdrawn, closing 5 bases and more or less ceasing air support for Afghan and other NATO forces. Only 2500 were left.
In theory Biden could have announced a complete reversal, but in reality the die was cast. Worth noting that the UK had pulled out combat troops in 2014, leaving only a few advisors, training units and embassy guards.
*"The Art of the Deal" consisting of a deal remarkably like the Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler. That didn't have any representative of the country being negotiated over either.
The problem always was occupying Afghanistan indefinitely was simply not viable with Western electorates, we should have just got Bin Laden and got out
Indeed so, though of course Bin Laden was hiding out in our ally and Commonwealth country of Pakistan.
Yes but only as he fled there post invasion, had we focused on getting him straight away he may not have had the chance to flee
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am and given your usual anti-Lib Dem hysteria, I'm not surprised you're no fan of either Davey or Harris.
I can just imagine how much you'd enjoy the "new" special relationship between Prime Minister Davey and President Harris - surely better than any of the other options on offer.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
She would be the worst Democrat candidate since Michael Dukakis, an elitist coastal left liberal with near zero charisma
I don't see an absence of charisma at all - sometimes you can have too much charisma (ask Trump and Johnson) and while it may get you the occasional win, the fact remains the former lost and the latter was thrown out by his own Party.
The question for a Harris Presidential campaign is who she would pick as her VP and whether, if she had any sense, she could avoid going into the gutter with Trump because if it comes to name calling, she'll lose. Biden won by treating Trump as a naughty child and acting as the political grown up (which of course he was) and that appealed not just to "elistist coastal left liberals" (whatever that means) but to sensible centrist voters across America.
Let's not forget - he beat Trump 81 million to 74 million - a similar margin to the one Obama had over Romney. I presume you'd consider Obama a left liberal and Romney an elitist.
Giuliani is not having a good week. (Somewhat NSFW)
Rudy Giuliani's former assistant, Noelle Dunphy, who accused the former NY mayor of sexual abuse, harassment and wage theft, has filed a series of transcripts of audio files and ... wow. https://twitter.com/seth_hettena/status/1686750210180198400
Giuliani seems like Trump but with less self control, wealth, and competence.
Giuliani is not having a good week. (Somewhat NSFW)
Rudy Giuliani's former assistant, Noelle Dunphy, who accused the former NY mayor of sexual abuse, harassment and wage theft, has filed a series of transcripts of audio files and ... wow. https://twitter.com/seth_hettena/status/1686750210180198400
Giuliani seems like Trump but with less self control, wealth, and competence.
Giuliani cut crime in NYC when Mayor
He's a fundamentally different person than he was 20 years ago. Age and the demon drink have destroyed him. It's very sad really.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am and given your usual anti-Lib Dem hysteria, I'm not surprised you're no fan of either Davey or Harris.
I can just imagine how much you'd enjoy the "new" special relationship between Prime Minister Davey and President Harris - surely better than any of the other options on offer.
Back to matters polling and the week's YouGov (well, last week's as fieldwork was a week ago) shows a 20-point Labour lead with YouGov again at the lower end of Conservative vote share.
England has 46-26-11 which is a 16.5% swing from Conservative to Labour and a 10% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat. That still puts Labour firmly in landslide territory with 210-230 Conservative MPs losing their seats allowing for a bit of tactical voting.
I cannot believe you didn't discuss the YouGov Scottish subsample.
Lab 36% SNP 27% Con 13%
I didn't because I leave Scottish sub-samples to someone (or everyone) else. The England numbers are of far greater interest and import.
In terms of whether Labour can get an overall majority or not the Scottish numbers may end up more important
I suspect not - the Labour gains in Scotland will be the icing on the majority cake, baked in England - at least on these numbers.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
She would be the worst Democrat candidate since Michael Dukakis, an elitist coastal left liberal with near zero charisma
I don't see an absence of charisma at all - sometimes you can have too much charisma (ask Trump and Johnson) and while it may get you the occasional win, the fact remains the former lost and the latter was thrown out by his own Party.
The question for a Harris Presidential campaign is who she would pick as her VP and whether, if she had any sense, she could avoid going into the gutter with Trump because if it comes to name calling, she'll lose. Biden won by treating Trump as a naughty child and acting as the political grown up (which of course he was) and that appealed not just to "elistist coastal left liberals" (whatever that means) but to sensible centrist voters across America.
Let's not forget - he beat Trump 81 million to 74 million - a similar margin to the one Obama had over Romney. I presume you'd consider Obama a left liberal and Romney an elitist.
It would be funny if he won again. Funny for about ten minutes max, then the terror would kick in, but funny nonetheless
Biden winning would be a weird mix of intense relief and existential despair at the Free World being led by a clearly senile, weird, selfish old twat who was born in the Pleistocene
Senile, and yet weirdly cunning. For - despite his dementia - he forced Russia to invade Ukraine and has been puppet master behind the indictments of Donald Trump.
"Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will."
I'm not sure that's unique to fascism, but it is true.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
It's quite odd how perceptions differ. I don't really make known my agreement with almost all that you post, but I do. Davey though seems to me to be completely hopeless and always annoying. I'm a Tory and imagine I'll always vote so, but I'd like to have some sort of a viable alternative.
For what it's worth I think that the LDs would most likely be headed for government under almost any leader than Davey.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am and given your usual anti-Lib Dem hysteria, I'm not surprised you're no fan of either Davey or Harris.
I can just imagine how much you'd enjoy the "new" special relationship between Prime Minister Davey and President Harris - surely better than any of the other options on offer.
lol prime minister davey dream on just like jo swinson did
By inauguration day in 2021 80% of the USA forces that had been there a year earlier had been withdrawn, closing 5 bases and more or less ceasing air support for Afghan and other NATO forces. Only 2500 were left.
In theory Biden could have announced a complete reversal, but in reality the die was cast. Worth noting that the UK had pulled out combat troops in 2014, leaving only a few advisors, training units and embassy guards.
*"The Art of the Deal" consisting of a deal remarkably like the Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler. That didn't have any representative of the country being negotiated over either.
One can only imagine the deal Trump would have struck with Kim Yong-Un - complete US withdrawal from South Korea in exchange for a few platitudes. Within 18 months, North Korean troops would have been in Seoul and Inchon and Trump would have been blaming Congress, the Senate or anyone else.
It's also clear his supporters favour abandoning Ukraine to Putin by withdrawing all US military and financial support but let's be clear - Republicans have "form" when it comes to abandoning allies - Nixon and Kissinger handed South Vietnam to the Communist north.
Someone on here was complaining about Biden being "anti-British" - Trump would sell out NATO and abandon Europe to Putin if he thought he could get away with it. He's a naive fool when it comes to foreign policy and a much greater threat to us if re-elected than a second Biden term.
Trump is tough on China over Taiwan though
He is a braggart, but his foreign policy has always been isolationist, and likely to remain that way.
In general, the USA pulling back from its world wide hegemony would probably be a good thing.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
If Trump is convicted of the charges he faces and jailed and yet he still does win the GOP nomination and the US Presidency again is that the first time a leader of a nation has been elected while serving jail time? Not just any nation either but the most powerful nation on earth still.
It is amusing you cannot be a county, district or parish councillor for 5 years here if you get even a 3 month suspended sentence and you cannot be an MP if serving a sentence of more than a year but you can be the most powerful man on earth and US President even if serving a sentence of years in jail at the time you are elected
Particularly strange given rules in some states on prisoners or even ex-prisoner voting.
As it is I assume even if he was convicted appeals would see him not physically in prison at the time of the election.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
I'm happy to take a bet on both those predictions.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Really? I expect the Greens to have zero.
I didnt mean necessarily next elections but who wants the lib dems....answer no one they are a protest vote. There are people at least that actively want greens in power
Back to matters polling and the week's YouGov (well, last week's as fieldwork was a week ago) shows a 20-point Labour lead with YouGov again at the lower end of Conservative vote share.
England has 46-26-11 which is a 16.5% swing from Conservative to Labour and a 10% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat. That still puts Labour firmly in landslide territory with 210-230 Conservative MPs losing their seats allowing for a bit of tactical voting.
I cannot believe you didn't discuss the YouGov Scottish subsample.
Lab 36% SNP 27% Con 13%
I didn't because I leave Scottish sub-samples to someone (or everyone) else. The England numbers are of far greater interest and import.
In terms of whether Labour can get an overall majority or not the Scottish numbers may end up more important
I suspect not - the Labour gains in Scotland will be the icing on the majority cake, baked in England - at least on these numbers.
And the swingback train (surely it has to happen a bit) currently seems to be like ones of those delayed services where the arrival time keeps being pushed further into the future.
Haven't polls indicated only about 1/4 of the potential voting pool, at best, are never Trumpers? Being the most optimistic that he could capture all of those, and get them all to vote, and he somehow shook more people to their senses, Trump or Trump substitute would still be the only path?
Still, there's three anti-Trump candidates in the race, which shows at least some effort even if it is not much in the wider party.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
If Trump is convicted of the charges he faces and jailed and yet he still does win the GOP nomination and the US Presidency again is that the first time a leader of a nation has been elected while serving jail time? Not just any nation either but the most powerful nation on earth still
What a question
The world has gone mad
I dunno. If Trump is to be next US President then behind bars seems quite the spot for him. No nuclear suitcases are allowed in prisons I guess.
If Trump is convicted of the charges he faces and jailed and yet he still does win the GOP nomination and the US Presidency again is that the first time a leader of a nation has been elected while serving jail time? Not just any nation either but the most powerful nation on earth still.
It is amusing you cannot be a county, district or parish councillor for 5 years here if you get even a 3 month suspended sentence and you cannot be an MP if serving a sentence of more than a year but you can be the most powerful man on earth and US President even if serving a sentence of years in jail at the time you are elected
Its a shame they are federal charges rather than state. I assume that as soon as he is elected (which obviously I hope never happens) he will be able to pardon himself. He would be unable to do that if it were a state or local offence.
Not sure log haul expensive sunny California in the midst of a cost of living crisis was the best choice for Rishi's holiday with an election next year.
Maybe braving the drizzle and occasional sun in Cornwall like Cameron or Southwold like Brown or the Isles of Scilly like Harold Wilson would have been a better choice for him.
Back to matters polling and the week's YouGov (well, last week's as fieldwork was a week ago) shows a 20-point Labour lead with YouGov again at the lower end of Conservative vote share.
England has 46-26-11 which is a 16.5% swing from Conservative to Labour and a 10% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat. That still puts Labour firmly in landslide territory with 210-230 Conservative MPs losing their seats allowing for a bit of tactical voting.
I cannot believe you didn't discuss the YouGov Scottish subsample.
Lab 36% SNP 27% Con 13%
I didn't because I leave Scottish sub-samples to someone (or everyone) else. The England numbers are of far greater interest and import.
In terms of whether Labour can get an overall majority or not the Scottish numbers may end up more important
I suspect not - the Labour gains in Scotland will be the icing on the majority cake, baked in England - at least on these numbers.
For now but if Sunak gets some swing back and inflation falls further we would be back to hung parliament territory in England
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ed Davey has seen a lot of tragedy in his life. His dad died when he was four; his mum when he was a teenager. He and his brother were full time carers for several years while at school. An orphan he then went to stay with his grandparents and his grandfather shortly also died. He has a severely disabled son.
Despite that he seems a perfectly normal and well adjusted person, unlike many other politicians. You get the impression if he weren't leader of the Lib Dems he would be happy doing something else.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Fewer. Fewer seats, not less seats. (Although I am sure they will have more.)
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Really? I expect the Greens to have zero.
I didnt mean necessarily next elections but who wants the lib dems....answer no one they are a protest vote. There are people at least that actively want greens in power
Ok, so you mean longer term they will overtake.
They've had more success gaining local inroads, so they are more than just a protest vote (or at least protesting more things, by going full NIMBY in the locals), but I just cannot see how they truly break out - the other parties can borrow their green credentials, and the Liberals through to the LDs have proven resilient, even when nearly extinguished.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Fewer. Fewer seats, not less seats. (Although I am sure they will have more.)
Time will tell, if they have more seats after the next election I will start agreeing with the left view that voters are too stupid to vote
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
If Trump is convicted of the charges he faces and jailed and yet he still does win the GOP nomination and the US Presidency again is that the first time a leader of a nation has been elected while serving jail time? Not just any nation either but the most powerful nation on earth still.
It is amusing you cannot be a county, district or parish councillor for 5 years here if you get even a 3 month suspended sentence and you cannot be an MP if serving a sentence of more than a year but you can be the most powerful man on earth and US President even if serving a sentence of years in jail at the time you are elected
Its a shame they are federal charges rather than state. I assume that as soon as he is elected (which obviously I hope never happens) he will be able to pardon himself. He would be unable to do that if it were a state or local offence.
The last time a person ran for the US presidency from a prison cell was in 1992, when Lyndon LaRouche stood as the Economic Recovery candidate. In how many states was he either on the ballot or theoretically electable as a write-in?
I found this map on Wikipedia but no key for it. No other WP page seems to link to it.
I was wondering whether it was clear in any US states at that time that a) no ballots could be cast for LLR on their patch and b) no elector could vote for him either.
And what about Eugene Debs who ran as the Socialist Party candidate from prison in the 1920 election? He won more than 900,000 votes.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
"First independent measurement of zero resistance in LK-99
A team of scientists from the Physics Department of Southeast University, a top university in Nanjing, China, have reported measuring 0 resistance in a sample of LK-99 they synthesized from scratch."
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Nikki Haley says "Hey" from a somewhere deep in the woods of New Hampshire.
More attractive a candidate than Christie, with less baggage overall, and fewer downsides for Trump supporters.
South Carolina steel magnolia contrasted with New Jersey discredited hack.
I think it might be a little early to conclude that.
Trump's numbers in Iowa, if it were next month, would be huge. Next January ? We will see.
He's in huge legal jeopardy, and it's a long time until the nomination is settled.
There's some really great work from the NYTimes on Trump.
37% of Republicans are "Trump is the only one for me" 35% are "I like Trump, but he may not be the best choice" And then about 25% are "I would prefer it not to be Trump"
Right now, about half that middle block of 35% are backing Trump in the polls, but they are concerned about his electability in the Presidential election.
If someone else comes along and looks more electable, then they can win. And four or five months ago, that person looked like Ron DeSantis. But RDS has been a disaster.
For Trump to lose the nomination, you need the 25% of not-Trumpers to coalesce around a candidate, and - at the same time - you need that candidate to attract 60% of the "I like Trump, but am concerned about his electability."
How could that happen?
Well, Iowa. Trump will win Iowa (in all probability). But if there's only one obvious challenger, and that person has broad appeal, then it could be a very interesting Republican primary season.
And I think @williamglenn has got this one right: this is Chris Christie's opportunity. He can attract essentially all the 25% of the never-Trumpers, and he can be more electable than Trump. I think he's a really interesting bet, and at more than 20-1 for the Presidency, I'd be putting a little cash on.
Did you listen to the interview on Pod Save America ? I was quite impressed by his verbal facility.
You mean, Chris Christie's proven ability to bullshit with the best of 'em?
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
I am not offering a bet merely voicing an opinion you underestimate the anyone but the lib dems vote out there. I don't plan to vote next election, however if it looked like a lib dem was winning I would vote for any party to keep them out.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ed Davey has seen a lot of tragedy in his life. His dad died when he was four; his mum when he was a teenager. He and his brother were full time carers for several years while at school. An orphan he then went to stay with his grandparents and his grandfather shortly also died. He has a severely disabled son.
Despite that he seems a perfectly normal and well adjusted person, unlike many other politicians. You get the impression if he weren't leader of the Lib Dems he would be happy doing something else.
"First independent measurement of zero resistance in LK-99
A team of scientists from the Physics Department of Southeast University, a top university in Nanjing, China, have reported measuring 0 resistance in a sample of LK-99 they synthesized from scratch."
I’m not entirely clear on why Biden is quite so terrible as a Democratic candidate? Apart from being too old of course, but that seems to be par for current US politics - it’s an old person’s game these days apparently.
He's old and makes a few gaffes but nobody actually seems to be able to point out as a President what he's actually done badly or wrong.
For an old guy he's actually pretty spritely, I know he fell over but he got up way faster and easier than any of my relatives would at that age.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan was a chaotic mess. Inflation has been high in the US, arguably fuelled by federal spending, and growth sluggish. Illegal immigration over the Mexican border remains a problem. He's presided over pretty poor relations with China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
You can defend him on each of these points in certain respects, and can argue he's had successes too, and that's all fine - I'd tend to agree on some of that. But I don't think you can realistically say you can't point to Biden policy failures.
I see the Afghanistan withdrawal as clear sighted and somewhat cynical on Biden's part. He was quite clear Afghanistan wasn't a priority for America and had no compunction about letting it go. The mess was inevitable but could have been managed better. Was it a policy failure? As far as the American interest is concerned, which is what Biden would judge himself on, I don't think so. A net benefit for Ukraine I think as a large part of the US supplied weaponry was originally earmarked for Afghanistan.
Also, while it was a mess, the idea of a neat and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan belongs in fantasy.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Nikki Haley says "Hey" from a somewhere deep in the woods of New Hampshire.
More attractive a candidate than Christie, with less baggage overall, and fewer downsides for Trump supporters.
South Carolina steel magnolia contrasted with New Jersey discredited hack.
Or am I missing something here?
The fact that you like her pretty much eliminates her from consideration. (She's smart and able. She'd be a good President.)
Fact I like Haley, up to a point anyway, suggest she has more cross-over appeal than Christie, which combined with her being less off-putting to more Trump supporters than he is, is the core of my argument re: GOP dark horse prospects.
PLUS superior attraction of NH compared with CC for middle-of-the-road, swing voters.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
A Greens vs LDs seats handicap bet for the next GE might be quite fun. Get BF to list it. (I guess the line would be about LDs-20?)
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
A Greens vs LDs seats handicap bet for the next GE might be quite fun. Get BF to list it. (I guess the line would be about LDs-20?)
Surely it’s just a bet on how many seats the LDs will get?
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
The notions you build that premise on are highly confused IMO, but how do you get from it to the conclusion that the LDs will find themselves stuffed in the election?
I appreciate the anyone but LD sentiment, because I feel similarly about the Greens.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
A Greens vs LDs seats handicap bet for the next GE might be quite fun. Get BF to list it. (I guess the line would be about LDs-20?)
Surely it’s just a bet on how many seats the LDs will get?
Mostly that. But you'd always be worried about the sneaky green finger.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Fewer. Fewer seats, not less seats. (Although I am sure they will have more.)
It would be funny if he won again. Funny for about ten minutes max, then the terror would kick in, but funny nonetheless
Biden winning would be a weird mix of intense relief and existential despair at the Free World being led by a clearly senile, weird, selfish old twat who was born in the Pleistocene
Of all the hundreds of millions of choices, its remarkable that the choice is between those two!
It's a pity they both select at the same time, because otherwise the fact that one of them might choose someone else would probably force the other party to also choose another candidate.
Back over the pond, YouGov have released their poll for last week.
I would like to point out that SNP have the lowest average this year. Not a good indication for them with Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
I said it yesterday, but the SNP's best hope is identifying a wedge issue and trying to turn the by-election into a referendum on it. I said Brexit before, but having thought about it more going after SKS relentlessly on the two-child benefit cap might be their best bet. While the policy isn't unpopular UK wide, it probably very much is with SNP-Lab swing voters (who are more left wing).
Further to that - just seen an email from Mr Yousaf, from which we can conclude that the Labour U-turns on child poverty are indeed an issue selected by the SNP, as we both suspected.
The last time a person ran for the US presidency from a prison cell was in 1992, when Lyndon LaRouche stood as the Economic Recovery candidate. In how many states was he either on the ballot or theoretically electable as a write-in?
I found this map on Wikipedia but no key for it. No other WP page seems to link to it.
I was wondering whether it was clear in any US states at that time that a) no ballots could be cast for LLR on their patch and b) no elector could vote for him either.
And what about Eugene Debs who ran as the Socialist Party candidate from prison in the 1920 election? He won more than 900,000 votes.
While officially running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Lyndon LaRouche also decided to run as an Independent in the general election, standing as the National Economic Recovery candidate.
LaRouche was in jail at the time, having been convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in December 1988; it was only the second time in history that the presidency was sought from a prison cell (after Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs, while imprisoned for his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, ran in 1920). His running-mate was James Bevel, a civil rights activist who had represented the LaRouche movement in its pursuit of the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations.
In addition to the displayed states, LaRouche had nearly made the ballot in the states of New York and Mississippi. In the case of New York, while his petition was valid and had enough signatures, none of his electors filed declarations of candidacy; in the cases of Mississippi a sore-loser law was in place, and because he ran in that state's Democratic presidential primary he was ineligible to run as an Independent in the general. Ohio also had a sore-loser law, but it was ruled in Brown vs. Taft that it did not apply to presidential candidates. LaRouche and Beval drew 22,863 votes. (<0.1% of the popular vote).
[with map] Lyndon LaRouche was on the ballot in seventeen states (156 Electoral Votes). Those states with a lighter shade are states in which he was an official write-in candidate.
SSI - Based on the map, there were only 12 states where votes for LaRouche were NOT recorded; in addition to 17 states (actually 16 + DC0) where he was on the ballot, in another 22 he was an official write-in candidate
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
A Greens vs LDs seats handicap bet for the next GE might be quite fun. Get BF to list it. (I guess the line would be about LDs-20?)
Surely it’s just a bet on how many seats the LDs will get?
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
A Greens vs LDs seats handicap bet for the next GE might be quite fun. Get BF to list it. (I guess the line would be about LDs-20?)
Surely it’s just a bet on how many seats the LDs will get?
Quite likely zero MPs for the Greens.
Much as I would like to see some.
Next election: Lab 300, Con 260, SNP 40, LD 25.
No enthusiasm for Starmer. Big grey vote. Lots of Tartan diehards.
I know we’re all running out of TV drama to watch, so I sincerely recommend Transatlantic on Netflix. It’s not Succession, but it is a charming, quirky, happy-sad mini series about Americans spiriting Jews and Brit POWs out of 1940-1 Marseilles - and into Spain
It’s quite Wes Anderson. High production values. Genuinely Diverting. Moving at times
Plus it’s got the lovely blonde actress from Community
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
What about the bet though?
A Greens vs LDs seats handicap bet for the next GE might be quite fun. Get BF to list it. (I guess the line would be about LDs-20?)
Surely it’s just a bet on how many seats the LDs will get?
Quite likely zero MPs for the Greens.
Much as I would like to see some.
I think the Greens will probably hold Brighton Pavilion, although with a much reduced majority.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
Comments
I can just imagine how much you'd enjoy the "new" special relationship between Prime Minister Davey and President Harris - surely better than any of the other options on offer.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
The question for a Harris Presidential campaign is who she would pick as her VP and whether, if she had any sense, she could avoid going into the gutter with Trump because if it comes to name calling, she'll lose. Biden won by treating Trump as a naughty child and acting as the political grown up (which of course he was) and that appealed not just to "elistist coastal left liberals" (whatever that means) but to sensible centrist voters across America.
Let's not forget - he beat Trump 81 million to 74 million - a similar margin to the one Obama had over Romney. I presume you'd consider Obama a left liberal and Romney an elitist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiH97O542jA
For what it's worth I think that the LDs would most likely be headed for government under almost any leader than Davey.
Feels much like the American version of Rory Stewart for Tory leader, tbh.
Saw somewhere serving up slow-roasted bear, tonight. I just had reindeer.
As it is I assume even if he was convicted appeals would see him not physically in prison at the time of the election.
Unites the Never Trumps and the Like Trump But Think He Loses the General camps.
He has the fundraising. He's a good, bombastic performer.
Is he favourite? Nope. Is he likely to win? Nope.
But I think he's a better than 3% shot for the Presidency. It's a bet that he is able to outperform in Iowa. And I think that's quite a good trade.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66389069
Haven't polls indicated only about 1/4 of the potential voting pool, at best, are never Trumpers? Being the most optimistic that he could capture all of those, and get them all to vote, and he somehow shook more people to their senses, Trump or Trump substitute would still be the only path?
Still, there's three anti-Trump candidates in the race, which shows at least some effort even if it is not much in the wider party.
PS, good job you told us that reindeer was fake.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/21/georgia-trump-charges-fraud-election-2020
Maybe braving the drizzle and occasional sun in Cornwall like Cameron or Southwold like Brown or the Isles of Scilly like Harold Wilson would have been a better choice for him.
Perhaps Starmer will choose to go to Blackpool for his hols
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/rishi-sunak-california-first-holiday-disneyland/
Despite that he seems a perfectly normal and well adjusted person, unlike many other politicians. You get the impression if he weren't leader of the Lib Dems he would be happy doing something else.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/16/we-didnt-show-we-cared-enough-we-wont-make-that-mistake-twice-ed-davey-on-love-loss-and-the-lib-dems
They've had more success gaining local inroads, so they are more than just a protest vote (or at least protesting more things, by going full NIMBY in the locals), but I just cannot see how they truly break out - the other parties can borrow their green credentials, and the Liberals through to the LDs have proven resilient, even when nearly extinguished.
I found this map on Wikipedia but no key for it. No other WP page seems to link to it.
I was wondering whether it was clear in any US states at that time that a) no ballots could be cast for LLR on their patch and b) no elector could vote for him either.
And what about Eugene Debs who ran as the Socialist Party candidate from prison in the 1920 election? He won more than 900,000 votes.
"First independent measurement of zero resistance in LK-99
A team of scientists from the Physics Department of Southeast University, a top university in Nanjing, China, have reported measuring 0 resistance in a sample of LK-99 they synthesized from scratch."
https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1686805961124855810
I'm steering my view more towards "There's something interesting going on here."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/capitol-building-possible-shooter/?id=101960384
He grates on me in a way Danny Alexander, Nick Clegg, Steve Webb and David Laws did not, although I appreciate I'm not the target audience here.
PLUS superior attraction of NH compared with CC for middle-of-the-road, swing voters.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/volvo-estate-classic-car-axed/
We had a few Volvo estates: 960, V70. Practical and well-built, if rather staid. Truly terrible satnav in the V70.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
I appreciate the anyone but LD sentiment, because I feel similarly about the Greens.
Why is there only one way to say more?
British cuisine. Best in the world.
https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1686747573598453760
While officially running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Lyndon LaRouche also decided to run as an Independent in the general election, standing as the National Economic Recovery candidate.
LaRouche was in jail at the time, having been convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in December 1988; it was only the second time in history that the presidency was sought from a prison cell (after Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs, while imprisoned for his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, ran in 1920). His running-mate was James Bevel, a civil rights activist who had represented the LaRouche movement in its pursuit of the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations.
In addition to the displayed states, LaRouche had nearly made the ballot in the states of New York and Mississippi. In the case of New York, while his petition was valid and had enough signatures, none of his electors filed declarations of candidacy; in the cases of Mississippi a sore-loser law was in place, and because he ran in that state's Democratic presidential primary he was ineligible to run as an Independent in the general. Ohio also had a sore-loser law, but it was ruled in Brown vs. Taft that it did not apply to presidential candidates. LaRouche and Beval drew 22,863 votes. (<0.1% of the popular vote).
[with map] Lyndon LaRouche was on the ballot in seventeen states (156 Electoral Votes). Those states with a lighter shade are states in which he was an official write-in candidate.
SSI - Based on the map, there were only 12 states where votes for LaRouche were NOT recorded; in addition to 17 states (actually 16 + DC0) where he was on the ballot, in another 22 he was an official write-in candidate
AND NOTE MY AVATAR!
Much as I would like to see some.
CDU/CSU 25% (-2%)
AfD 21% (+2%)
SPD 17% (-1%)
Greens 15% (+1%)
FDP 6% (nc)
Left 5% (nc)
Others 11% (nc)
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm
It’s fewer.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
No enthusiasm for Starmer. Big grey vote. Lots of Tartan diehards.
I know we’re all running out of TV drama to watch, so I sincerely recommend Transatlantic on Netflix. It’s not Succession, but it is a charming, quirky, happy-sad mini series about Americans spiriting Jews and Brit POWs out of 1940-1 Marseilles - and into Spain
It’s quite Wes Anderson. High production values. Genuinely Diverting. Moving at times
Plus it’s got the lovely blonde actress from Community
Looks to me, like you UK PBers have perhaps found perfect solution for your plethora of potholes?
https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1590681326000431106
Oh, I geddit.
Where's the ham and pineapple?
Better.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0zNWswcqMg