I see that Challenger Tanks are exempt from the ULEZ, along with other MOD vehicles.
TBF a lot of MOD vehicles are probably pre-1983 and would be exempt anyway.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Transport for London (TfL) operate a selected partner scheme whereby notified MOD owned or leased vehicles are exempt from the London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and Greater London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) charges; exemptions prevent the disruption of operational activity. https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/question/199537/armed-forces-vehicles
But if Russia invaded, would their tanks have to pay under ULEZ? (Just the post-1982 ones, that is.)
It’s got a very Blazing Saddles feel where all the Russian tanks are stopped at the ULEZ line whilst someone tries to sort out paying for entry.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
Hypothecation has never been the issue as its always been too little and always will be.
If we cut spending on benefits, healthcare and pensions to the levels raised by NI then that would be austerity the likes of which the country has never seen. So HYUFD's cries of "hypothecate it" is just irrelevant balderdash, hypothecation isn't the issue.
The issue is the fact that some pay the tax and others don't. Fix it so everyone does, and it can be either be flatter and lower for those paying it if you are a rightwinger like myself, or it will fund spending if you're a leftwinger. Or meet in the middle like David Cameron's proposal and "share the proceeds" by both cutting taxes and raising spending.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions (expanded to pensions in 1946).
Money going in when the economy was growing then also could be taken out of that pot to fund contributory benefits in a downturn
I see that Challenger Tanks are exempt from the ULEZ, along with other MOD vehicles.
TBF a lot of MOD vehicles are probably pre-1983 and would be exempt anyway.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Transport for London (TfL) operate a selected partner scheme whereby notified MOD owned or leased vehicles are exempt from the London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and Greater London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) charges; exemptions prevent the disruption of operational activity. https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/question/199537/armed-forces-vehicles
But if Russia invaded, would their tanks have to pay under ULEZ? (Just the post-1982 ones, that is.)
It’s got a very Blazing Saddles feel where all the Russian tanks are stopped at the ULEZ line whilst someone tries to sort out paying for entry.
They can pay online, I think up to a day after crossing the line. So shouldn’t hold things up.
More worrying for them would be the final few km through North Wales to capture the strategic target of Ynys Mon. Could be extremely slow going.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
The economy is tougher than 1997, and Keir Starmer lacks the star appeal of Tony Blair.
But Sunak lacks the personal sympathy of John Major, too. Nobody believes Sunak cares about much except his own swimming pool planning application.
I remember 1997 and I really think the current government are more disliked than Major’s. In place of optimism for change though, there’s pessimism and ennui. I can’t see Keir saying “a new dawn has broken, has it not” to the strains of D:ream.
Because you think Sunak will be deposed before the general election or because you think Starmer loses the general election? Johnson is third favourite at 16/1 to be next PM. I’d lay that bet. Badenoch is 22/1, I’d be tempted to lay that too.
Because you think Sunak will be deposed before the general election or because you think Starmer loses the general election? Johnson is third favourite at 16/1 to be next PM. I’d lay that bet. Badenoch is 22/1, I’d be tempted to lay that too.
I wouldn't lay 16/1 - unless you can do so without depositing funds as you're green already with him.
That's a 6% return in potentially more than a year. You can get more than that from savings accounts.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
No it hasn't, if anything we need more contributory welfare not less given how high the tax take and state spending is compared to 1911
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
The new seat of Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey for one, most of which is represented by Douglas Ross, but notionally SNP following boundary changes. Opportunities in Angus/Perthshire. Also Ayr. There's a few. Tend to be semi-rural and away from Central Belt, although East Renfrewshire (middle-class Glasgow stockbroker belt) is a possibility.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
On that same argument, HYUFD will no doubt be telling us that women should not automatically have the vote, that the University seats should be reinstated, ditto workhouses, and that all Bully XLs, adn admittedly other pooches, have to have licences taken out at the local post office for 7s 6d.
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
Casino has a point. Sunak is shatting the bed so spectacularly that you can see how the party could make a move against him. Absurd? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely. Utterly crazy? Sure - but so was the Lizaster and they removed her.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
No it hasn't, if anything we need more contributory welfare not less given how high the tax take and state spending is compared to 1911
But we don't have contributory welfare, that's a myth.
If you are unemployed for a full year and never work a day, just claim benefits, you get an NIC "contribution" for a pension.
So lets do away with the myth and merge it into income tax. Contribution already doesn't happen.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
I read that article just before posting my question, and I posted my question anyway.
Let's just say that I'm still not clear on the issue.
I live in Aberdeenshire. I've had one person say to me that he's thinking of switching from the SNP over oil and gas policy, so anecdotally it tracks, but I still don't know exactly what the policy is.
Its great. The SNP are knobbers on energy. The Tories are knobbers on farming and fishing. Removing the lickspittle David Duguid from office would be good for my area, but the SNP wouldn't be any better. Sadly.
Duguid will hold on quite easily I suspect. Appreciate you don't like him, but he's local, an engineer in the sector by background, and a good fit for the area.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
The new seat of Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey for one, most of which is represented by Douglas Ross, but notionally SNP following boundary changes. Opportunities in Angus/Perthshire. Also Ayr. There's a few. Tend to be semi-rural and away from Central Belt, although East Renfrewshire (middle-class Glasgow stockbroker belt) is a possibility.
So by your and londonpubman's answers we're talking a bit more generally rather than oil and gas related?
I'm interested to see what happens, because I reckon the SNP vote is going to hold up a bit better than the Conservative vote (both will decline), so it all comes down to WHERE the vote will hold up better or worse. I have no data to guide me here.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
Why would voters in those constituencies be particularly exercised by the oil industry being restrained?
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
Why would voters in those constituencies be particularly exercised by the oil industry being restrained?
They may well be influenced by declining SNP popularity.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
Why would voters in those constituencies be particularly exercised by the oil industry being restrained?
As a matter of fact quite a few folk on the west coast work in the sector. The impact is felt beyond the NE, although concentrated there. As it happens I doubt those two seats would be in play - unionist vote probably too split.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
The new seat of Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey for one, most of which is represented by Douglas Ross, but notionally SNP following boundary changes. Opportunities in Angus/Perthshire. Also Ayr. There's a few. Tend to be semi-rural and away from Central Belt, although East Renfrewshire (middle-class Glasgow stockbroker belt) is a possibility.
So by your and londonpubman's answers we're talking a bit more generally rather than oil and gas related?
I'm interested to see what happens, because I reckon the SNP vote is going to hold up a bit better than the Conservative vote (both will decline), so it all comes down to WHERE the vote will hold up better or worse. I have no data to guide me here.
My response to you was based on general rather than oil specific factors.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
On that same argument, HYUFD will no doubt be telling us that women should not automatically have the vote, that the University seats should be reinstated, ditto workhouses, and that all Bully XLs, adn admittedly other pooches, have to have licences taken out at the local post office for 7s 6d.
Are the university seats going to be elected under STV? Woo!
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
The new seat of Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey for one, most of which is represented by Douglas Ross, but notionally SNP following boundary changes. Opportunities in Angus/Perthshire. Also Ayr. There's a few. Tend to be semi-rural and away from Central Belt, although East Renfrewshire (middle-class Glasgow stockbroker belt) is a possibility.
So by your and londonpubman's answers we're talking a bit more generally rather than oil and gas related?
I'm interested to see what happens, because I reckon the SNP vote is going to hold up a bit better than the Conservative vote (both will decline), so it all comes down to WHERE the vote will hold up better or worse. I have no data to guide me here.
My theory is that while the Tory vote will decline sharply in the Central Belt, it will hold up much better in the Tory/SNP marginals. Yousaf is almost purpose-built to repel voters in those sort of seats. It's not so much that SNP voters will switch, it's that they won't turn out.
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
On that same argument, HYUFD will no doubt be telling us that women should not automatically have the vote, that the University seats should be reinstated, ditto workhouses, and that all Bully XLs, adn admittedly other pooches, have to have licences taken out at the local post office for 7s 6d.
Absurd, most western nations have mainly insurance based unemployment benefits and healthcare
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
Why would voters in those constituencies be particularly exercised by the oil industry being restrained?
They may well be influenced by declining SNP popularity.
But the Conservatives are also declining in popularity. So you need to account for who will lose votes at a faster rate and what factors will shore up one party's vote in a particular area.
If the SNP retain 80% of their vote (putting them on 36%), and the Conservatives retain 65% of their vote (putting them on 16%) then how does that help an SNP->Con switch? Local factors CAN make the difference, but it's a poor starting point to predict SNP->Con changes, unless you expect the Con retention to improve or the SNP to decline further.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
I read that article just before posting my question, and I posted my question anyway.
Let's just say that I'm still not clear on the issue.
I live in Aberdeenshire. I've had one person say to me that he's thinking of switching from the SNP over oil and gas policy, so anecdotally it tracks, but I still don't know exactly what the policy is.
Its great. The SNP are knobbers on energy. The Tories are knobbers on farming and fishing. Removing the lickspittle David Duguid from office would be good for my area, but the SNP wouldn't be any better. Sadly.
Duguid will hold on quite easily I suspect. Appreciate you don't like him, but he's local, an engineer in the sector by background, and a good fit for the area.
I expect he will win as well. I call him lickspittle because of how he stuck his tongue up the Boris bum when CCS money wasn't awarded here. Praised him for keeping us on the reserve list which is just daft.
That and him saying how marvellous Brexit has been for the local fishing industry just as the local fishing leadership details how terrible it is.
Fantastic thread and something I and others have railed about for years.
This is absolutely 100% what the Chancellor should be looking at.
It’s not actually that hard either. It just requires government to tweak taper rates so they are not cliff edges, and shuffle the tax rate bandings a bit.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
The new seat of Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey for one, most of which is represented by Douglas Ross, but notionally SNP following boundary changes. Opportunities in Angus/Perthshire. Also Ayr. There's a few. Tend to be semi-rural and away from Central Belt, although East Renfrewshire (middle-class Glasgow stockbroker belt) is a possibility.
So by your and londonpubman's answers we're talking a bit more generally rather than oil and gas related?
I'm interested to see what happens, because I reckon the SNP vote is going to hold up a bit better than the Conservative vote (both will decline), so it all comes down to WHERE the vote will hold up better or worse. I have no data to guide me here.
My theory is that while the Tory vote will decline sharply in the Central Belt, it will hold up much better in the Tory/SNP marginals. Yousaf is almost purpose-built to repel voters in those sort of seats. It's not so much that SNP voters will switch, it's that they won't turn out.
Ok, well, that's coherent enough. I don't see it the same way, but let's see.
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
Casino has a point. Sunak is shatting the bed so spectacularly that you can see how the party could make a move against him. Absurd? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely. Utterly crazy? Sure - but so was the Lizaster and they removed her.
OTOH at this point in the cycle there is nothing for a new leader to gain by an appointment this side of an election, except the Truss like kudos of being briefly PM. Much better to wait under after the GE. There is no credible candidate at this moment, as there is no reason to think anyone else will do much better.
One aspect of the current political climate is that media talk is about extremes. At one end, Tories are wiped out. At the other they can win.
The latter will be sustained by the fact that at this point there is no further upside possible for Labour, and they are bound to lose momentum. They have no Blair and no stellar team and no outstanding Campbell like characters to cope with the media.
Current likelihood? NOM with a Labour led government.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
No it hasn't, if anything we need more contributory welfare not less given how high the tax take and state spending is compared to 1911
But we don't have contributory welfare, that's a myth.
If you are unemployed for a full year and never work a day, just claim benefits, you get an NIC "contribution" for a pension.
So lets do away with the myth and merge it into income tax. Contribution already doesn't happen.
The fact a small number of unemployed get pension credits doesn't change the fact most workers make NI contributions and you need 10 years of NI contributions or credits to be eligible for the state pension https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
On that same argument, HYUFD will no doubt be telling us that women should not automatically have the vote, that the University seats should be reinstated, ditto workhouses, and that all Bully XLs, adn admittedly other pooches, have to have licences taken out at the local post office for 7s 6d.
Absurd, most western nations have mainly insurance based unemployment benefits and healthcare
We don't.
We have a tax called insurance, but its a tax, its not insurance.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
No it hasn't, if anything we need more contributory welfare not less given how high the tax take and state spending is compared to 1911
But we don't have contributory welfare, that's a myth.
If you are unemployed for a full year and never work a day, just claim benefits, you get an NIC "contribution" for a pension.
So lets do away with the myth and merge it into income tax. Contribution already doesn't happen.
The fact a small number of unemployed get pension credits doesn't change the fact most workers make NI contributions and you need 10 years of NI contributions or credits to be eligible for the state pension https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension
You can get 10 years of NI contributions from being unemployed and on Universal Credit for 10 years, so what's your point?
If you thought that it was actually an insurance scheme, then you're very, very naïve.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
Why would voters in those constituencies be particularly exercised by the oil industry being restrained?
They may well be influenced by declining SNP popularity.
So SLab will win urban seats from the SNP and SCons will win the rest? Gottit.
Fantastic thread and something I and others have railed about for years.
This is absolutely 100% what the Chancellor should be looking at.
It’s not actually that hard either. It just requires government to tweak taper rates so they are not cliff edges, and shuffle the tax rate bandings a bit.
Just eliminate the taper rates and shuffle the tax bands accordingly.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
I read that article just before posting my question, and I posted my question anyway.
Let's just say that I'm still not clear on the issue.
I live in Aberdeenshire. I've had one person say to me that he's thinking of switching from the SNP over oil and gas policy, so anecdotally it tracks, but I still don't know exactly what the policy is.
Its great. The SNP are knobbers on energy. The Tories are knobbers on farming and fishing. Removing the lickspittle David Duguid from office would be good for my area, but the SNP wouldn't be any better. Sadly.
Duguid will hold on quite easily I suspect. Appreciate you don't like him, but he's local, an engineer in the sector by background, and a good fit for the area.
I expect he will win as well. I call him lickspittle because of how he stuck his tongue up the Boris bum when CCS money wasn't awarded here. Praised him for keeping us on the reserve list which is just daft.
That and him saying how marvellous Brexit has been for the local fishing industry just as the local fishing leadership details how terrible it is.
Can't see Humza generating much enthusiasm in Peterhead or Fraserburgh. And despite Brexit disappointment don't think the fisherfolk will be agitating to get back into the CFP either.
It would be much easier to simply time-travel back to 1833 and future proof the London and Birmingham Railway properly.
I would have built the current deep-level Tubes in London at "proper" train diameter (16ft or so).
When you look at infrastructure decisions over the years it’s almost always right for people to have built significantly more than was required at the time, with vast excess capacity.
There are very few examples of white elephants that remained such in densely populated countries like the UK. Even Olympic parks, left empty and sad for years, almost always eventually find a new role.
Look at the dome: a decade or so of white elephantitis and now as the O2 a major events venue that people travel from all across Europe to visit.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
No it hasn't, if anything we need more contributory welfare not less given how high the tax take and state spending is compared to 1911
But we don't have contributory welfare, that's a myth.
If you are unemployed for a full year and never work a day, just claim benefits, you get an NIC "contribution" for a pension.
So lets do away with the myth and merge it into income tax. Contribution already doesn't happen.
The fact a small number of unemployed get pension credits doesn't change the fact most workers make NI contributions and you need 10 years of NI contributions or credits to be eligible for the state pension https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension
You can get 10 years of NI contributions from being unemployed and on Universal Credit for 10 years, so what's your point?
If you thought that it was actually an insurance scheme, then you're very, very naïve.
Yes and the vast majority of people will not be unemployed and on UC for 10 years but making NI contributions for the state pension.
You also can't claim JSA without sufficient NI contributions as I said.
We could also move to a more insurance based healthcare system like most OECD nations rather than just relying on taxpayers to fund state healthcare via the NHS
Fantastic thread and something I and others have railed about for years.
This is absolutely 100% what the Chancellor should be looking at.
It’s not actually that hard either. It just requires government to tweak taper rates so they are not cliff edges, and shuffle the tax rate bandings a bit.
Just eliminate the taper rates and shuffle the tax bands accordingly.
You can’t just eliminate tapers of means tested things like child benefit because they have to end at some point unless you make them universal, but with a bit of maths you can definitely end the super-high marginal rates.
When you look at infrastructure decisions over the years it’s almost always right for people to have built significantly more than was required at the time, with vast excess capacity.
Manchester built the ship canal to steal sea cargo from Liverpool.
They they built the runway longer than the one at Liverpool to steal air traffic.
A high speed rail line that stops short is not a good plan...
Fantastic thread and something I and others have railed about for years.
This is absolutely 100% what the Chancellor should be looking at.
It’s not actually that hard either. It just requires government to tweak taper rates so they are not cliff edges, and shuffle the tax rate bandings a bit.
Just eliminate the taper rates and shuffle the tax bands accordingly.
You can’t just eliminate tapers of means tested things like child benefit because they have to end at some point unless you make them universal, but with a bit of maths you can definitely end the super-high marginal rates.
Eliminate the taper rate and make it universal. Problem solved.
Have a solitary rate of tax with no tapers on any benefits.
I, too, think casino has a point. He's a shrewdie. On conversion therapy. No. I don't think it should be legal. Just trying to point out the difficulties of making it illegal.
When you look at infrastructure decisions over the years it’s almost always right for people to have built significantly more than was required at the time, with vast excess capacity.
Manchester built the ship canal to steal sea cargo from Liverpool.
They they built the runway longer than the one at Liverpool to steal air traffic.
A high speed rail line that stops short is not a good plan...
They produced Oasis so the Beatles would be outshone... Oh hang on a minute.
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
I’m not going to pretend I’ve heard all of that. Of the five or six I have, it just doesn’t excite me or hold me for more than a single track or maybe two.
Currently listening to this year’s PJ Harvey, which seems creditable.
It's why they are in for a gubbing in NE Scotland next year. The sector employs tens of thousands, and they are well-paid jobs. And there aren't many alternative employment options.
Yousaf and his Green allies were electorally dubious propositions in socially conservative areas in Scotland like Aberdeenshire anyway, and the impression is that they have little interest anywhere outside the Central Belt. Which is why the SNP coalition is under such strain with dissent being aired by the likes of Fergus Ewing, Angus MacNeil and Kate Forbes all of whom represent rural seats in the north.
A few/several CON gains in Scotland distinctly possible.
Where?
WITHOUT having looked closely at the new seats/boundaries maybe Stirling, Argyll & Bute, Perth or their equivalents??
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
Why would voters in those constituencies be particularly exercised by the oil industry being restrained?
They may well be influenced by declining SNP popularity.
So SLab will win urban seats from the SNP and SCons will win the rest? Gottit.
Mebbe. Mebbe not. But the point is that there will be effectively two different contests going on across Scotland depending on the territory. It's conceivable that FPTP, which allowed SNP a near clean-sweep in 2015, could come back to bite them with lots of close second-places.
Australia need four tries without response by Wales.
That is the Everest of tall orders.
Credit where it is due, this isn't just a terrible Aussie team, this is tactically astute, clever, dominant rugby from Wales, with impressive defence, and sharp attacks
Properly impressive
Oz are shit tho, and you can see why they came last in the Championship
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
I’m not going to pretend I’ve heard all of that. Of the five or six I have, it just doesn’t excite me or hold me for more than a single track or maybe two.
Currently listening to this year’s PJ Harvey, which seems creditable.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
I have no objection to hypothecation.
I have an objection to some paying it and others not.
Apply it to all income no matter how its earned, just the same as income tax, and you can hypothecate it as you please.
I know it's a fairly technical quibble, but is it not the case that National Insurance is already hypothecated to some extent?
English & Welsh NICs go into the National Insurance Fund, which is used to pay out social security benefits (except for tax credits). The (relatively small) remainder at the end of the year goes direct to the NHS.
It's a bit different in Northern Ireland, which has a separate National Insurance Fund of Northern Ireland. It pays only for social security in NI, with the remainder going direct to the general UK Consolidated Fund. Dunno what happens in Scotland, but I presume it's something similar.
(I know about this after a mildly frustrating experience when an English NHS trust tried to charge me for treatment because my NHS number was registered in Northern Ireland...)
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
I’m not going to pretend I’ve heard all of that. Of the five or six I have, it just doesn’t excite me or hold me for more than a single track or maybe two.
Currently listening to this year’s PJ Harvey, which seems creditable.
Even more impressive, she performed this at Glasto too!
Ron Mael is the only person I can think of who has not aged a day since 1975. Althoug that is more to do with him looking like he was 75 back then.....
I wonder if the Tories are so deluded they thought half-cancelling HS2 was going to be popular
How has it proven unpopular? Have there been any polls?
Well, they've withdrawn the whole idea after floating it consistently in multiple papers and TV studios for days. So I don't know about the polling, but I suggest it wend down like a leather bucket of cold Irish sick with various MPs, businessmen, mayors, pundits, grandees, and political advisors who can read social media and PB
Was HS2 a bad idea badly done? Yes, and yes
Do we now have to follow through and finish the damn thing? Yes
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
I’m not going to pretend I’ve heard all of that. Of the five or six I have, it just doesn’t excite me or hold me for more than a single track or maybe two.
Currently listening to this year’s PJ Harvey, which seems creditable.
Even more impressive, she performed this at Glasto too!
Ron Mael is the only person I can think of who has not aged a day since 1975. Althoug that is more to do with him looking like he was 75 back then.....
Ha. The Glasto performance is here. Even better than the vid.
Australia are, deservedly, going home straight from the first round. Terroyable
Are they Chile in disguise?
Possibly worse. I've never seen an Australian side so devoid of spark and ideas
The worry is that they are in secular decline, and they have the next World Cup. It should have gone to Ireland, or the Celtic nations as a group. or the USA, or S America - Argentina/Uruguay/Chile
Australia are, deservedly, going home straight from the first round. Terroyable
Are they Chile in disguise?
Possibly worse. I've never seen an Australian side so devoid of spark and ideas
The worry is that they are in secular decline, and they have the next World Cup. It should have gone to Ireland, or the Celtic nations as a group. or the USA, or S America - Argentina/Uruguay/Chile
They got spanked in the cricket today by India as well
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
Casino has a point. Sunak is shatting the bed so spectacularly that you can see how the party could make a move against him. Absurd? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely. Utterly crazy? Sure - but so was the Lizaster and they removed her.
OTOH at this point in the cycle there is nothing for a new leader to gain by an appointment this side of an election, except the Truss like kudos of being briefly PM. Much better to wait under after the GE. There is no credible candidate at this moment, as there is no reason to think anyone else will do much better.
One aspect of the current political climate is that media talk is about extremes. At one end, Tories are wiped out. At the other they can win.
The latter will be sustained by the fact that at this point there is no further upside possible for Labour, and they are bound to lose momentum. They have no Blair and no stellar team and no outstanding Campbell like characters to cope with the media.
Current likelihood? NOM with a Labour led government.
And yet... one of the suggestions being made is that Gove is on manoeuvres again.
Now, on one level, that's "dog bites man" news; when the time comes to lower him into the grave, people will be wondering what he's up to and who he is trying to stab in the back by doing that.
But this is surely his last opportunity; his career is basically over at the next election. And he might actually save a bit more furniture than anyone else. He's the nearest the government has to a competent Mr Fixit. Which says a fair bit about the state they're in.
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
I’m not going to pretend I’ve heard all of that. Of the five or six I have, it just doesn’t excite me or hold me for more than a single track or maybe two.
Currently listening to this year’s PJ Harvey, which seems creditable.
Even more impressive, she performed this at Glasto too!
Ron Mael is the only person I can think of who has not aged a day since 1975. Althoug that is more to do with him looking like he was 75 back then.....
Ha. The Glasto performance is here. Even better than the vid.
Cate Blanchett is seriously cool. She has an uncredited cameo in Hot Fuzz:
"In an interview with About.com, Wright explained the idea of Blanchett’s character having her face covered by a crime scene investigation mask was all part of the joke. “Let’s get an Oscar winner in there but not see her face,” Wright said."
(My wife has spent time with her. She says she is most exquisitely perfumed person she has ever met - she smells like a garden.)
Australia are, deservedly, going home straight from the first round. Terroyable
Are they Chile in disguise?
Possibly worse. I've never seen an Australian side so devoid of spark and ideas
The worry is that they are in secular decline, and they have the next World Cup. It should have gone to Ireland, or the Celtic nations as a group. or the USA, or S America - Argentina/Uruguay/Chile
Rugby Union in Australia is in a terrible state at all levels. Reports of some Brumbies players on Aus $20k a year. Private schools used to provide the Wallabies. Now they are all headed to NRL. TV deal won't be good.
My best guess is that real wages will grow fairly strongly between now and the next election. That will enable the Conservatives to close the gap on economic issues, with Labour.
But, Labour will remain well ahead, on public services, which, combined with the general exasperation with the government, still gives them a pretty big lead on polling day.
Labour's own poor ratings probably point to quite a drop off in support, after winning the next election.
For the Conservatives to actually win a majority, or near-majority, would require the blackest of black swans.
Yes, I think Starmer will get a pretty good majority, but then his polling will go into steep decline very quickly (after a few months of thank-God-the-Tories-are-gone honeymoon) when it is revealed that he has zero new ideas for dealing with migration, the debt, public services, and no money to throw at problems. Moreover a lot of his stuff will be seriously unpopular in itself - Woke issues, trans stuff, all that- his activists and MPs will ensure he ends up at the wrong end of debates. And he is fervently Remoaner and this will become a thorny issue
I can see Labour plunging to great depths of polling negativity within 1-2 years of their election, and the Tories might easily be back in power by 2029, so their despair is rather overdone
Obviously one should never be complacent about a Tory recovery happening sooner rather than later ('never' would be nice given the damage they have done to Britain) given past history but there's a lot running against them that makes one thing they could be out for a while. Firstly, Starmer will be able to do what Cameron and Osborne did and arrive in office and say "Oh God it's so much worse than we thought" and blame the previous government for everything. Allied to that, being a 'Remoaner' isn't the problem it once was, given Brexit is now seen as a terrible error by a majority - and demographics mean even if no one changed their mind that would get stronger. Working age people, currently, aren't becoming more Conservative as they age as previous generations did for a variety of reasons. And among that generation the anger at events of 2010-2023 isn't going away but calcifying into why you never, ever vote for or trust the Tories. That group is growing, and the older boomer voters who are the Tories sole reliable base now may have passed their peak of electoral effectiveness. Furthermore, a major problem for Labour has been trust that they're up to the job of government. Once you are the government and are setting the baselines of where debates are conducted, that dissipates. Furthermore, the easiest path to electability for an opposition - ditching the stuff key target voters didn't like and brushing up your image, isn't really open to the Tory Party as it now treats Brexit and associated hardline policies like a religion that can't be rowed back on at all, even when have become very unpopular or are unpopular with key groups. One can always be proved wrong, but so far Tories give little indication they understand the hole they are in let alone showing signs they know how to get out of it.
The bigger issue is that after defeat the Tories will probably go and do some really dumb, unelectable things.
You only have to read HY’s stream to see that coming.
They may well of course, one certainly wouldn't bet against it. But I think their problem is deeper than the usual one of losing/defeated parties going a bit bonkers. Eventually they get sick of losing and come to their senses. The Tories have an issue that could really hamper them in the longer term as they're a bit trapped with policies that have effectively got the status of the tenets of religion within the party, being incredibly unpopular with those who will become increasingly electorally important and are showing no signs of becoming more conservative as they age - as their parents might have done. To pick the obvious, if Brexit is seen as a terrible idea by a huge majority of those under 60, as it is. Then the party responsible that never gets sick of advertising that fact, will struggle. It's a tougher rebranding job than, say, Cameron, pulled off by throwing in a bit of social liberalism, going big on climate change, and softening some of its rhetoric. For a generation now coming towards middle-age they will always be the party that badly broke Britain and screwed up their future a bit. Difficult to see how you overcome that without major rethinks that would be seen as heresy by members and an increasingly narrow and elderly base.
Depends on the economy, an incoming Labour government facing high inflation, rising interest rates, rising unemployment and low growth would soon become unpopular whatever the Tory opposition does.
At the end of the day it wasn't the Tories electing Hague as leader or IDS/Howard as leader that re elected Blair and New Labour, it was the relatively strong economy in those years. Ken Clarke would still have lost had he been Conservative leader, just a bit more narrowly.
Cameron saw a small bounce when elected leader which soon faded, it was the economic crash of 2008 which gave the Tories a clear poll lead ahead of the 2010 election.
Just as it was the winter of discontent, strikes and high inflation in 1979 which elected the seemingly 'unelectable' Thatcher and enabled her to beat PM Callaghan. So now too it is the post Covid relatively high inflation and high interest rates still that is hitting Sunak. Remember in 2021 Starmer was doing little better than Corbyn had been doing in 2019
On current trends, that won't be happening.
Some faint shadows of 1997.
Not really.
In 1997 New Labour inherited low inflation, relatively low interest rates (even despite Black Wednesday 4 years earlier) and few strikes and a relatively balanced national budget.
Today the economy looks more like that of the late 1960s or 1970s during which there were frequent changes of government than 1997. Plus Starmer is no Blair either in appeal to Middle England
Inflation is heading down, unemployment is still low (could perhaps usefully be higher to give a growth buffer) and we are told that interest rates have peaked.
I'd say the question is whether this is in time to rescue Rishi, and I'd say not. He'll be up against the time buffers a la Major.
There will be a lot to sort out around the deficit and debt etc, however Rishi seems to me to be hoping that no one will notice that - whilst waffling on about tax cuts in X years time, and tripping over his political feet every week.
Inflation at over 6% is still double the 3% it was in 1997.
Labour will also come under pressure from its base to increase spending, adding to inflationary pressures and also then to raise taxes to fund it
Is Starmer has the courage to merge NI with income tax so it applies to the same income that Income Tax applies to then that would fully fund any increased spending he might want to make while fixing a major inequity in the tax code.
If Sunak does it, he could afford major tax cuts.
Which would still be a tax rise, especially on pensioners.
It would also not afford tax cuts if it is just to cover rising spending.
NI should be hypothecated to fund state pensions and contributory JSA and ideally in time some social care
You know perfectly well that NI has never been the Goldilocks tax - always too much or too little to be hypothecaited.
Not least because the fluctuations in employment make that impossible: low employment, much more demand, less income.
The whole reason NI was created by the NI Act in 1911 was to fund benefits and health insurance by NI contributions.
And a lot has changed since 1911, so get with the times.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
On that same argument, HYUFD will no doubt be telling us that women should not automatically have the vote, that the University seats should be reinstated, ditto workhouses, and that all Bully XLs, adn admittedly other pooches, have to have licences taken out at the local post office for 7s 6d.
Absurd, most western nations have mainly insurance based unemployment benefits and healthcare
I’ve been wading through new music of 2023, so that PBers don’t have to.
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
Respectfully, I disagree.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin Boygenius Miley Cyrus Lana Del Rey Depeche Mode Everything But The Girl Alison Goldfrapp Ellie Goulding The Japanese House Mitski Paramore Arlo Parks Maisie Peters Freya Ridings Olivia Rodrigo Slowdive Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
There's... a new Slowdive album?! Bloody hell.
Best albums of the year for me so far have been from Romy, Mitski, and about half of the Fred Again / Brian Eno collaboration.
Australia are, deservedly, going home straight from the first round. Terroyable
Are they Chile in disguise?
Possibly worse. I've never seen an Australian side so devoid of spark and ideas
The worry is that they are in secular decline, and they have the next World Cup. It should have gone to Ireland, or the Celtic nations as a group. or the USA, or S America - Argentina/Uruguay/Chile
Rugby Union in Australia is in a terrible state at all levels. Reports of some Brumbies players on Aus $20k a year. Private schools used to provide the Wallabies. Now they are all headed to NRL. TV deal won't be good.
I know you love League, but this is an anomaly. Elsewhere union is entirely dominant, and will inevitably win out
Then it is just a case of waiting for Oz to fall into line with the basic economics
Also Pacific island players will stop going to Australia if they can't play union, because then they lose the chance to play for their islands and real glory
In the end it is games like THIS that you remember as a player. Watched by your entire nation, in a World Cup
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
Casino has a point. Sunak is shatting the bed so spectacularly that you can see how the party could make a move against him. Absurd? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely. Utterly crazy? Sure - but so was the Lizaster and they removed her.
OTOH at this point in the cycle there is nothing for a new leader to gain by an appointment this side of an election, except the Truss like kudos of being briefly PM. Much better to wait under after the GE. There is no credible candidate at this moment, as there is no reason to think anyone else will do much better.
One aspect of the current political climate is that media talk is about extremes. At one end, Tories are wiped out. At the other they can win.
The latter will be sustained by the fact that at this point there is no further upside possible for Labour, and they are bound to lose momentum. They have no Blair and no stellar team and no outstanding Campbell like characters to cope with the media.
Current likelihood? NOM with a Labour led government.
And yet... one of the suggestions being made is that Gove is on manoeuvres again.
Now, on one level, that's "dog bites man" news; when the time comes to lower him into the grave, people will be wondering what he's up to and who he is trying to stab in the back by doing that.
But this is surely his last opportunity; his career is basically over at the next election. And he might actually save a bit more furniture than anyone else. He's the nearest the government has to a competent Mr Fixit. Which says a fair bit about the state they're in.
If he can hold his seat (58th on LD target list) which I think he will, Gove will be 57 after the election. Still time to have a go and become PM at age 61/62 if he wants to try.
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
Casino has a point. Sunak is shatting the bed so spectacularly that you can see how the party could make a move against him. Absurd? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely. Utterly crazy? Sure - but so was the Lizaster and they removed her.
OTOH at this point in the cycle there is nothing for a new leader to gain by an appointment this side of an election, except the Truss like kudos of being briefly PM. Much better to wait under after the GE. There is no credible candidate at this moment, as there is no reason to think anyone else will do much better.
One aspect of the current political climate is that media talk is about extremes. At one end, Tories are wiped out. At the other they can win.
The latter will be sustained by the fact that at this point there is no further upside possible for Labour, and they are bound to lose momentum. They have no Blair and no stellar team and no outstanding Campbell like characters to cope with the media.
Current likelihood? NOM with a Labour led government.
And yet... one of the suggestions being made is that Gove is on manoeuvres again.
Now, on one level, that's "dog bites man" news; when the time comes to lower him into the grave, people will be wondering what he's up to and who he is trying to stab in the back by doing that.
But this is surely his last opportunity; his career is basically over at the next election. And he might actually save a bit more furniture than anyone else. He's the nearest the government has to a competent Mr Fixit. Which says a fair bit about the state they're in.
If Gove moves, he is not merely the grave digger of the Conservative government. He will be the grave digger of the Conservative party.
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
Casino has a point. Sunak is shatting the bed so spectacularly that you can see how the party could make a move against him. Absurd? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely. Utterly crazy? Sure - but so was the Lizaster and they removed her.
OTOH at this point in the cycle there is nothing for a new leader to gain by an appointment this side of an election, except the Truss like kudos of being briefly PM. Much better to wait under after the GE. There is no credible candidate at this moment, as there is no reason to think anyone else will do much better.
One aspect of the current political climate is that media talk is about extremes. At one end, Tories are wiped out. At the other they can win.
The latter will be sustained by the fact that at this point there is no further upside possible for Labour, and they are bound to lose momentum. They have no Blair and no stellar team and no outstanding Campbell like characters to cope with the media.
Current likelihood? NOM with a Labour led government.
And yet... one of the suggestions being made is that Gove is on manoeuvres again.
Now, on one level, that's "dog bites man" news; when the time comes to lower him into the grave, people will be wondering what he's up to and who he is trying to stab in the back by doing that.
But this is surely his last opportunity; his career is basically over at the next election. And he might actually save a bit more furniture than anyone else. He's the nearest the government has to a competent Mr Fixit. Which says a fair bit about the state they're in.
The Gover was the chief amanuensis supporting Kemi Badenoch's leadership bid. If she succeeds Sunak then he will certainly have a role to play.
I wonder if the Tories are so deluded they thought half-cancelling HS2 was going to be popular
How has it proven unpopular? Have there been any polls?
Well, they've withdrawn the whole idea after floating it consistently in multiple papers and TV studios for days. So I don't know about the polling, but I suggest it wend down like a leather bucket of cold Irish sick with various MPs, businessmen, mayors, pundits, grandees, and political advisors who can read social media and PB
Was HS2 a bad idea badly done? Yes, and yes
Do we now have to follow through and finish the damn thing? Yes
No we don't. If it doesn't make sense any more, we should stop.
I wonder if the Tories are so deluded they thought half-cancelling HS2 was going to be popular
How has it proven unpopular? Have there been any polls?
Well, they've withdrawn the whole idea after floating it consistently in multiple papers and TV studios for days. So I don't know about the polling, but I suggest it wend down like a leather bucket of cold Irish sick with various MPs, businessmen, mayors, pundits, grandees, and political advisors who can read social media and PB
Was HS2 a bad idea badly done? Yes, and yes
Do we now have to follow through and finish the damn thing? Yes
No we don't. If it doesn't make sense any more, we should stop.
Sunk cost fallacy? Except this could easily have been applied to so many infra endeavours
Yes, we have to finish it now, and then learn from the sobering experience
I wonder if the Tories are so deluded they thought half-cancelling HS2 was going to be popular
How has it proven unpopular? Have there been any polls?
Well, they've withdrawn the whole idea after floating it consistently in multiple papers and TV studios for days. So I don't know about the polling, but I suggest it wend down like a leather bucket of cold Irish sick with various MPs, businessmen, mayors, pundits, grandees, and political advisors who can read social media and PB
Was HS2 a bad idea badly done? Yes, and yes
Do we now have to follow through and finish the damn thing? Yes
No we don't. If it doesn't make sense any more, we should stop.
Sunk cost fallacy? Except this could easily have been applied to so many infra endeavours
Yes, we have to finish it now, and then learn from the sobering experience
I reckon Sir Graham Brady is going to get some letters in the post this week. I honestly think a few MPs will come to the conclusion that (as ridiculous it will be have to have a fourth PM this parliament) getting rid of Sunak and having a sudden election with Mordaunt or Cleverley might their best option. Maybe, just maybe they'd benefit from some kind of new PM bounce and catch Labour off guard enough to prevent SKS getting a majority if they got lucky. Sunak seems to have gone as mad as Truss and will lead them to a landslide defeat if he remains in charge.
I wonder if the Tories are so deluded they thought half-cancelling HS2 was going to be popular
How has it proven unpopular? Have there been any polls?
Well, they've withdrawn the whole idea after floating it consistently in multiple papers and TV studios for days. So I don't know about the polling, but I suggest it wend down like a leather bucket of cold Irish sick with various MPs, businessmen, mayors, pundits, grandees, and political advisors who can read social media and PB
Was HS2 a bad idea badly done? Yes, and yes
Do we now have to follow through and finish the damn thing? Yes
No we don't. If it doesn't make sense any more, we should stop.
Sunk cost fallacy? Except this could easily have been applied to so many infra endeavours
Yes, we have to finish it now, and then learn from the sobering experience
Sunak cost fallacy?
Is that the reasoning behind no further leadership challenge?
Comments
If we cut spending on benefits, healthcare and pensions to the levels raised by NI then that would be austerity the likes of which the country has never seen. So HYUFD's cries of "hypothecate it" is just irrelevant balderdash, hypothecation isn't the issue.
The issue is the fact that some pay the tax and others don't. Fix it so everyone does, and it can be either be flatter and lower for those paying it if you are a rightwinger like myself, or it will fund spending if you're a leftwinger. Or meet in the middle like David Cameron's proposal and "share the proceeds" by both cutting taxes and raising spending.
But Sunak lacks the personal sympathy of John Major, too. Nobody believes Sunak cares about much except his own swimming pool planning application.
Money going in when the economy was growing then also could be taken out of that pot to fund contributory benefits in a downturn
Or Sunak will fall before the next election rendering him moot?
More worrying for them would be the final few km through North Wales to capture the strategic target of Ynys Mon. Could be extremely slow going.
Besides that doesn't explain why some should pay the tax depending upon how they earn their income, while others shouldn't. Just levy the tax on everyone, no matter how they earn their income, whether it be salary, pensions, self-employed or anything else, treat everybody the same.
But I haven't looked at it at seat level!
In all honesty, it’s pretty slim pickings.
But I’d like to recommend the album “With a Hammer” by Yaeji, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based Korean-American house and hip-hop DJ.
If it succeeds the next PM will be yet another Tory.
I still rate is unlikely but I think current betting odds for SKS for Next PM are too short and, therefore, I am laying it.
That's a 6% return in potentially more than a year. You can get more than that from savings accounts.
If you are unemployed for a full year and never work a day, just claim benefits, you get an NIC "contribution" for a pension.
So lets do away with the myth and merge it into income tax. Contribution already doesn't happen.
https://twitter.com/DanNeidle/status/1705970650127454538?t=jakrOqHSjDm3gQXyVl3QTw&s=19
I'm interested to see what happens, because I reckon the SNP vote is going to hold up a bit better than the Conservative vote (both will decline), so it all comes down to WHERE the vote will hold up better or worse. I have no data to guide me here.
This is absolutely 100% what the Chancellor should be looking at.
However I have no data either.
I've got 17 albums so far this year and have enjoyed all of them:
Gabrielle Aplin
Boygenius
Miley Cyrus
Lana Del Rey
Depeche Mode
Everything But The Girl
Alison Goldfrapp
Ellie Goulding
The Japanese House
Mitski
Paramore
Arlo Parks
Maisie Peters
Freya Ridings
Olivia Rodrigo
Slowdive
Jessie Ware
Expecting to get three more - Jorja Smith, Holly Humberstone, OMD
If the SNP retain 80% of their vote (putting them on 36%), and the Conservatives retain 65% of their vote (putting them on 16%) then how does that help an SNP->Con switch? Local factors CAN make the difference, but it's a poor starting point to predict SNP->Con changes, unless you expect the Con retention to improve or the SNP to decline further.
That and him saying how marvellous Brexit has been for the local fishing industry just as the local fishing leadership details how terrible it is.
One aspect of the current political climate is that media talk is about extremes. At one end, Tories are wiped out. At the other they can win.
The latter will be sustained by the fact that at this point there is no further upside possible for Labour, and they are bound to lose momentum. They have no Blair and no stellar team and no outstanding Campbell like characters to cope with the media.
Current likelihood? NOM with a Labour led government.
https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility
Otherwise you can only claim UC.
The fact a small number of unemployed get pension credits doesn't change the fact most workers make NI contributions and you need 10 years of NI contributions or credits to be eligible for the state pension
https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension
We have a tax called insurance, but its a tax, its not insurance.
If you thought that it was actually an insurance scheme, then you're very, very naïve.
Gottit.
There are very few examples of white elephants that remained such in densely populated countries like the UK. Even Olympic parks, left empty and sad for years, almost always eventually find a new role.
Look at the dome: a decade or so of white elephantitis and now as the O2 a major events venue that people travel from all across Europe to visit.
Build and they will come.
You also can't claim JSA without sufficient NI contributions as I said.
We could also move to a more insurance based healthcare system like most OECD nations rather than just relying on taxpayers to fund state healthcare via the NHS
But maybe less nervous now! 👍
They they built the runway longer than the one at Liverpool to steal air traffic.
A high speed rail line that stops short is not a good plan...
Have a solitary rate of tax with no tapers on any benefits.
England V Wales final: calling it
On conversion therapy. No. I don't think it should be legal.
Just trying to point out the difficulties of making it illegal.
Oh hang on a minute.
Of the five or six I have, it just doesn’t excite me or hold me for more than a single track or maybe two.
Currently listening to this year’s PJ Harvey, which seems creditable.
That is the Everest of tall orders.
Properly impressive
Oz are shit tho, and you can see why they came last in the Championship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTAxPhxADo0&ab_channel=SparksVEVO
The dancer is Cate Blanchett. Seriously.
English & Welsh NICs go into the National Insurance Fund, which is used to pay out social security benefits (except for tax credits). The (relatively small) remainder at the end of the year goes direct to the NHS.
It's a bit different in Northern Ireland, which has a separate National Insurance Fund of Northern Ireland. It pays only for social security in NI, with the remainder going direct to the general UK Consolidated Fund. Dunno what happens in Scotland, but I presume it's something similar.
(I know about this after a mildly frustrating experience when an English NHS trust tried to charge me for treatment because my NHS number was registered in Northern Ireland...)
Ron Mael is the only person I can think of who has not aged a day since 1975. Althoug that is more to do with him looking like he was 75 back then.....
Was HS2 a bad idea badly done? Yes, and yes
Do we now have to follow through and finish the damn thing? Yes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL97CRvXr9Q&ab_channel=BBCMusic
The worry is that they are in secular decline, and they have the next World Cup. It should have gone to Ireland, or the Celtic nations as a group. or the USA, or S America - Argentina/Uruguay/Chile
Now, on one level, that's "dog bites man" news; when the time comes to lower him into the grave, people will be wondering what he's up to and who he is trying to stab in the back by doing that.
But this is surely his last opportunity; his career is basically over at the next election. And he might actually save a bit more furniture than anyone else. He's the nearest the government has to a competent Mr Fixit. Which says a fair bit about the state they're in.
"In an interview with About.com, Wright explained the idea of Blanchett’s character having her face covered by a crime scene investigation mask was all part of the joke. “Let’s get an Oscar winner in there but not see her face,” Wright said."
(My wife has spent time with her. She says she is most exquisitely perfumed person she has ever met - she smells like a garden.)
TV deal won't be good.
Best albums of the year for me so far have been from Romy, Mitski, and about half of the Fred Again / Brian Eno collaboration.
Then it is just a case of waiting for Oz to fall into line with the basic economics
Also Pacific island players will stop going to Australia if they can't play union, because then they lose the chance to play for their islands and real glory
In the end it is games like THIS that you remember as a player. Watched by your entire nation, in a World Cup
Go On Micheal, you know you want to...
I expect England to beat Samoa so indeed Fiji almost certainly in the QF
Both teams in the semis, I reckon
Yes, we have to finish it now, and then learn from the sobering experience
Sunak seems to have gone as mad as Truss and will lead them to a landslide defeat if he remains in charge.