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Lab’s by-election record has been mediocre – politicalbetting.com
Lab’s by-election record has been mediocre – politicalbetting.com
There is a row starting to develop between LAB and the Lib Dems about the upcoming Mid Bedfordshire by-election created of course by the resignation of Nadine Dorries.
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Labour's by election record is much more patchy however they can gain seats when well ahead in the polls, as they did in Selby and thus will fancy their chances in Mid Beds too which Labour would gain on the same swing as they got in the Selby by election
I doubt it would shock many on here.
They have failed to learn the lesson from Selby - where the Lib Dems put on a distinctly pathetic performance, and Labour won the seat. This was not because Labour were particularly brilliant there, but because the Lib Dems did not put on a strong campaign.
Labour is not going to win a large number of seats unless other parties effectively stand aside to help them win. And as OGH points out, even then they failed to win Uxbridge.
Personally, I cannot wait to see the end of this pathetic incompetent government. But does that mean that I hate it so much that I would vote Labour if I lived in the right kind of seat. No, it does not. Labour have let us down time after time in the past, and on present showing they continue to be just out for themselves.
Best case scenario they win and can put it down as a massive marker that they can take on the Tories anywhere and are serious contenders for the next election.
Worst case the Tories hold on and it can be dismissed as a safe Tory seat with a 23k majority anyway.
No reason they should be soft pedalling this.
Then they'll game the new one instead, but it would end tactical voting (unless we went with AV).
Any party can win any seat, you just need to secure more votes than the opposition.
The idea that any party should "stand aside" is as ridiculous as the idea Lib Dem or Green vogers should belong to Labour as "progressive" voters.
If Lib Dems and Labour had the same beliefs and wanted the same thing, they'd be the same party. They're not.
Everyone should put their best foot forward and may the best one win.
The Liberal Democrats stood aside in Cannock Chase and told me to vote Green instead.
Did I?
No, I tore up my ballot paper.
Because while the Liberal Democrats were a reasonable fit for what I was looking for, the Greens were not, and I did not think Brexit trumped all the things I didn't agree with in their national manifesto.
I mean, if they wanted a paper candidate I'd have stood for them myself, but they didn't even go through the motions.
(I have no plans to die soon.)
Jonesthe Tories come back.'So it needs to be another Tory/Lib Dem coalition.
And the conditions for that including hell freezing over are just not there.
If you aren't winning the most voters then try looking inwards and asking what you can do to improve, to reach out to more. Don't cry that it's unfair, or that others should step aside for you. Everyone operates under the same rules, either attract voters or don't.
Laying them as advised upthread seems the astute course.
I'm not sure if they're going to or not, so no bet for me.
1) The national mood is firm: time for a change. A Tory win won't alter that.
2) A Labour win says: systems are on track to dispose of the Tory government
3) LD win says: C and A, Shropshire North all over again. Remind yourself to vote tactically if you live in Guildford or Harrogate, but Bootle and South Holland are as you were.
The only upset to this would be a really clear and decisive Tory win, or of course the Independent coming through.
The interest therefore is in the betting. Labour are currently value, but P G Wodehouse would describe this as like the Fathers' Obstacle Race: very hard to assess form.
The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.
The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
“Some significant developments of the last days of Russo-Ukrainian war:
- The Ukrainians advanced in strategic direction to Melitopol and Tokmak, Ukrainian gains look very solid and sustainable;
- Massive usage of drones by Ukraine against Russian military targets in multiply Russian cities, hundreds kilometers from the border;
- The Russian army losses on equipment have reached levels unseen before, with dozens of artillery pieces and trucks every day for days. This points out that the Ukrainians have mastered hunt for artillery (dangerous for the Ukrainian offensive) and logistics (vital for the Russian defence);
- The Ukrainians most probably cut through the 2nd line of Russian defence.
All together these signs say that the Ukrainians' strategy is effective and starts to bring results. If nothing changes in this dynamics, I expect a major Ukrainian breakthrough within 2-3 weeks. /1”
https://x.com/sumlenny/status/1696841476477518296?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
The guy is a very partisan pro-Ukraine cheerleader, however
The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
Not sure that by-elections measure much more than the accuracy of the current polling.
Next I will lose interest in Scottish sub-samples
Bizarrely, even in 1997 they regained one seat lost in a by-election - Christchurch. Which is a shame because that utter bellend Chope was the MP elected.
I think future changes to voting systems for everything except the Commons could readily occur and without referendums. The biggest change would be Lords reform.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66660136
In that light, it’s hard to get excited by a General Election, let alone “mid Bedfordshire”
“Almost half of NHS workers surveyed have left their role or are considering it”
'Popular rule is not democracy. It only gives people what they want, not what they need.'
I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
We are not an atheist nation either.
We are a nation. No more, no less. We have great diversity in this country. We have people of all sorts of beliefs, and none, and people who don't care about belief either way. None of those are homogeneous groups or identities to claim as your own.
Practically the sentence is the sentence. Hearing it in open court doesn’t make a tremendous amount of difference. If Lucy Letby, for instance, wants to eventually engage with hearing or reading the judges comments then she’s got a long time in prison to get round to it.
Worst case scenario is Pensionerism dominates UK politics for the next 15-20 years, and because Pensionerism is inherently negative (old people consume, not produce), we don't really come out of the slump until the 2040's
I am not sure it should be, to be honest. I think any change in voting system should probably be approved by the people, because it affects the type of government/leadership/council they get out of it.
Speaking of travel writing, the Guardian travel pages have become, for me, a secret source of delight. They are so scared of their puritanical, eco-loon readers, they are reduced, almost entirely, to writing about massively boring things to do in the UK. Another gem today:
However theistic materialism is not contrary to logic; probably quite rare.
Some poor sub had to conjure that up
This tack is often used in a nah, nah you believe just as much as I do kind of way.
Which imo shows a lack of confidence in your own belief. You believe in god that's fantastic, good luck with it all I hope it gives you the peace and comfort you need. I don't believe in god and by all means pity me, dislike me, look down on me, all that stuff I couldn't give a hoot. There is no god but if you know that I'm wrong, or point to five thousand learned texts about why I am certainly wrong or why I am actually a believer just like you are, then knock yourself out. Couldn't bother me less.
Sitting in church twice in the last six months (1x wedding, 1x don't ask) I probably inadvertently adopted a wtf face for the entire time. These blokes in long flowing robes talking about he died for you and is risen and the lord god almighty and whatnot. Absolutely bizarre.
But if you believe then go with my best wishes.
Oh and the Speccie has for years been a nasty, bigoted, small-minded rag which for every Douglas Murray or Sean Thomas has a Taki and a Charles Moore. I was given a subscription some years ago for my birthday and had to politely decline its renewal.
I was correcting the incorrect statement that was made on the previous thread by a poster that we were majority non religious.
And Bart has decided to carry on the argument to this thread
Without a vote in Parliament, let alone a referendum.
The Tories have laid the groundwork.
I think that is the likely size of it ultimately.
“Mothers’ Sack Race.”
“Ah! that’s better. This is where you know something.”
“A gift for Mrs. Penworthy, the tobacconist’s wife,” said Bingo, confidently. “I was in at her shop yesterday, buying cigarettes, and she told me she had won three times at fairs in Worcestershire. She only moved to these parts a short time ago, so nobody knows about her. She promised me she would keep herself dark, and I think we could get a good price.”
“Risk a tenner each way, Jeeves, what?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Girls’ Open Egg and Spoon Race,” read Bingo.
“How about that?”
“I doubt if it would be worth while to invest, sir,” said Jeeves. “I am told it is a certainty for last year’s winner, Sarah Mills, who will doubtless start an odds-on favourite.”
“Good, is she?”
“They tell me in the village that she carries a beautiful egg, sir.”
“Then there’s the Obstacle Race,” said Bingo. “Risky, in my opinion. Like betting on the Grand National. Fathers’ Hat-Trimming Contest—another speculative event. That’s all, except the Choir Boys’ Hundred Yards Handicap, for a pewter mug presented by the vicar—open to all whose voices have not broken before the second Sunday in Epiphany. Willie Chambers won last year, in a canter, receiving fifteen yards. This time he will probably be handicapped out of the race. I don’t know what to advise.”
Probably less fun for the journalists however. “Hey Phoebe we’ve got a travel commission for you”
Ooh great, Seychelles? Antarctica? A new five star in Bhutan?
“No, walking by a river in Yorkshire”
Of course, there are many ways of how an individual develops their thoughts from that one premise.
Plus a bizarre tangential reference to the Spectator
It’s there for the taking…
Are proceedings postponed so that the ritual may be completed as foretold and the God of the Daily Express appeased?
The only position for a real non-believer is agnosticism. “I just don’t know. I have no belief either way”
...there is a moral superiority attached to the well-travelled, too. Those who stay at home have failed to “break the bounds of their everyday experience and beg[un] to ‘live’”. Yet this belief that international travel will always expand our mental horizons – especially given the proliferation of commercialised and sheltered touristic experiences wherever you go – doesn’t bear much scrutiny.
... As the climate crisis intensifies, the moral aspect of travel becomes even harder to defend. International travel may give us, as individuals, a sense of connection and purpose within the maelstrom of modernity. But how can we square engaging in ritualistic pilgrimage to Giza’s pyramids, or the hot air balloons of Cappadocia, with a keen awareness of just exactly what mass tourism means for the very sites we have been taught to worship?
Tourism is responsible for 8-10% of annual global CO2 emissions. The rise of cheap flights opened up access to international travel, and yet is surely no longer sustainable...
We need a substantial and widespread shift in both understanding why we travel – beyond simply “for leisure” – and unpicking our feelings of personal entitlement to the self-actualisation and connection we expect to find in far-flung places...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/30/tourists-rhodes-maui-burned-travel
Though more pleasant still to cycle it. The Dales are agreeably conducive to cycling, until you reach the end of the dale you're in and have to haul your fat arse over into the next dale.
Though I'd quibble that the Wharfe is Yorkshire's most famous river. Strikes me as no more famous than the Ouse, Don, Nidd, Aire, Calder, Swale, Derwent, Tees or Hull.
I rather like British travel writing, as my MSN feed at work has clearly twigged. I like to read about places I might reasonably go - or, even better, about places I have been, and I can enjoy feeling cheerfully exasperated with the writer who has clearly Got It Wrong.
Better still, three.
Lol. It is the logical endpoint of their position. The Guardian will have to abandon virtually all foreign travel journalism
I picture their travel editor reading that and clutching his head in bleak despair, as he contemplates a future comprised entirely of yurting in Staffordshire
According to the report, if they refuse to attend court for sentencing they could "face the prospect of longer in prison". Don't think that would have worked for Lucy Letby.
And this.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/30/dfe-urges-schools-make-contingency-plans-crumbling-concrete
Love it all. Super interesting and as I say absolutely riveting if bizarre to my mind, albeit understandable as B Russell has explained to you so yes, religion bring it on. But not as a believer, sadly.
As for the Speccie its core is horrible, nasty, snide, sneering, and bigoted, as I'm sure is much of its readership albeit they have some interesting articles.
Indeed I am about to set off on a mini UK road trip (expect pics of drinks in woods)
I am just empathising with the poor Guardian travel writers, forbidden to go anywhere exotic. My guess is the more talented ones will simply leave
‘A spokesperson for the DfE said the safety of pupils and teachers was its “utmost” priority.’
Covering their useless fat drunken arses is their utmost priority. Which is why they’ve tried to duck out of doing anything for five years.
But then again, I too have issues, and so do we all
May we all find peace in our own way
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/14/sewage-ilkley-river-wharfe-2030-yorkshire-campaign
I always appreciate it when you bring your profound understanding of the human psyche to help PB posters. Something for some reason you are motivated to do when you are foundering in a discussion but I'm sure that is just coincidence.
I'm right about the Speccie, that said, and you know it. But a dollar is a dollar and take you away from it and it would be even worse.