Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
Even after all this, it might still be politically savvy to oppose a ban. People love their dogs.
Amazing variance in numbers signed per constituency for the pro-bully pooch tendency. Will be interesting to see if this holds out, but with the range from 2 to 40 and above at present, I'd be surprised if it doesn't.
The reason that the Dangerous Dogs Act has not been used is that the group who are firmly in the "Dangerous owners, not dogs" camp are small but vociferous - remember, this is owners of such dogs or dogs that they perceive as being next*. The RSPCA is very good at political lobbying and will move rapidly against politicians it sees as opposing it.
The proponents of a ban on a breed of dogs are often larger, but the intensity of their feelings, outside a core group, are lower.
*The parallel here with ULEZ is worth considering.
I se your argument, but the constituencies in that petition don't correlate with the % of little old ladies who are well off enough to be members of the Cruelties to Animals (RSPCA/SSPCA). That would vary a lot less than the figures. And the wealthier constituencies would have more computers/be more used to online petitions.
Enforced returns by year from the ONS. The Tories want to portray the problem as being out there, but it's their own incompetence at governance that's a large part of what's going on.
But we didn’t legally Brexit until 2020. So that mild decline from 2016 can’t be blamed on Brexit. More likely it was a byproduct of a drop in EU citizens coming here, psychologically deterred by Brexit
Overall it looks more like a failure of governance across the board - on that I agree with you. This govt has been crap on migration; almost as bad as the one before it
That doesn't really track... the main driver in the change seems to be the non-EU enforced returns. No idea what the reasons are but I can't see how it would be due to deterred EU citizens, since it's the wrong category and the wrong mechanism.
One of the main reasons is the massive slowdown in processing applications and thus huge increase in the waiting list, paralleling the massive waits in the NHS, the courts system and everything else the Government is in charge of.
The waiting list of voters desperate to kick them out seems to be growing proportionately to the other lists too....
Add this one to the list.
Mrs PtP has just booked her driving test. Earliest she could get is 18th Jan 2024, in Norfolk.
We live in Gloucestershire. London and the Home Counties would have been acceptable for her, had they not been booked solid.
You need to go to a ticket tout not the DVLA these days!
I'm not generally avers to giving money to touts, but not for an effing driving test.
The fix is ridiculously simple. DVLA just need to stop allowing a name change after booking. Get the name wrong and you lose your slot, then they become worthless to the touts.
But as it is, wait 5 months for a test somewhere that is going to cost £50 in petrol to get to and you don't know any of the roads, or get it locally next month for a couple of hundred to a tout, my principles are being thrown out without much thought......
Why would they let you change the name on a booking, for anything except a typo? Surely they want your name and licence number when you book, and if you can’t make the date you can reschedule?
My guess is that it's an automated system with human intervention at the DVLA cut out as much as possible. So they want people to be able to make amendments without that involving anyone at the DVLA.
You could code that to restrict for correcting typos - a maximum number of character changes, maybe using a soundex function on the name, etc - but it makes it a lot more complicated to implement. And then you create edge cases, which will create contact that requires intervention by a DVLA employee.
So a lot simpler for the DVLA to allow amendments without restriction. We all want government to make itself more efficient, so why would we want them to make a change that would result in lots of contact from the public to correct typos in test bookings, and therefore lots of expensive human intervention to respond to that contact?
The name should be automatically pulled from the license record with no scope for change. If the name is incorrect then the license needs to be updated.
I do not understand why we can't look at history, see that Conservative abstention is a pretty common factor for a Labour win, see that lots of Conservatives are saying they "don't know / aren't going to vote" and go "those who are reporting they aren't going to vote / don't know are likely not to vote". That is the simplest position given the information we have. Why the need to "unskew" the polls to make people think a Labour majority is less likely than it clearly is?
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
Surely if Dale and Young are flagging this up it must involve a major enemy of the Tories. But who?
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
Surely if Dale and Young are flagging this up it must involve a major enemy of the Tories. But who?
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
Perhaps something involving a politician’s spouse?
Braverman resigning? November GE? Tape recording of Modi issuing Sunak with his orders for the next 12 months? Memo from Starmer saying Saville is a bad un but let him off as he puts on a good party? Alien mummy found under Stonehenge?
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
I do not understand why we can't look at history, see that Conservative abstention is a pretty common factor for a Labour win, see that lots of Conservatives are saying they "don't know / aren't going to vote" and go "those who are reporting they aren't going to vote / don't know are likely not to vote". That is the simplest position given the information we have. Why the need to "unskew" the polls to make people think a Labour majority is less likely than it clearly is?
I think it's partly because:
- until something unprecedented happens it is without precedent
and
- historically there have been 'shy tories'
and
- since 1979 Labour have only won 3 out of 11 General Elections
and
- Mike Smithson is better spotting, and believing in, LibDem trends than Labour ones
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
It's also a 90 minute long news program with F1 leading into it so about a prime a slot as C4 has...
90 mins is about the perfect length to cover the Finland story.......
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
I think the fundamental basis of swing back is that it is easier to change your vote in theory than in practice. Some people saying that they intend to do so will find that they can't go through with it once they reach the actual decision point.
But all sorts of other effects and influences will be at play that will adjust around that baseline. And the experience of this Parliament has been unique in so many ways.
I think that, in some circumstances, changing the leader would be a pre-requisite for increasing the degree of swingback. But it does seem that the post-Johnson opportunity for the Tories has been botched.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
Perhaps something involving a politician’s spouse?
Agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that if it's just extramaritals then hardly anyone will really care. Even something deeply unpleasant a la the MPs currently suspended or not attending parliament, like [redacted], wouldn't presumably warrant an episode of Dispatches.
Something on foreign political interference or agents on the other hand - definite potential in that.
There seem to be a lot of dog fundamentalists out there, who think there's no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners, which we know isn't true.
I think you have to ask why would someone, given the array of breeds out there, opt for a Bully?
Because they are a scrote/dealer/psycho/inadequate/all of the above.
I wonder if there is any correlation between the promotion/defence of these aggressive dogs and membership of criminal gangs.... If there is, then the police have a ready-made list of people inclined towards drug-trafficking etc.
If only we had a police force that really worked, instead of all these Tory Police and Crime Commissioners....
There will be significant crossover. A vicious dog is a legal weapon and provides security for people who have dangerous enemies and valuable possessions and can't rely on the police to protect them. But there will also be those who are just scrotes and choose to express their scrotiness by having one of these creatures walking by their side.
On Scotland it does seem to be taking an eternity for Police Scotland to conclude their investigation into the SNP and in the event little comes from it, then a SNP recovery may be on the cards
On Starmer and Cooper 'terrorist' small boats policy it has gone down like a lead balloon across the political spectrum with the Guardian leading the outcry and allowing the conservatives to accuse labour of an open door immigration policy
And as far as I can tell last nights locals were hardly stellar for labour
And we have a year left to GE 24
I still expect a labour majority but the size of it I am very uncertain
It is fact that labour are so crap and anti Scottish that is causing them issues G. SNP are not popular but most will grit their teeth and vote for them as the only real Scottish party.
Don't be so soft. Labour aren't anti-Scottish, they just disagree with you about independence.
You halfwit, they are an offshoot of an English Labour party. They are mere sockpuppets who are ordered what to do and say. They F***ed Scotland over for best part of 40-50 years previously under the same guise. They are not a Scottish political party. They have no policies to improve or do anything for Scotland. Starmer gives the orders to jump and they say how high. Bent SNP party are far better than those clowns.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
It's also a 90 minute long news program with F1 leading into it so about a prime a slot as C4 has...
90 mins is about the perfect length to cover the Finland story.......
I keep asking what that was cos apparently everyone knew but I couldn't find hide nor hair (and I'm usually pretty good at nosing out scuttlebutt in the corners of the web).
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
It's also a 90 minute long news program with F1 leading into it so about a prime a slot as C4 has...
90 mins is about the perfect length to cover the Finland story.......
I keep asking what that was cos apparently everyone knew but I couldn't find hide nor hair (and I'm usually pretty good at nosing out scuttlebutt in the corners of the web).
Everyone pretends they know. Rule 1 of the Art of Coarse Posting on PB.
On Scotland it does seem to be taking an eternity for Police Scotland to conclude their investigation into the SNP and in the event little comes from it, then a SNP recovery may be on the cards
On Starmer and Cooper 'terrorist' small boats policy it has gone down like a lead balloon across the political spectrum with the Guardian leading the outcry and allowing the conservatives to accuse labour of an open door immigration policy
And as far as I can tell last nights locals were hardly stellar for labour
And we have a year left to GE 24
I still expect a labour majority but the size of it I am very uncertain
It is fact that labour are so crap and anti Scottish that is causing them issues G. SNP are not popular but most will grit their teeth and vote for them as the only real Scottish party.
Good morning Malc
If the case against the SNP fizzles out then I expect them to recover
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
Perhaps something involving a politician’s spouse?
Agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that if it's just extramaritals then hardly anyone will really care. Even something deeply unpleasant a la the MPs currently suspended or not attending parliament, like [redacted], wouldn't presumably warrant an episode of Dispatches.
Something on foreign political interference or agents on the other hand - definite potential in that.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
On the day of the MPs’ expenses story, the Telegraph went as far as to mock up a fake front page for the usual 10pm TV media round, to keep the story under wraps for as many hours as possible and stop their exclusive being copied by the rest of the press.
One might argue that it’s much more difficult to do that now, when most news is consumed online and everyone else will have the story by the morning anyway, but 3pm still seems weird.
Not sure what would represent a massive sex story any more, unless it either involves children, or is in the style of “Max Mosley in the themed dungeon with four hookers”.
Could it be related to the Chinese spy story I wonder?
Braverman resigning? November GE? Tape recording of Modi issuing Sunak with his orders for the next 12 months? Memo from Starmer saying Saville is a bad un but let him off as he puts on a good party? Alien mummy found under Stonehenge?
This is a racist trope
It’s Not Racislist ‘Cause I Is Progressive, innit?
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
It's also a 90 minute long news program with F1 leading into it so about a prime a slot as C4 has...
90 mins is about the perfect length to cover the Finland story.......
I keep asking what that was cos apparently everyone knew but I couldn't find hide nor hair (and I'm usually pretty good at nosing out scuttlebutt in the corners of the web).
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
Perhaps something involving a politician’s spouse?
Agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that if it's just extramaritals then hardly anyone will really care. Even something deeply unpleasant a la the MPs currently suspended or not attending parliament, like [redacted], wouldn't presumably warrant an episode of Dispatches.
Something on foreign political interference or agents on the other hand - definite potential in that.
The "full story" on the China thing, perhaps?
I didnt really get the China thing. All big countries spy on each other. We spy on the Chinese, they spy on us. If they weren't spying on us it would be a sign of us becoming insignificant.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
On the day of the MPs’ expenses story, the Telegraph went as far as to mock up a fake front page for the usual 10pm TV media round, to keep the story under wraps for as many hours as possible and stop their exclusive being copied by the rest of the press.
One might argue that it’s much more difficult to do that now, when most news is consumed online and everyone else will have the story by the morning anyway, but 3pm still seems weird.
Not sure what would represent a massive sex story any more, unless it either involves children, or is in the style of “Max Mosley in the themed dungeon with four hookers”.
Could it be related to the Chinese spy story I wonder?
Maybe that they have found evidence that Matt Hancock is a serious person and not a fame hungry joke. I think it would take the whole nation by surprise.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
Perhaps something involving a politician’s spouse?
Agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that if it's just extramaritals then hardly anyone will really care. Even something deeply unpleasant a la the MPs currently suspended or not attending parliament, like [redacted], wouldn't presumably warrant an episode of Dispatches.
Something on foreign political interference or agents on the other hand - definite potential in that.
The "full story" on the China thing, perhaps?
I didnt really get the China thing. All big countries spy on each other. We spy on the Chinese, they spy on us. If they weren't spying on us it would be a sign of us becoming insignificant.
Of course, but a British MP getting honeytrapped into spying for the Chinese, would definitely be a big story. People go to prison for that.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
On the day of the MPs’ expenses story, the Telegraph went as far as to mock up a fake front page for the usual 10pm TV media round, to keep the story under wraps for as many hours as possible and stop their exclusive being copied by the rest of the press.
One might argue that it’s much more difficult to do that now, when most news is consumed online and everyone else will have the story by the morning anyway, but 3pm still seems weird.
Not sure what would represent a massive sex story any more, unless it either involves children, or is in the style of “Max Mosley in the themed dungeon with four hookers”.
Could it be related to the Chinese spy story I wonder?
Maybe that they have found evidence that Matt Hancock is a serious person and not a fame hungry joke. I think it would take the whole nation by surprise.
His upcoming appearance on channel 4's SAS who dares wins makes that unlikely !!!!
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
The easy way for the Tories to avoid becoming the opposition would be to replace Sunak with Truss.
Braverman resigning? November GE? Tape recording of Modi issuing Sunak with his orders for the next 12 months? Memo from Starmer saying Saville is a bad un but let him off as he puts on a good party? Alien mummy found under Stonehenge?
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
3pm seems a bit early to drop a bombshell exclusive as it gives the other papers several hours to copy it, although I suppose a television tie-in might be the reason. Hmm. "Bombshell exclusive" works even though it uses a noun as an adjective and an adjective as a noun. Take that, English teachers!
Can't be Boris, nobody would be surprised or care.
Boris and Russian spies? Any other MP with Chinese spies? Rishi had a green card: is the Prime Minister a CIA spy? But yes, it won't be bonking and it won't be drugs because no-one cares any more.
Perhaps something involving a politician’s spouse?
Agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that if it's just extramaritals then hardly anyone will really care. Even something deeply unpleasant a la the MPs currently suspended or not attending parliament, like [redacted], wouldn't presumably warrant an episode of Dispatches.
Something on foreign political interference or agents on the other hand - definite potential in that.
The "full story" on the China thing, perhaps?
I didnt really get the China thing. All big countries spy on each other. We spy on the Chinese, they spy on us. If they weren't spying on us it would be a sign of us becoming insignificant.
Whilst I get what you're saying, that doesn't mean spying isn't a significant threat to national security. The reason we don't care that MI6 spy on China isn't because spying is no big deal, but because keeping China safe from British infiltration isn't something we do, or should, give two sh1ts about, whereas we do about the opposite.
It's all speculative, but I agree with that if there is a story then this is a candidate - senior figures (rather than spotty interns) being in the pay of Johnny Foreigner would justify Young's "biggest story of the year" claim in a way that extramarital shenanigans, or even something more sordid involving the relatively minor MPs currently suspended just wouldn't.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
The easy way for the Tories to avoid becoming the opposition would be to replace Sunak with Truss.
Funniest thing I have read in awhile. I assume it was meant to be ironic. Or was it?
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
"Finland" was the large scale, high level foreign political interference that @Leon advised us to keep Mum about wasn't it?
If that's the one, I think there is some public knowledge, but I suspect the Finnish connections have a much fleshier and fuller version of those events.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The RSPCA refuses to insure a whole bunch of breeds. Or dogs with any ancestry in their banned breeds.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
The easy way for the Tories to avoid becoming the opposition would be to replace Sunak with Truss.
Funniest thing I have read in awhile. I assume it was meant to be ironic. Or was it?
Make Truss leader again, and she can look forward to being able to ask two questions at PMQs, rather than six.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
The easy way for the Tories to avoid becoming the opposition would be to replace Sunak with Truss.
Funniest thing I have read in awhile. I assume it was meant to be ironic. Or was it?
"Rumour has it the Sunday Times is working on a big story this weekend — biggest of the year, supposedly. Due to drop tomorrow at 3pm. Leave cancelled, all hands to the pump, security tightened, etc. May be a sex scandal of some kind, possibly involving a politician. Anyone know?"
I mean, it's Toby Young so it could be bullshit. But I know PB loves an unsubstantiated rumour.
According to the Twitter comments (!) Iain Dale has also hinted at something, and there’s a Dispatches programme scheduled for 9pm tomorrow on C4, but with no further details of the content.
Presumably it’s a bit more serious than someone in the cabinet snogging their secretary.
It's also a 90 minute long news program with F1 leading into it so about a prime a slot as C4 has...
90 mins is about the perfect length to cover the Finland story.......
I keep asking what that was cos apparently everyone knew but I couldn't find hide nor hair (and I'm usually pretty good at nosing out scuttlebutt in the corners of the web).
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
That is a bit of an "if my auntie had bollocks..." comment. If Sunak had defeated Truss, that would suggest the membership and the party were saner than all evidence suggests they in fact are.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
The easy way for the Tories to avoid becoming the opposition would be to replace Sunak with Truss.
Funniest thing I have read in awhile. I assume it was meant to be ironic. Or was it?
Make Truss leader again, and she can look forward to being able to ask two questions at PMQs, rather than six.
You're an optimist. I think only the third party get two questions at PMQs.
Sky saying the two dogs in the fatality in Shropshire are XL bully dogs
Utterly shocking story
And next to a school. Imagine what could have happened
This is stolen from someone else here (Farooq possibly) but they remarked earlier that it doesn't bear thinking about... the poor dogs may have been injured or even killed by a collapsing roof.
If there is a big story in the Sunday Times released tomorrow afternoon, then any individual concerned is likely to have been notified for comment etc.
So we could see a pre-emptive statement etc. before 3pm tomorrow?
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
That's not entirely true. Tory polling recovered a bit after Truss took over, then tanked spectacularly once she started doing things. Sunak then steadied the ship a little but at levels below where Johnson left them, where they remain.
Johnson's electoral record when not up against the geriatric loony left is less impressive. He was far from an election winner by summer 2022 - the Tories lost a quarter of the seats they were defending at the local elections that year, and had he stayed, his conduct and entitlement would doubtless have dragged his ratings down still further, and his party's with them.
The situation in 1990-2 was also complex. There was a huge swing back to the Tories when they replaced their (three-time) election winner who by then was a liability, which was boosted further by the Gulf War but then sank through 1991 as the economy came centre-stage, to Labour holding healthy but not spectacular leads, only for Major to then turn the tables again in the election campaign.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
That is a bit of an "if my auntie had bollocks..." comment. If Sunak had defeated Truss, that would suggest the membership and the party were saner than all evidence suggests they in fact are.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
My point is that the fulcrum on which the Tories fortunes have turned during this Parliament has primarily been that extraordinary period when Liz Truss was Prime Minister.
If that hadn't happened, and British politics had been more normal, then a honeymoon bounce for Sunak (or almost anyone other than Truss) giving him a one-off lead, or a bounce after better than expected local election results, etc, are all possible.
Turning to Truss after Johnson wasn't inevitable. It was Truss that did the damage, more than Johnson, or dumping Johnson.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
That's not entirely true. Tory polling recovered a bit after Truss took over, then tanked spectacularly once she started doing things. Sunak then steadied the ship a little but at levels below where Johnson left them, where they remain.
Johnson's electoral record when not up against the geriatric loony left is less impressive. He was far from an election winner by summer 2022 - the Tories lost a quarter of the seats they were defending at the local elections that year, and had he stayed, his conduct and entitlement would doubtless have dragged his ratings down still further, and his party's with them.
The situation in 1990-2 was also complex. There was a huge swing back to the Tories when they replaced their (three-time) election winner who by then was a liability, which was boosted further by the Gulf War but then sank through 1991 as the economy came centre-stage, to Labour holding healthy but not spectacular leads, only for Major to then turn the tables again in the election campaign.
Everyone remembers the Sheffield rally and the war of Jennifer's ear but I reckon Labour's shadow budget in 1992 was key, it allowed the Tories to rightly portray Labour as tax risers.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
This is daft. Not even convinced it's effective politics: ...Labour also announced plans to treat criminals involved in cross-Channel people-smuggling as terrorists and labelled those who disagreed with the proposals “un-British”...
The expansion of the category of 'terrorist' to include this who are just unpleasant criminals is bad policy.
It’s almost as if they have no intention of doing it but are just hoping for a good headline in the Mail
It's the use of "un-British" to describe anyone who disagrees with him that's particularly crass.
It was offensive bullshit from the Tories, and it's equally so from him. Not clever at all.
Worse than crass. An attitude of mind incompatible with democracy.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
This Bully XL ban will be as effective as a chocolate fireguard given how easy it is to legally circumvent the Dangerous Dogs Act.
I do not understand why we can't look at history, see that Conservative abstention is a pretty common factor for a Labour win, see that lots of Conservatives are saying they "don't know / aren't going to vote" and go "those who are reporting they aren't going to vote / don't know are likely not to vote". That is the simplest position given the information we have. Why the need to "unskew" the polls to make people think a Labour majority is less likely than it clearly is?
I think it's partly because:
- until something unprecedented happens it is without precedent
and
- historically there have been 'shy tories'
and
- since 1979 Labour have only won 3 out of 11 General Elections
and
- Mike Smithson is better spotting, and believing in, LibDem trends than Labour ones
But surely if you follow LD trends you would notice an increase in tactical voting and decrease in Tory turn out at by-elections and local elections since Partygate that, if played out at GE, would massively benefit Labour?!
And it isn't unprecedented -Tory abstention in 1997 (total turnout was down by like 6.5%) probably played a role in Labour's magnitude of success.
We also just have clear indicators that the polling relates to actions taken by the government. You see a polling slump due to Partygate, you see polling cratering when Liz Truss buggers up her announcement on her economic policy, and you see the Sunak hasn't really been able to get that back and that current news events seem to create the odd blip in polling.
We also know that most GE campaigns in the UK do not change the general polling, with May's terrible campaign being a major outlier.
Even if you say "large majorities are hard to overturn" it's really easy to point out that this particular large majority seems to have come from seats not historically won by Tories that seem to be acting as if they are going to return to their typical voting pattern, and actually where we are seeing abnormal voting / polling trends is amongst those who have historically (longer than just the GEs since Brexit) voted Tory. So ALL the evidence of our eyes points to Labour getting a clear majority.
And I'm not even a fan of SKSs' Labour party - I'm just looking at all available evidence.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
That is a bit of an "if my auntie had bollocks..." comment. If Sunak had defeated Truss, that would suggest the membership and the party were saner than all evidence suggests they in fact are.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
My point is that the fulcrum on which the Tories fortunes have turned during this Parliament has primarily been that extraordinary period when Liz Truss was Prime Minister.
If that hadn't happened, and British politics had been more normal, then a honeymoon bounce for Sunak (or almost anyone other than Truss) giving him a one-off lead, or a bounce after better than expected local election results, etc, are all possible.
Turning to Truss after Johnson wasn't inevitable. It was Truss that did the damage, more than Johnson, or dumping Johnson.
Something, at the time, HYUFD was saying. Truss would be worse for the Tories than Boris.
Sky saying the two dogs in the fatality in Shropshire are XL bully dogs
Utterly shocking story
And next to a school. Imagine what could have happened
People have basically bred these dogs to be as intimidating and dangerous as possible. So a ban is warranted. Another controversial dog, the Staffordshire bull terrier seems to have become very overweight and ungainly in the main from what I've seen as people who want the council estate status dog have moved to the XL bully.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
This Bully XL ban will be as effective as a chocolate fireguard given how easy it is to legally circumvent the Dangerous Dogs Act.
A classic case of something needs to be done, so this is something.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
That is a bit of an "if my auntie had bollocks..." comment. If Sunak had defeated Truss, that would suggest the membership and the party were saner than all evidence suggests they in fact are.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
Despite Sunak running a reasonably sensible campaign and Truss offering the membership the moon on a sick, and Sunak having back-stabbed Johnson while Truss played her own game, Truss only won 57-43. It was relatively close.
(It is, of course, pretty rich of Boris fans to complain about back-stabbing given Johnson's own record of fidelity, and, in particular, his behaviour in 2018-19).
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
This Bully XL ban will be as effective as a chocolate fireguard given how easy it is to legally circumvent the Dangerous Dogs Act.
A classic case of something needs to be done, so this is something.
Exactly as it was three decades ago, something rushed through in response to a number of incidents involving dogs, and with newspapers running campaigns to have them banned.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
I've mentioned this here before, but if the Dangerous Dogs Act is quite such a terrible piece of legislation, it's interesting it remains on the statute books more than three decades later.
I'd agree it isn't great, caused some consternation at the time for dog owners, and the power to add breeds to the banned list hasn't been exercised for many years (which is a reason for caution). But it has a totemic status as the textbook example of dreadful law that is quite hard to square with its sheer longevity.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
That law is said to be awful by everyone, but the fact is, it worked. Deaths by dogs have stayed low for decades. Now they are surging because a new “breed” has dodged the definitions
And if the law doesn’t work for Bully XLs, then just cut and paste the Aussie law, which bans breeds by visual characteristics: if your dog looks enough like a fighting dog, it gets the bullet. Sorry
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
That's not entirely true. Tory polling recovered a bit after Truss took over, then tanked spectacularly once she started doing things. Sunak then steadied the ship a little but at levels below where Johnson left them, where they remain.
Johnson's electoral record when not up against the geriatric loony left is less impressive. He was far from an election winner by summer 2022 - the Tories lost a quarter of the seats they were defending at the local elections that year, and had he stayed, his conduct and entitlement would doubtless have dragged his ratings down still further, and his party's with them.
The situation in 1990-2 was also complex. There was a huge swing back to the Tories when they replaced their (three-time) election winner who by then was a liability, which was boosted further by the Gulf War but then sank through 1991 as the economy came centre-stage, to Labour holding healthy but not spectacular leads, only for Major to then turn the tables again in the election campaign.
In mid term Boris was losing by elections and popularity for sure, but I’d bet odds on he’d be doing better than the Tories are now.
Interesting that Livingstone is insulted as geriatric loony left when he was the incumbent Mayor in 2008 &, despite being defeated, was the Labour candidate, increasing their share of the vote, four years later. They couldn’t have thought he was that bad.
Boris may have only beaten Livingstone & Corbyn, but they’re the only people he fought aren’t they? And they both either beat his predecessor, or denied them a majority.
The Conservative London mayoral candidate liked tweets praising Enoch Powell and describing Sadiq Khan as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”.
Susan Hall liked an image of Powell, infamous for his “rivers of blood” speech, on Twitter/X. Alongside the image are the words “it’s never too late to save your country”, a combination once used on the website of the far-right British National Party (BNP). Hall liked a tweet posting the photo with the message: “it’s never too late to get London back!”
Hall, a former Conservative councillor who backed Donald Trump and spoke of her “joy” at Liz Truss’s mini-budget, was selected as the party’s candidate for the mayoral race in July.
In one post liked by Hall, Khan, the London mayor, is described as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”, the term Londonistan a sobriquet anti-racist campaigners say is often used pejoratively. The full tweet reads: “Please be upstanding for @Councillorsuzie reminding our nipple height mayor of Londonistan to stop trying to overturn Brexit and start doing his job. Well done Suzie. X”
In another tweet praising her questioning of the London mayor’s violence against women and girls strategy, Hall liked a comment which said: “Well said Susan, that Labour Traitor RAT likes that sort of thing”.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
This Bully XL ban will be as effective as a chocolate fireguard given how easy it is to legally circumvent the Dangerous Dogs Act.
Which is why we need the Aussie law. Do it by visual characteristics
Then no one will buy a dog that looks remotely like a fighting dog. Problem solved forever. No more cross breeding to evade the law, it won’t work
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
Could you make dog owners legally responsible for any harm caused by their dog? If you were to imprison dog owners whose dogs caused death or injury would that encourage people to self-regulate and not choose violent dogs?
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
That law is said to be awful by everyone, but the fact is, it worked. Deaths by dogs have stayed low for decades. Now they are surging because a new “breed” has dodged the definitions
And if the law doesn’t work for Bully XLs, then just cut and paste the Aussie law, which bans breeds by visual characteristics: if your dog looks enough like a fighting dog, it gets the bullet. Sorry
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
That law is said to be awful by everyone, but the fact is, it worked. Deaths by dogs have stayed low for decades. Now they are surging because a new “breed” has dodged the definitions
And if the law doesn’t work for Bully XLs, then just cut and paste the Aussie law, which bans breeds by visual characteristics: if your dog looks enough like a fighting dog, it gets the bullet. Sorry
It's working because the value of XL bully puppies has crashed on gumtree/facebook. Demand/supply - a shame we had approx 3 years of the glut.
The dodgy breeders will move onto something else in the end, which is the problem with the DDA. We need to keep the pressure up to find a better solution, like the Aussies.
The Conservative London mayoral candidate liked tweets praising Enoch Powell and describing Sadiq Khan as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”.
Susan Hall liked an image of Powell, infamous for his “rivers of blood” speech, on Twitter/X. Alongside the image are the words “it’s never too late to save your country”, a combination once used on the website of the far-right British National Party (BNP). Hall liked a tweet posting the photo with the message: “it’s never too late to get London back!”
Hall, a former Conservative councillor who backed Donald Trump and spoke of her “joy” at Liz Truss’s mini-budget, was selected as the party’s candidate for the mayoral race in July.
In one post liked by Hall, Khan, the London mayor, is described as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”, the term Londonistan a sobriquet anti-racist campaigners say is often used pejoratively. The full tweet reads: “Please be upstanding for @Councillorsuzie reminding our nipple height mayor of Londonistan to stop trying to overturn Brexit and start doing his job. Well done Suzie. X”
In another tweet praising her questioning of the London mayor’s violence against women and girls strategy, Hall liked a comment which said: “Well said Susan, that Labour Traitor RAT likes that sort of thing”.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
Could you make dog owners legally responsible for any harm caused by their dog? If you were to imprison dog owners whose dogs caused death or injury would that encourage people to self-regulate and not choose violent dogs?
They have blind faith that their darling Rambo the xLBully is 100% safe. So, no.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
That law is said to be awful by everyone, but the fact is, it worked. Deaths by dogs have stayed low for decades. Now they are surging because a new “breed” has dodged the definitions
And if the law doesn’t work for Bully XLs, then just cut and paste the Aussie law, which bans breeds by visual characteristics: if your dog looks enough like a fighting dog, it gets the bullet. Sorry
The Conservative London mayoral candidate liked tweets praising Enoch Powell and describing Sadiq Khan as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”.
Susan Hall liked an image of Powell, infamous for his “rivers of blood” speech, on Twitter/X. Alongside the image are the words “it’s never too late to save your country”, a combination once used on the website of the far-right British National Party (BNP). Hall liked a tweet posting the photo with the message: “it’s never too late to get London back!”
Hall, a former Conservative councillor who backed Donald Trump and spoke of her “joy” at Liz Truss’s mini-budget, was selected as the party’s candidate for the mayoral race in July.
In one post liked by Hall, Khan, the London mayor, is described as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”, the term Londonistan a sobriquet anti-racist campaigners say is often used pejoratively. The full tweet reads: “Please be upstanding for @Councillorsuzie reminding our nipple height mayor of Londonistan to stop trying to overturn Brexit and start doing his job. Well done Suzie. X”
In another tweet praising her questioning of the London mayor’s violence against women and girls strategy, Hall liked a comment which said: “Well said Susan, that Labour Traitor RAT likes that sort of thing”.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
Could you make dog owners legally responsible for any harm caused by their dog? If you were to imprison dog owners whose dogs caused death or injury would that encourage people to self-regulate and not choose violent dogs?
We have that to an extent. We need to be careful not to provoke owners into simply abandoning their dogs to wander the streets.
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
That is a bit of an "if my auntie had bollocks..." comment. If Sunak had defeated Truss, that would suggest the membership and the party were saner than all evidence suggests they in fact are.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
Despite Sunak running a reasonably sensible campaign and Truss offering the membership the moon on a sick, and Sunak having back-stabbed Johnson while Truss played her own game, Truss only won 57-43. It was relatively close.
(It is, of course, pretty rich of Boris fans to complain about back-stabbing given Johnson's own record of fidelity, and, in particular, his behaviour in 2018-19).
Firstly, 57-43 isn't all that close.
Secondly, Sunak's campaign wasn't above a bit of playing to the gallery himself, as when he was recorded at a Tunbridge Wells campaign event boasting about how he'd changed the funding formulas to take money from deprived urban areas (his description) and give it to places like Tunbridge Wells. He did see his opportunity as being to appeal to the more traditionally blue areas by making some pretty lavish and probably unrealistic promises to them. It was a more sober campaign than Truss's, but I'd not overdo that distinction.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
That law is said to be awful by everyone, but the fact is, it worked. Deaths by dogs have stayed low for decades. Now they are surging because a new “breed” has dodged the definitions
And if the law doesn’t work for Bully XLs, then just cut and paste the Aussie law, which bans breeds by visual characteristics: if your dog looks enough like a fighting dog, it gets the bullet. Sorry
It's working because the value of XL bully puppies has crashed on gumtree/facebook. Demand/supply - a shame we had approx 3 years of the glut.
The dodgy breeders will move onto something else in the end, which is the problem with the DDA. We need to keep the pressure up to find a better solution, like the Aussies.
Once we have a better understanding of how various genes effect dog behaviour we'll be able to look at a more selective elimination of undesirable traits. Until we reach that point we'll only have crude tools to work with.
For a grown man to die of his injuries means the dogs must have basically ripped his throat out
Extraordinary detail:
“One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said in March a woman and her dogs were seen being chased by the same two dogs who killed the man.“
Maybe, or maybe not. To borrow a phrase from Covidy times, he died with dog bites but we don't yet know whether he died of dog bites. Incautiously jumping on a fresh news story to push your agenda isn't wise.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
Could you make dog owners legally responsible for any harm caused by their dog? If you were to imprison dog owners whose dogs caused death or injury would that encourage people to self-regulate and not choose violent dogs?
They have blind faith that their darling Rambo the xLBully is 100% safe. So, no.
Also, a ban has the overwhelming advantage that it will stop the owners walking the dogs in public - terrorising their neighborhoods, the kids and mums and other pet owners - for fear of the dog being impounded and shot. So that’s an immediate and massive win. Especially for poorer council estates/streets where the owners of these dogs generally walk about freaking the locals
Swing back to the govt must surely be less likely when a new leader or two has been in place since the last election mustn’t it? Especially when the party under the new leaders has never polled as high as it did under the one who voters elected.
1992 gives a strong counter to that argument.
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
Sure, but in this case the Tories only sank to being so far behind after they got rid of the election winner - I assume there was an uptick rather than fall in their VI when Major replaced Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
More than an uptick when Major replaced Thatcher. Labour were fairly often recording double digit leads in her last couple of months (although some a bit tighter). The Tories went into the lead as soon as she resigned, and Major got a honeymoon involving a few double digit and a lot of reasonable single digit leads.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
Thanks. I just can’t see how a party that took a double digit drop when it replaced the leader who won last time can avoid opposition. Tempted to think 1/2 Lab Maj could be a great bet, but I think I’ll stay with my £500 locked in loss on the mkt for now!
If Sunak had defeated Truss in the member's ballot I think there's a pretty good chance that the Tories would have recorded a poll lead at some point in the past year.
That is a bit of an "if my auntie had bollocks..." comment. If Sunak had defeated Truss, that would suggest the membership and the party were saner than all evidence suggests they in fact are.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
Despite Sunak running a reasonably sensible campaign and Truss offering the membership the moon on a sick, and Sunak having back-stabbed Johnson while Truss played her own game, Truss only won 57-43. It was relatively close.
(It is, of course, pretty rich of Boris fans to complain about back-stabbing given Johnson's own record of fidelity, and, in particular, his behaviour in 2018-19).
Firstly, 57-43 isn't all that close.
Secondly, Sunak's campaign wasn't above a bit of playing to the gallery himself, as when he was recorded at a Tunbridge Wells campaign event boasting about how he'd changed the funding formulas to take money from deprived urban areas (his description) and give it to places like Tunbridge Wells. He did see his opportunity as being to appeal to the more traditionally blue areas by making some pretty lavish and probably unrealistic promises to them. It was a more sober campaign than Truss's, but I'd not overdo that distinction.
Sunak became incredibly desperate and made a series of bonkers promises to try to out-bonkers Truss. It was a truly pathetic spectacle.
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
Isn't the problem still the boring technical one that our understanding of what they are (yes, horrible evil things) doesn't extend beyond "we can't define it, but we know it when we see it".
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
The original Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is still a law school textbook example of a terrible piece of legislation.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
Could you make dog owners legally responsible for any harm caused by their dog? If you were to imprison dog owners whose dogs caused death or injury would that encourage people to self-regulate and not choose violent dogs?
We have that to an extent. We need to be careful not to provoke owners into simply abandoning their dogs to wander the streets.
Offering £500 per bully to be put down officially? OTOH one has to watch for other undesirable effects (increasing imports).,
Comments
Swingback is usually DKs returning home as much as swing voters swinging back. We can expect some of the DKs to reluctantly return to the Tories - does anyone really expect Labour to win by 20%? - but that's still just dropping the scale of the defeat, not the fact of it.
The prime minister says American bully XL dogs will be banned by the end of the year, after the work is done to define the breed."
Per BBC.
Seems the government has finally realised the inevitability of public opinion on this one.
November GE?
Tape recording of Modi issuing Sunak with his orders for the next 12 months?
Memo from Starmer saying Saville is a bad un but let him off as he puts on a good party?
Alien mummy found under Stonehenge?
Mrs T.
Interesting to speculate on the margin of victory & turnout level. I wonder could there possibly be a black swan that sees the Tories win? It l’d have to be a pretty big one
- until something unprecedented happens it is without precedent
and
- historically there have been 'shy tories'
and
- since 1979 Labour have only won 3 out of 11 General Elections
and
- Mike Smithson is better spotting, and believing in, LibDem trends than Labour ones
But all sorts of other effects and influences will be at play that will adjust around that baseline. And the experience of this Parliament has been unique in so many ways.
I think that, in some circumstances, changing the leader would be a pre-requisite for increasing the degree of swingback. But it does seem that the post-Johnson opportunity for the Tories has been botched.
Something on foreign political interference or agents on the other hand - definite potential in that.
The honeymoon lasted about six months and then it was fairly tight all the way to election day, when it turned out it wasn't as tight as imagined.
So Major gave a really substantial, game-changing bounce rather than an uptick.
If the case against the SNP fizzles out then I expect them to recover
One might argue that it’s much more difficult to do that now, when most news is consumed online and everyone else will have the story by the morning anyway, but 3pm still seems weird.
Not sure what would represent a massive sex story any more, unless it either involves children, or is in the style of “Max Mosley in the themed dungeon with four hookers”.
Could it be related to the Chinese spy story I wonder?
I reckon the government will still have to move quicker however. “By the end of the year” there will be more deaths and more videos
Immediate muzzling?
It's all speculative, but I agree with that if there is a story then this is a candidate - senior figures (rather than spotty interns) being in the pay of Johnny Foreigner would justify Young's "biggest story of the year" claim in a way that extramarital shenanigans, or even something more sordid involving the relatively minor MPs currently suspended just wouldn't.
Utterly shocking story
And, as with pornography, that makes a ban difficult to do without overreach. Sunak has asked the boffins to come up with a workable definition- what does he do if they come back saying "sorry boss, there isn't one"?
If that's the one, I think there is some public knowledge, but I suspect the Finnish connections have a much fleshier and fuller version of those events.
On the counterfactual parlour game, though, I'm not sure you're right. For a start, it would have played into the Great Betrayal fantasy if the cabinet minister who was amongst the very first to walk out, making Johnson's position untenable, had immediately taken the crown. As it was, a Johnson loyalist did, and when Sunak did get his chance, it was in circumstances that the vast majority of Tories would accept was more akin to an intervention rather than a betrayal.
BBC News - Man attacked by two dogs near school in Stonnall dies
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-66817795
So we could see a pre-emptive statement etc. before 3pm tomorrow?
Johnson's electoral record when not up against the geriatric loony left is less impressive. He was far from an election winner by summer 2022 - the Tories lost a quarter of the seats they were defending at the local elections that year, and had he stayed, his conduct and entitlement would doubtless have dragged his ratings down still further, and his party's with them.
The situation in 1990-2 was also complex. There was a huge swing back to the Tories when they replaced their (three-time) election winner who by then was a liability, which was boosted further by the Gulf War but then sank through 1991 as the economy came centre-stage, to Labour holding healthy but not spectacular leads, only for Major to then turn the tables again in the election campaign.
If that hadn't happened, and British politics had been more normal, then a honeymoon bounce for Sunak (or almost anyone other than Truss) giving him a one-off lead, or a bounce after better than expected local election results, etc, are all possible.
Turning to Truss after Johnson wasn't inevitable. It was Truss that did the damage, more than Johnson, or dumping Johnson.
Any amendment to, or extension of, it, needs to be carefully thought through, both that it does what it’s supposed to do, and for any loopholes or unintended consequences.
If you’re going to be prosecuting, or even imprisoning, those who break this law, it needs to be able to stand up to an expert lawyer at the Court of Appeal.
And it isn't unprecedented -Tory abstention in 1997 (total turnout was down by like 6.5%) probably played a role in Labour's magnitude of success.
We also just have clear indicators that the polling relates to actions taken by the government. You see a polling slump due to Partygate, you see polling cratering when Liz Truss buggers up her announcement on her economic policy, and you see the Sunak hasn't really been able to get that back and that current news events seem to create the odd blip in polling.
We also know that most GE campaigns in the UK do not change the general polling, with May's terrible campaign being a major outlier.
Even if you say "large majorities are hard to overturn" it's really easy to point out that this particular large majority seems to have come from seats not historically won by Tories that seem to be acting as if they are going to return to their typical voting pattern, and actually where we are seeing abnormal voting / polling trends is amongst those who have historically (longer than just the GEs since Brexit) voted Tory. So ALL the evidence of our eyes points to Labour getting a clear majority.
And I'm not even a fan of SKSs' Labour party - I'm just looking at all available evidence.
Another controversial dog, the Staffordshire bull terrier seems to have become very overweight and ungainly in the main from what I've seen as people who want the council estate status dog have moved to the XL bully.
Extraordinary detail:
“One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said in March a woman and her dogs were seen being chased by the same two dogs who killed the man.“
(It is, of course, pretty rich of Boris fans to complain about back-stabbing given Johnson's own record of fidelity, and, in particular, his behaviour in 2018-19).
I'd agree it isn't great, caused some consternation at the time for dog owners, and the power to add breeds to the banned list hasn't been exercised for many years (which is a reason for caution). But it has a totemic status as the textbook example of dreadful law that is quite hard to square with its sheer longevity.
And if the law doesn’t work for Bully XLs, then just cut and paste the Aussie law, which bans breeds by visual characteristics: if your dog looks enough like a fighting dog, it gets the bullet. Sorry
Interesting that Livingstone is insulted as geriatric loony left when he was the incumbent Mayor in 2008 &, despite being defeated, was the Labour candidate, increasing their share of the vote, four years later. They couldn’t have thought he was that bad.
Boris may have only beaten Livingstone & Corbyn, but they’re the only people he fought aren’t they? And they both either beat his predecessor, or denied them a majority.
The Conservative London mayoral candidate liked tweets praising Enoch Powell and describing Sadiq Khan as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”.
Susan Hall liked an image of Powell, infamous for his “rivers of blood” speech, on Twitter/X. Alongside the image are the words “it’s never too late to save your country”, a combination once used on the website of the far-right British National Party (BNP). Hall liked a tweet posting the photo with the message: “it’s never too late to get London back!”
Hall, a former Conservative councillor who backed Donald Trump and spoke of her “joy” at Liz Truss’s mini-budget, was selected as the party’s candidate for the mayoral race in July.
In one post liked by Hall, Khan, the London mayor, is described as “our nipple height mayor of Londonistan”, the term Londonistan a sobriquet anti-racist campaigners say is often used pejoratively. The full tweet reads: “Please be upstanding for @Councillorsuzie reminding our nipple height mayor of Londonistan to stop trying to overturn Brexit and start doing his job. Well done Suzie. X”
In another tweet praising her questioning of the London mayor’s violence against women and girls strategy, Hall liked a comment which said: “Well said Susan, that Labour Traitor RAT likes that sort of thing”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/susan-hall-tory-mayoral-candidate-liked-tweet-praising-enoch-powell-zqsr6lvfk
Then no one will buy a dog that looks remotely like a fighting dog. Problem solved forever. No more cross breeding to evade the law, it won’t work
https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/naming-the-date-fea96ccbb6fe
The analogy with Pascal's wager (which I had to google) is especially elegant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-66815922
The dodgy breeders will move onto something else in the end, which is the problem with the DDA. We need to keep the pressure up to find a better solution, like the Aussies.
Secondly, Sunak's campaign wasn't above a bit of playing to the gallery himself, as when he was recorded at a Tunbridge Wells campaign event boasting about how he'd changed the funding formulas to take money from deprived urban areas (his description) and give it to places like Tunbridge Wells. He did see his opportunity as being to appeal to the more traditionally blue areas by making some pretty lavish and probably unrealistic promises to them. It was a more sober campaign than Truss's, but I'd not overdo that distinction.