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Could there be a LAB-LD pact in mid-Beds? – politicalbetting.com
Could there be a LAB-LD pact in mid-Beds? – politicalbetting.com
We are starting to hear calls for the Labour and Lib Dem parties to agree on a single Anti -Tory candidate for the mid-Beds by-election. This, of course, has been created by the resignation of Liz Truss.
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Nadine Dorris finally did the right thing but Liz Truss is going to be loitering round Westminster for decades.
LDs will win it with Lab to Lib tactical voting and Con supporters going on strike (again)
Just rejoice at that news.
Possibly, though, there will be a Tory win that will be a lesson for both of us what happens in this kind of seat where Labour are clearly second but the LibDems reckon they can come through. But I'm hopeful that much of the Tory vote won't come out. A Lab/LD/Con finish would be fun!
That chart has nothing to do with Mid-Beds so is irrelevant.
"What is significant is that half of the LD gains [that means two] have come in seats where they were in third place behind at the general election." This is more relevant, but there must be other local considerations that are more 'significant'.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/04/poor-people-surviving-not-living-as-uk-social-contract-collapses-says-report
Labour are already campaigning hard and on the Selby swing would take the seat, especially as they start from second not the LDs
Are they related?
It’s only the special circumstances of a by-election which gives the LDs a (strong) chance.
The problem is that neither party can afford to step back. Keir can’t afford to throw this away, and the LDs need every seat they can get.
We need an independent poll.
Doesn’t bode well for a coalition government.
In a change election, voters decide on the ground in each seat, and parties with limited resources in a region tend to go where they have the best chance.
By-elections are sui generis... activists all over the country have the scent of blood in their nostrils and you just have to have the set piece battle. Realistically, neither Starmer nor Davey can call off their dogs without badly losing face in their parties, and it doesn't matter much in the bigger scheme of things.
Mind you, were Cameron and Clegg chums before 2015?
Provided he gains enough SNP seats Starmer likely won't need to consider a UK coalition government with the LDs, even if Labour fail to win enough Tory seats in England for a majority in England
Ed Davey himself had one.
At removing housing from the market.
Google what happened in the New York.
And equally the Tories could well come a humiliating third - as in Little & Sad and Eastleigh.
In this electoral situation you arguing Tories need to be Reform and Brexit fixated.
I am explained the exact opposite to you, a position you should adopt. Chasing Grey Wall, Brexit voter and Reform voter gets you 28% tops at next General Election. You are actively ushering in a political sea change by decimating your return of MPs.
50-100 MPs can be saved, a far better Proportion of vote by going in the opposite direction. So many leave voters want a sane, convincing safe pair of hands PM right now, reform minded voters want a Tory HomSec who can get a grip, and there are millions of voters you are just handing to Labour, who would be just as happy to keep in an aspirational Tory government intent on reform.
You are misreading the political mood of the country. The Tories can be in a much better place switching to aspiration and reform, rather than chase UKIP and Reform voters.
The trouble is that councils buying up housing stock doesn’t alter the quantity of available housing.
I guess the reality is some people have more of a problem overspending with cash in the pocket and others more of a problem overspending with cashless payment.
The opposite is true, the secret to a successful marriage is to keep regularly dating as though you barely know each other.
The previous brand new Dutch party, the BBB, who shocked everyone by winning in the recent regional elections, are plummeting in the polls. Meanwhile, Labour and the Greens are putting up a joint list, which has put them second in the polls. They’re just ahead of the VVD, who have been the largest party in the ruling coalition for many years. They’ve got a new leader who was born in Turkey, perhaps significant when immigration arguments brought down the last government. The VVD have been shifting to the right.
He wrote the "Liberalism and localism" chapter in the Orange Book.
Lib Dems on a constituency level have stood down for Greens in a few places and vice versa. But Labour has always been crystal clear that there is no way, and that if a local party proposed it they'd be disciplined and HQ would impose a Labour candidate anyway (I believe they did so in the Richmond Park by-election).
At most, a "pact" would be about soft pedalling (and indeed Labour hasn't thrown the kitchen sink at some by-elections in this Parliament, and nor have the Lib Dems in other places). Anything beyond that is simply moot as hell hath not frozen over.
The Concrete Crisis is very much the same as the wall collapsing in The Loop - warned about it and did nothing about it. Right now the government are finding it hard to explain they acted very quickly on it as soon as they found out there was a problem, it’s very hard to give impression of quick response and on the case - Keegan herself was saying “I assure we will put a plan together, and deal with this.”
And it’s got the decisions of the Primeminister, when in previous role of chancellor, right at the heart of the crisis.
It’s very serious political crisis, perhaps even terminal for Sunak, I appreciate this now.
I think it is pretty much inconceivable that the SNP will be able to push another referendum until the next Tory government which is probably 10 years away. Can they really hang around like a bad smell for that long? I suspect not. I think they will lose their majority in Holyrood as well, even with (or perhaps because of) their little green helpers.
Although I do not particularly welcome a Labour government, especially one with as poor a shadow cabinet as SKS has, it may well prove what is required to break the logjam in Scotland.
Why would you want everyone to hear you claim you’re doing a “fucking good job”, when you’re not - or is she even more stupid than she appears ?
Particularly choice was … claims doing nothing jibe aimed at 'nobody in particular'.
Maybe there's some Monkey's Paw scenario where every ambitious Conservative gets to have a go at being PM and realises the job is cursed and, coupled with their own character flaws, it will destroy them.
(OK, that's true for most people who become PM, it's the nature of the job, but it seems to be happening more rapidly now.)
The line up on TalkTV was beyond gruesome:
Mike Graham, Isabel Oakeshott, James Whale, and Alex Salmond. And one I don't recognise.
1) Rishi isn't that great: He is another Bozo overpromoted lightweight
2) The Conservative Party membership is still riddled with swiveleyed loons who would believe the moon was made of blue cheese, provided Boris Johnson told them it was good old British Stilton and not any of that foreign rubbish.
Yes, we are condemned to a government of the Anti-Business Public Sector obsessed Labour Party because a load of idiots thought Boris-fuck-business-Johnson was a suitable person to be PM.
His leaflet says literally nothing about him or the government. Not a single claim of any description. The entire thing is that it is either him or the SNP so all loyal unionists must vote lickspittle or else be voting for independence.
Whilst I get it, there is something inherently wrong with his offer if the only think he can say is "think about how bad it would be if the other lot win". Though I do think we will see a lot of this nationally...
He was also for 12 years from 2006 a senior executive at Fujitsu, ending up as CEO and Head of Technology Product Business, having previously spent some time working at the Post Office.
Perhaps it's just me but a senior executive from a company intimately involved in the worst miscarriage of justice in English history and one of the biggest IT fuck-ups ever would not be on my short list of persons seeking to manage relationships with anyone, let alone a strategic defence supplier.
Why Fujitsu is still getting government contracts is a mystery.
This is the trouble for the government. For years the Tories spun a story that Labour trashed the economy (unions/winter of discontent) which the Tories had to rebuild.
Now it's the opposite: a country in danger of falling down because of years of neglect while the money was siphoned off by a spivocracy.
That will be the Labour line and it will largely be successful.
Even if the truth is more nuanced: all parties after all have been wedded to cheapness rather than good value, the short-term, eye-catching initiatives (rather than solid evidence-based policies) & rewards for failures. It was notable in that FT story that despite Labour being in power for 13 years they did nothing to make water companies build new reservoirs. But saying so will not help the Tories now.
Karma is a bitch and that is what the Tories are facing now with the concrete story while the Tories' friends and families loot the public realm.
I think the odds of the Tories facing something close to a wipe out is under-estimated. It would not take that many Tory voters to sit on their hands for that to happen.
Rule 2 of professionalism: Never say anything in a recording etc that you wouldn't want someone else to see or hear.
Anything you ever write or say, unless you absolutely need to write it or say it, imagine if this is Exhibit A for the prosecution against you. If you wouldn't want that, don't write it down or say it.
There's no such thing as "off the record" when you're being recorded. Just be a bloody professional, how tough is that?
There are people trying to push the issue, including our (for practical purposes non) Member of Parliament, but I suspect they are increasingly talking to themselves and haven't noticed others wandering off.
The false steer comes because a smallish number of very cross people make more noise than a larger number of people shrugging their shoulders in resignation/acceptance.
Westminster VI (3 September):
Labour 44% (–)
Conservative 28% (–)
Liberal Democrat 14% (+2)
Reform UK 6% (-1)
Green 4% (–)
Scottish National Party 3% (–)
Other 1% (-2)
Changes +/- 27 August
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1698727622660792654
But that's not nearly as good as building new council houses. And it would only be significant in some areas, such as Edinburgh or Cornwall.
Brexit is done, finished with. Anyone still obsessing over it, either way, is an absolute loon and should be disgarded.
What matters is aspiration and reform.
What matters more is that the Tories have abandoned aspiration and reform.
Repairing schools so they don’t fall on kids: well hold on now we’re not made of money
https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1698647260509171764
Halving Inflation 1.8
Growing the Economy 1.8
Reducing Nat'l Debt 1.6
Cutting NHS Waiting Lists 1.4
Stopping Small Boats 1.3
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1698728935087882501/photo/1
Despite the inconveniences above, I'm not going to be giving my 8 year old a bank card, because she will lose it.
Dutch Salute intensifies
https://twitter.com/benjaminbutter/status/1102715728489263116
This is a MP. Ergo talking about a GE. Who can't name a single policy to tempt the voter, other than saying no to indyref.
The procedures don't have to be established, that's kind of the point of being an independent, sovereign nation - we choose what procedures we have in place, nobody else.
If the procedures don't make sense for us, then we shouldn't have them.
You don't admit messing up and delaying something you [edit] don't think you need.
And is it a chummy spivocracy, or a spivvy chumocracy ?
Or just a plain spivocracy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/04/texas-pornhub-lawsuit-age-verification-first-amendment/
I'd rather the Government do the stuff it needs to be doing, like ensuring buildings don't fall on kids, reforms to boost aspiration and the economy than dicking around with this nonsense.
Just recognise European standards as equivalent to our own, even if they're not the same, and wave them through. No problems with that.
What is being objected to here and whether it was or was not age appropriate I cannot say. But the idea that the age of the child should not be taken into account when deciding on content and what is told to them and how does not automatically make one a bigot.
?
A primary school that taught pupils about homosexuality as part of a programme to challenge homophobia has stopped the lessons after hundreds of children were withdrawn by parents in protest.
Parkfield community school in Saltley, Birmingham, has been the scene of weekly protests over the lessons, which parents claim are promoting gay and transgender lifestyles.
In a letter to parents, the school said: “Up to the end of this term, we will not be delivering any No Outsiders lessons in our long-term year curriculum plan, as this half term has already been blocked for religious education (RE). Equality assemblies will continue as normal and our welcoming No Outsiders ethos will be there for all.”
On Friday about 600 Muslim children, aged between four and 11, were withdrawn from the school for the day, parents said. The school would not confirm the number.
The school made clear that it had never intended to continue the No Outsiders lessons this half term and confirmed that the lessons would resume only after a full consultation with every parent.
Last month, the Guardian reported that the assistant headteacher of the school was forced to defend the lessons after 400 predominantly Muslim parents signed a petition calling for them to be dropped from the curriculum.
Andrew Moffat, who was awarded an MBE for his work in equality education, said he was threatened and targeted via a leaflet campaign after the school piloted the No Outsiders programme. Its ethos is to promote LGBT equality and challenge homophobia in primary schools.
Moffat, the author of Challenging Homophobia in Primary Schools who is currently shortlisted for a world’s best teacher award, resigned from another primary school – Chilwell Croft academy, also in Birmingham – after a similar dispute with Muslim and Christian parents.
Parents have been protesting outside the Saltley school, which is rated as outstanding by Ofsted. At one protest they held signs that read “say no to promoting of homosexuality and LGBT ways of life to our children”, “stop exploiting children’s innocence”, and “education not indoctrination”.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/04/birmingham-school-stops-lgbt-lessons-after-parent-protests
For now I think all 3 main parties have a similar chance.