That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
It's even worse if you primarily think of Reform as an agreeable club in Pall Mall. Farage wouldn't get past the doorman.
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
Nonsense. So many of our towns are visibly shabby with appalling non-services because they aren't Tory enough. Simply do as Woking council did and they would be quids in.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
It’s the California problem: they can’t increase taxes and spending demands (principally the social care mandate) goes up at pace. So anything discretionary gets squeezed
And most Northern Councils are already at that point - it's been hidden a bit by Covid but I expect it's going to appear everywhere in 2025, a lot of councils will try to muddle through until the next General election (because of Political Leadership) but the means by which councils have been able to hide the problem has mainly been spent..
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
Farm and other subsidies. Northern Ireland. Foreign aid. Green crap. Diversity BS. Non-palliative care for the over-90s.
A 91 year old gets an infection that is readily treatable with antibiotics that cost pennies. “No!” cries Fishing. “We should put them in a hospice.”
Another referral for Dr Shipman, Mr Fishing? You are spoiling us!
I’m sure that Dr. Shipman saw himself as a public benefactor.
On topic, i can see arguments for and against this Opinium being a bit of a rogue.
For:
1. It’s out if kilter with the rest if last week’s polling. 2. The supplementaries show no real movement - Starmer’s best PM lead over Sunak is actually up one.
Against:
1. It’s a relatively small change and does reflect a continued drop in Labour’s number that has been a consistent feature of Opinium for a while.
If it’s truly reflective, the Tories should comfortably hold mid-Beds and Tamworth. So we’ll see soon enough.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
Is this the same Farage who instinctively backs every fash or fash-flavoured politician going? Trump, AfD, Le Pen, Putin, etc?
Farage has been a full-bore nutjob his whole life
I wonder where Suella Braverman and others on the Tory right would seriously disagree with Le Pen, the AfD and Trump these days.
The stripping of Ukraine aid from the bill has nothing to do with the Senate, which was quite prepared to vote for it. And had indeed done so in a bill originating in the Senate, which the GOP majority House rejected.
It was entirely because of the GOP in the House of Representatives, where the fight over the 'debt limit' - a constitutionally dubious concept - originated.
For the nut job wing of the Republicans, every dollar sent to Ukraine is a dollar that could be used for corporate welfare, and reducing the tax bills of the wealthiest 0.5% of the population.
I'm very negative about the future of the world this morning. Tiny wedge issues are being used to drive massive gaps into western liberalism, and the winners will be tyrants and dictators.
Even this country is not immune: we came near to a Corbyn government, and we know what position he would have taken on issues such as Ukraine. The "It's our fault!" approach to defeating fascism.
Erm, did not Corbyn call for Russian withdrawal and demand further sanctions on Russia? But then he was not leading a party floating on a tide of Russian money, nor had he ennobled scions of the KGB.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
Events in the US clearly show that among Republicans, Putin’s reputation has not been destroyed. He only needs to hold on and the GOP could well deliver him from defeat.
One interesting thing about a later UK election is that it would be held at the same time as the US presidential election. Tory links to the Republican party could start getting a lot more attention. Liz Truss has been very clear she wants the GOP back in the White House, despite its majority position on Ukraine running entirely contrary to UK interests.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
Which is a bit weird considering it is built upon a story of a single bloke who travelled around with twelve other blokes and never showed much interest in the ladies.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
Is this the same Farage who instinctively backs every fash or fash-flavoured politician going? Trump, AfD, Le Pen, Putin, etc?
Farage has been a full-bore nutjob his whole life
Yes, but unlike Lozza he’s an intelligent and cunning full-bore nut job
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
It’s the California problem: they can’t increase taxes and spending demands (principally the social care mandate) goes up at pace. So anything discretionary gets squeezed
And most Northern Councils are already at that point - it's been hidden a bit by Covid but I expect it's going to appear everywhere in 2025, a lot of councils will try to muddle through until the next General election (because of Political Leadership) but the means by which councils have been able to hide the problem has mainly been spent..
For all the nonsense talk about councillor bungs it's where the s106 money obviously goes too.
The stripping of Ukraine aid from the bill has nothing to do with the Senate, which was quite prepared to vote for it. And had indeed done so in a bill originating in the Senate, which the GOP majority House rejected.
It was entirely because of the GOP in the House of Representatives, where the fight over the 'debt limit' - a constitutionally dubious concept - originated.
For the nut job wing of the Republicans, every dollar sent to Ukraine is a dollar that could be used for corporate welfare, and reducing the tax bills of the wealthiest 0.5% of the population.
I'm very negative about the future of the world this morning. Tiny wedge issues are being used to drive massive gaps into western liberalism, and the winners will be tyrants and dictators.
Even this country is not immune: we came near to a Corbyn government, and we know what position he would have taken on issues such as Ukraine. The "It's our fault!" approach to defeating fascism.
Erm, did not Corbyn call for Russian withdrawal and demand further sanctions on Russia? But then he was not leading a party floating on a tide of Russian money, nor had he ennobled scions of the KGB.
He also demanded that the West stop sending arms to Ukraine.
Essentially he followed the classic “Realist” position on the Yugoslav wars - where promoting Peace was the only objective. By denying opponents of the Serbs the means to defend themselves, the butchery continued for years and years.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
This is the best public source book on the topic for the general reader. I’d encourage everyone to read it to get a glimpse of what Putin is like
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
It’s the California problem: they can’t increase taxes and spending demands (principally the social care mandate) goes up at pace. So anything discretionary gets squeezed
And most Northern Councils are already at that point - it's been hidden a bit by Covid but I expect it's going to appear everywhere in 2025, a lot of councils will try to muddle through until the next General election (because of Political Leadership) but the means by which councils have been able to hide the problem has mainly been spent..
For all the nonsense talk about councillor bungs it's where the s106 money obviously goes too.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
You may also want to add the situation in Serbia to this list.
My broader point is that there is an error in projecting the fate of the decades long geopolitical conflict between the West and Russia on to this one conflict, a conflict that was originally viewed by the west as a lost cause.
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
It’s the California problem: they can’t increase taxes and spending demands (principally the social care mandate) goes up at pace. So anything discretionary gets squeezed
And most Northern Councils are already at that point - it's been hidden a bit by Covid but I expect it's going to appear everywhere in 2025, a lot of councils will try to muddle through until the next General election (because of Political Leadership) but the means by which councils have been able to hide the problem has mainly been spent..
For all the nonsense talk about councillor bungs it's where the s106 money obviously goes too.
Money that we fondly imagine is going to provide a new school/playground/whatever is spent patching up an existing one instead.
Lord Cooper of Windrush, David Cameron’s former No 10 director of strategy, told The Independent that he [Sunak] was “out of ideas” and would vote for any candidate best placed to defeat the Conservatives at the general election.
The peer – once dubbed the ex-PM’s “favourite pollster”, said the party was “out of ideas, out of energy”. He added: “There’s no clarity of leadership. It’s not really a party at all … It’s a collection of pretty bitterly-divided factions sellotaped together because there’s an election coming.”
The former Tory, kicked out over his opposition to Brexit, also said the prospect of cutting HS2 was “a catastrophically stupid decision”, adding: “I think everything they’re doing is defined by electoral politics and trying to try to create dividing lines, wedges and traps for Labour rather than by what’s in the interest of the country.”
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
This is the best public source book on the topic for the general reader. I’d encourage everyone to read it to get a glimpse of what Putin is like
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
"Nothing is true and everything is possible " by Peter Pomerantsev is my recommendation.
The thing about the right wing interest in Putin is that can be interpreted as a response to the excesses of the woke, who are also being manipulated in to more and more extreme positions by Russian propoganda. Everyone is being manipulated. The aim is just to destabilise and fracture the entire political discourse.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
Magic The Gathering is an expensive hobby for nerds with dubious personal hygiene, but I’d hesitate to equate it to Putin.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I was trying to remember the name of the attractive ex-journo, who was going to be the next GOP POTUS, and whom you were ramping in Nov 2020 but she seems to have vanished without trace.
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
It’s the California problem: they can’t increase taxes and spending demands (principally the social care mandate) goes up at pace. So anything discretionary gets squeezed
And most Northern Councils are already at that point - it's been hidden a bit by Covid but I expect it's going to appear everywhere in 2025, a lot of councils will try to muddle through until the next General election (because of Political Leadership) but the means by which councils have been able to hide the problem has mainly been spent..
For all the nonsense talk about councillor bungs it's where the s106 money obviously goes too.
You mean CIL?
I mean the housing developer contribution to councils
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I appreciate your love for Vlad is a big embarrassment for you but console yourself that you didn't have the reach of Rothermere:
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Rishi Sunak, asked to say something about Keir Starmer that he admires, refuses. He says “I’m not interested in talking about personalities”, before waffling about how great he is at doing things.
“Inaction Man” REALLY wound him up, didn’t it? #bbclaurak
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I appreciate your love for Vlad is a big embarrassment for you but console yourself that you didn't have the reach of Rothermere:
The most abhorrent thing about that article is its claim that football was invented in Italy.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I was trying to remember the name of the attractive ex-journo, who was going to be the next GOP POTUS, and whom you were ramping in Nov 2020 but she seems to have vanished without trace.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
I don't buy it. Farage will wait until after the GE, hoping the Tories get eviscerated, then step in.
I think the 7% Reform number will split 2% Tory, 3% abstain, 2% Reform, come the election.
The Green's 7% will split about 4% Lab/LD, 2% Green, 1% abstain.
So it’s Labour’s lowest score of the year, but not hugely out of the ordinary for the Tories.
There’s a trend over the year for Labour to lose a bit of VI - about 2% I’d say on average. Whereas Tory has oscillated around a fairly stable level.
The marginal gainers have been the Lib Dems. Started the year averaging 8-9, now generally 10-11. They’ve gone:
9,9,7,9,8,8,9,10,10,11,9,11,8,9,11,10,11,9,11, 12
Tories going nowhere but that's enough for Labour to be worried if I were Starmer.
Another year of that and he could be into NOM territory.
I find the Reform numbers fascinating. Do that many people even know who they are? But then I was amazed in the local elections in Derby in 2022 when I visited, to see them everywhere and doing well. At first I assumed it was an unfortunately named “Reform Derby” set of indies. But no. Maybe they are doing a LibDem, very local strategy. If so, where could they get a seat?
I think if the Tories were doing Tory things, i.e. cutting tax now rather than having raised it to record highs, then they'd be up at around 34-35%.
They've lost a slice of their base because they're not playing to it.
Do you mean lower taxes by borrowing more or lower taxes by cutting public services?
If the latter, which services would you like to see cut?
Hmmm.
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Service Support Staff or Care Staff to be slashed?
I'd say they need to recognise we need a period of higher taxation to help deal with national debt, and fund all those Conservative Govt promises.
1,726,000 people employed across civil service, public administration and other seems like quite a lot.
For anyone who's serious about cutting the size of the state though, I think you need to be prepared to say what does the state currently does that it should not.
I can give a few examples. Number one being planning.
I would imagine that the mushrooming of the state is due largely to the repatriation of state functions after Brexit, plus some kind of yes minister style administrative bloat. The classic, near comical example is the current government setting up a new department - the 'office of local government' (Oflog) within an existing department - the ministry of housing, communities and local government, with a remit to improve the performance of local government. This is administrative bloat in action. They are looking for a director at £149k per year, if anyone is interested in applying.
Regarding Planning, there are hardly any civil servants involved in planning, the number is almost negligible. Maybe 100 or so?
Surely improving the performance of local government is what Rishi is already spending his time and energy on?
Although of course if they were serious, you don't need a new director to understand the problem. Each year, we cut their real terms funding and mandate they do more and more. Result - cutting corners, demotivation and ultimately failure.
It’s the California problem: they can’t increase taxes and spending demands (principally the social care mandate) goes up at pace. So anything discretionary gets squeezed
And most Northern Councils are already at that point - it's been hidden a bit by Covid but I expect it's going to appear everywhere in 2025, a lot of councils will try to muddle through until the next General election (because of Political Leadership) but the means by which councils have been able to hide the problem has mainly been spent..
For all the nonsense talk about councillor bungs it's where the s106 money obviously goes too.
You mean CIL?
I mean the housing developer contribution to councils
You can still have 106 agreements but its mostly CIL, nowadays.
The stripping of Ukraine aid from the bill has nothing to do with the Senate, which was quite prepared to vote for it. And had indeed done so in a bill originating in the Senate, which the GOP majority House rejected.
It was entirely because of the GOP in the House of Representatives, where the fight over the 'debt limit' - a constitutionally dubious concept - originated.
For the nut job wing of the Republicans, every dollar sent to Ukraine is a dollar that could be used for corporate welfare, and reducing the tax bills of the wealthiest 0.5% of the population.
I'm very negative about the future of the world this morning. Tiny wedge issues are being used to drive massive gaps into western liberalism, and the winners will be tyrants and dictators.
Even this country is not immune: we came near to a Corbyn government, and we know what position he would have taken on issues such as Ukraine. The "It's our fault!" approach to defeating fascism.
Erm, did not Corbyn call for Russian withdrawal and demand further sanctions on Russia? But then he was not leading a party floating on a tide of Russian money, nor had he ennobled scions of the KGB.
He also demanded that the West stop sending arms to Ukraine.
Essentially he followed the classic “Realist” position on the Yugoslav wars - where promoting Peace was the only objective. By denying opponents of the Serbs the means to defend themselves, the butchery continued for years and years.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
Yes, but the Tories are blowing the dog whistle like craxy, despite failing (against their own objectives) on the reality. The mood music they are projecting limits the opportunity to challenge from the right, absent any dramatic 'betrayal' on Brexit.
Lord Cooper of Windrush, David Cameron’s former No 10 director of strategy, told The Independent that he [Sunak] was “out of ideas” and would vote for any candidate best placed to defeat the Conservatives at the general election.
The peer – once dubbed the ex-PM’s “favourite pollster”, said the party was “out of ideas, out of energy”. He added: “There’s no clarity of leadership. It’s not really a party at all … It’s a collection of pretty bitterly-divided factions sellotaped together because there’s an election coming.”
The former Tory, kicked out over his opposition to Brexit, also said the prospect of cutting HS2 was “a catastrophically stupid decision”, adding: “I think everything they’re doing is defined by electoral politics and trying to try to create dividing lines, wedges and traps for Labour rather than by what’s in the interest of the country.”
The stripping of Ukraine aid from the bill has nothing to do with the Senate, which was quite prepared to vote for it. And had indeed done so in a bill originating in the Senate, which the GOP majority House rejected.
It was entirely because of the GOP in the House of Representatives, where the fight over the 'debt limit' - a constitutionally dubious concept - originated.
For the nut job wing of the Republicans, every dollar sent to Ukraine is a dollar that could be used for corporate welfare, and reducing the tax bills of the wealthiest 0.5% of the population.
I'm very negative about the future of the world this morning. Tiny wedge issues are being used to drive massive gaps into western liberalism, and the winners will be tyrants and dictators.
Even this country is not immune: we came near to a Corbyn government, and we know what position he would have taken on issues such as Ukraine. The "It's our fault!" approach to defeating fascism.
Erm, did not Corbyn call for Russian withdrawal and demand further sanctions on Russia? But then he was not leading a party floating on a tide of Russian money, nor had he ennobled scions of the KGB.
Would that be the same Corbyn who opposed arming Ukraine and called for peace instead? Or the same party that has been sending armaments to Ukraine? As would I believe to be fair the new leader of the Opposition unlike his predecessor.
Nebulous calls for peace, while opposing arms for Ukraine, is exactly what every Putin shill is doing. So Corbyn isn't unique.
We don't need peace right now, we need Russia to be defeated and then there can be a just peace.
For evil to succeed just requires good to do nothing.
Lord Cooper of Windrush, David Cameron’s former No 10 director of strategy, told The Independent that he [Sunak] was “out of ideas” and would vote for any candidate best placed to defeat the Conservatives at the general election.
The peer – once dubbed the ex-PM’s “favourite pollster”, said the party was “out of ideas, out of energy”. He added: “There’s no clarity of leadership. It’s not really a party at all … It’s a collection of pretty bitterly-divided factions sellotaped together because there’s an election coming.”
The former Tory, kicked out over his opposition to Brexit, also said the prospect of cutting HS2 was “a catastrophically stupid decision”, adding: “I think everything they’re doing is defined by electoral politics and trying to try to create dividing lines, wedges and traps for Labour rather than by what’s in the interest of the country.”
That last sentence absolutely nails it.
We can all see it too. It's not even clever politics, it's simply desperation now.
I wonder if Starmer could lose just by being boring
Nah.
I'm sure that there are adrenaline junkies who have enjoyed the last decade, but "Make Britain Boring Again" has been Starmer's implicit message all along, and it's mostly more popular than unpopular.
The risk was that Sunak would out-bore Starmer, but he turns out to generate chaos as well, just in different ways to his predecessors.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I appreciate your love for Vlad is a big embarrassment for you but console yourself that you didn't have the reach of Rothermere:
What's so interesting about that article, of course, is that back then Fascism was the bright new thing. It was very popular amongst the young - and that article decries political rule by and for old men in their middle 60s.
Today, many of the youth worship at the fountain of Woke and see that as the future - as well as pulling down any symbols of the West and Establishment more broadly - and also decry political rule by and for older people.
I wonder if Starmer could lose just by being boring
Nah.
I'm sure that there are adrenaline junkies who have enjoyed the last decade, but "Make Britain Boring Again" has been Starmer's implicit message all along, and it's mostly more popular than unpopular.
The risk was that Sunak would out-bore Starmer, but he turns out to generate chaos as well, just in different ways to his predecessors.
It's not popular, just not unpopular. Labour is relying upon the government remaining unpopular and, for the moment at least, not offering much by way of concrete changes. Maybe next year we'll see a braver, more positive approach from the opposition, or maybe they're playing the dangerous game of simply waiting for the government to lose.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
I don't buy it. Farage will wait until after the GE, hoping the Tories get eviscerated, then step in.
I think the 7% Reform number will split 2% Tory, 3% abstain, 2% Reform, come the election.
The Green's 7% will split about 4% Lab/LD, 2% Green, 1% abstain.
PS Tax burden it *not* the highest since WW2.
I looked back at the election squeeze effect on these two blocs in real elections and was rather surprised. I am now revising my views. Maybe both parties will cling on to more than we think.
Before 2019 election BXP was averaging 3-4% and got 2.1% in the real thing. Green averaged 2-3% and ended up with 2.8%.
But 2019 was unusual: it was a Brexit election, Boris had already rendered BXP surplus to requirements and Corbyn had rendered the watermelon bit of the greens surplus to requirements. 2017 also had the Brexit and Corbyn effects.
2015 feels more similar. UKIP was polling 11-13% with some outliers at up to 16%. They got 12.9% in the election. Remarkable thinking back that Cameron managed a majority with all those lost right wing votes. Green was polling 3-6% with a couple of higher outliers, and got 3.8% in the real thing.
And a year before the election both parties were polling pretty similar, so no real earlier squeeze effect either. Lesson to me: don’t assume, check.
"The figures contrast with a separate YouGov poll released by Bradshaw Advisory last week, which found that only 23 per cent of people thought the line should be scaled back to save money, compared to 39 per cent who disagreed."
Sunak tells @bbclaurak “saying nothing” is an “abdication of leadership”.
Tories think Labour weak point is being decisive.
But also a bit awkward a few mins after refusing to discuss HS2 decision…
It is a weak point.
Starmer is going to have to make decisions in office, rather than follow the pack as the tedious tactical triangulator he really is, and that's where his support will start to fall away.
Right now, people are projecting onto him whatever they want to believe.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
I don't buy it. Farage will wait until after the GE, hoping the Tories get eviscerated, then step in.
I think the 7% Reform number will split 2% Tory, 3% abstain, 2% Reform, come the election.
The Green's 7% will split about 4% Lab/LD, 2% Green, 1% abstain.
PS Tax burden it *not* the highest since WW2.
I looked back at the election squeeze effect on these two blocs in real elections and was rather surprised. I am now revising my views. Maybe both parties will cling on to more than we think.
Before 2019 election BXP was averaging 3-4% and got 2.1% in the real thing. Green averaged 2-3% and ended up with 2.8%.
But 2019 was unusual: it was a Brexit election, Boris had already rendered BXP surplus to requirements and Corbyn had rendered the watermelon bit of the greens surplus to requirements. 2017 also had the Brexit and Corbyn effects.
2015 feels more similar. UKIP was polling 11-13% with some outliers at up to 16%. They got 12.9% in the election. Remarkable thinking back that Cameron managed a majority with all those lost right wing votes. Green was polling 3-6% with a couple of higher outliers, and got 3.8% in the real thing.
And a year before the election both parties were polling pretty similar, so no real earlier squeeze effect either. Lesson to me: don’t assume, check.
Same pattern. Pollsters fairly accurate.
It's every bit as naive to assume that all UKIP/Reform voters are 'right wing' as it is to believe all Lib Dem voters are 'left wing'.
A great many UKIP/Brexit/Reform voters are ex Labour voters disenchanted with Labour but wouldn't be seen dead voting Tory.
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Oh dear God - someone please put Rishi out of his misery. When John Major announced the Cone Hotline, there was an actual hotline. Sunak announces the 20mph ban, and has to immediately accept he can't actually ban 20mph.
I assume he will continue to claim he has done so. And PB Tories et al will continue to make out that he has done so, even as the reality hangs in the air like a bad smell...
"The figures contrast with a separate YouGov poll released by Bradshaw Advisory last week, which found that only 23 per cent of people thought the line should be scaled back to save money, compared to 39 per cent who disagreed."
Seems polls are all over the place
Anyway, Ryder Cup for me today and then to cook a nice meal for my dear wife, all politics free
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Oh dear God - someone please put Rishi out of his misery. When John Major announced the Cone Hotline, there was an actual hotline. Sunak announces the 20mph ban, and has to immediately accept he can't actually ban 20mph.
I assume he will continue to claim he has done so. And PB Tories et al will continue to make out that he has done so, even as the reality hangs in the air like a bad smell...
That's interesting because I can't think of a single PB Tory et al this week who has been impressed by Sunak.
Even HYUFD seems a tad embarrassed.
Sunak's performative bullshit isn't impressing anyone that I can see. If he wanted to actually make our roads better he could fund the long overdue construction of major new roads.
But that would take spending money. So he won't. So he does this crap that nobody admires instead.
Starmer could easily outflank Sunak here by pledging to finish HS2 AND fund the construction of major new road building for drivers too.
Boosting day to day spending isn't ideal, but the countries critical transport infrastructure needs investment and Sunak won't do it.
The storage canard again: every LNG cargo we have under contract, sailing towards us, is storage.
Like last winter, we will have surplus to pipe to the continent.
Its remarkable how last year people were hysterically saying we had no storage, then we exported our surplus through the winter, now the same people are saying the same thing again.
Our media never learns.
At the moment we are producing 108.5% of our requirements and 55% of that is from wind. Between wind and nuclear our gas requirements are likely to be significantly less than last year given the huge offshore wind farms that have come online this year. I don't think we will have much to worry about.
That's 'at the moment', and it is relatively high wind loading, though not unprecedented. On several occasion when I've looked recently, we've been producing far less than 100% of our own electricity (depending on the interconnectors), and with essentially no wind contribution.
I'd interpret this as a Govt congenital inability to plan beyond the end of their nose.
A reasonable amount of storage would buffer against price fluctuations and provide a modest supply guarantee.
As it is, according to the piece Rough storage is has been reopened to only 20% of capacity - nothing has been done beyond the initial panic last year.
And Rishi the Reckless has killed energy efficiency programmes, which would have made a small but material difference in a 12 month period, for entirely self-serving political reasons. He has also cut Local Housing Allowance which is to help poorer people afford their rent by about 15-20% in 2 years - for the record a large majority of that goes to people who live in Social Housing.
In the latest levelling-up news, I see that Sunak is giving 55 towns £20m each spread over 10 years to help re-invigorate them. That's £2m per town per year, which feels paltry. Barely enough for a couple of cycle paths each year.
Meanwhile, I suspect that Sunak's decision to end the war on motorists will go down well with many. But it rather begs the question: who on earth has been waging this war on motorists over the last 13 years?
The retailers, who also include the bosses of Aldi, Primark and Superdrug, call for the creation of a new UK-wide aggravated offence of assaulting or abusing a retail worker – as already exists in Scotland – which would carry tougher sentences and require police to record all incidents of retail crime and allow the allocation of more resources.
“The police consistently tell us that a lack of data about these offences means they have no visibility about the nature or scale of the issue,” the letter says...
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Oh dear God - someone please put Rishi out of his misery. When John Major announced the Cone Hotline, there was an actual hotline. Sunak announces the 20mph ban, and has to immediately accept he can't actually ban 20mph.
I assume he will continue to claim he has done so. And PB Tories et al will continue to make out that he has done so, even as the reality hangs in the air like a bad smell...
That's interesting because I can't think of a single PB Tory et al this week who has been impressed by Sunak.
Even HYUFD seems a tad embarrassed.
Sunak's performative bullshit isn't impressing anyone that I can see. If he wanted to actually make our roads better he could fund the long overdue construction of major new roads.
But that would take spending money. So he won't. So he does this crap that nobody admires instead.
Starmer could easily outflank Sunak here by pledging to finish HS2 AND fund the construction of major new road building for drivers too.
Boosting day to day spending isn't ideal, but the countries critical transport infrastructure needs investment and Sunak won't do it.
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Oh dear God - someone please put Rishi out of his misery. When John Major announced the Cone Hotline, there was an actual hotline. Sunak announces the 20mph ban, and has to immediately accept he can't actually ban 20mph.
I assume he will continue to claim he has done so. And PB Tories et al will continue to make out that he has done so, even as the reality hangs in the air like a bad smell...
That's interesting because I can't think of a single PB Tory et al this week who has been impressed by Sunak.
Even HYUFD seems a tad embarrassed.
Sunak's performative bullshit isn't impressing anyone that I can see. If he wanted to actually make our roads better he could fund the long overdue construction of major new roads.
But that would take spending money. So he won't. So he does this crap that nobody admires instead.
Starmer could easily outflank Sunak here by pledging to finish HS2 AND fund the construction of major new road building for drivers too.
Boosting day to day spending isn't ideal, but the countries critical transport infrastructure needs investment and Sunak won't do it.
What day to day spending? This is capex.
That was my point!
There are right wing arguments about cutting day to day spending, and various suggestions as to areas to cut at the start of this thread by right wingers with their various hobby horses (no surprises for my first pick).
But this is genuine investment on capital. It's what the country desperately needs and is what the country should be spending taxes on, whether from a left or right wing perspective.
Brown tarnished the word investment by calling all expenditure 'investment'. But roads, rails etc are genuine investment. Cutting them to fund day to day spending or tax changes is completely counterproductive!
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
I don't buy it. Farage will wait until after the GE, hoping the Tories get eviscerated, then step in.
I think the 7% Reform number will split 2% Tory, 3% abstain, 2% Reform, come the election.
The Green's 7% will split about 4% Lab/LD, 2% Green, 1% abstain.
PS Tax burden it *not* the highest since WW2.
I looked back at the election squeeze effect on these two blocs in real elections and was rather surprised. I am now revising my views. Maybe both parties will cling on to more than we think.
Before 2019 election BXP was averaging 3-4% and got 2.1% in the real thing. Green averaged 2-3% and ended up with 2.8%.
But 2019 was unusual: it was a Brexit election, Boris had already rendered BXP surplus to requirements and Corbyn had rendered the watermelon bit of the greens surplus to requirements. 2017 also had the Brexit and Corbyn effects.
2015 feels more similar. UKIP was polling 11-13% with some outliers at up to 16%. They got 12.9% in the election. Remarkable thinking back that Cameron managed a majority with all those lost right wing votes. Green was polling 3-6% with a couple of higher outliers, and got 3.8% in the real thing.
And a year before the election both parties were polling pretty similar, so no real earlier squeeze effect either. Lesson to me: don’t assume, check.
Same pattern. Pollsters fairly accurate.
Cameron actually lost a bit to Milliband. What he gained was from his erstwhile coalition allies.
That would be rather more justifiable than crippling HS2.
There is only way to end the low growth econony. Cull all investment and panic. It is the only way.
It's a fair point, though, that some choices will have to be made. The cost/benefit case for the Thames tunnel is very poor, and it has yet to start.
What is needed - and there's no great likelihood that Labour will be massively better, though they certainly can't be as bad - is a government which can work out what is effective investment and what isn't.
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Oh dear God - someone please put Rishi out of his misery. When John Major announced the Cone Hotline, there was an actual hotline. Sunak announces the 20mph ban, and has to immediately accept he can't actually ban 20mph.
I assume he will continue to claim he has done so. And PB Tories et al will continue to make out that he has done so, even as the reality hangs in the air like a bad smell...
That's interesting because I can't think of a single PB Tory et al this week who has been impressed by Sunak.
Even HYUFD seems a tad embarrassed.
Sunak's performative bullshit isn't impressing anyone that I can see. If he wanted to actually make our roads better he could fund the long overdue construction of major new roads.
But that would take spending money. So he won't. So he does this crap that nobody admires instead.
Starmer could easily outflank Sunak here by pledging to finish HS2 AND fund the construction of major new road building for drivers too.
Boosting day to day spending isn't ideal, but the countries critical transport infrastructure needs investment and Sunak won't do it.
Sunak will be hugely disappointed. I believe he reads PB, and his recent pronouncements seem to me to have a laser-like focus on winning back your, Barty's, personal endorsement, with their focus on cars and suburban living. But to no avail. He's blown it.
That 7% Reform vote won't be anything like that come election day.
Mostly not going to Keir "second referendum" Starmer.
Nor will the Greens get 7%. At a guess id say Ref will be 3% with most of those remaining votes going to abstention or Tory, and Green will be 3% with the gap split between abstention, Lib Dem and Lab.
It would be an interesting match bet, Green vs Reform % at the next GE. I agree with @carnforth , the Corbynites might well go Green, and they’re probably better organised & more professional than Reform.
I’d have Greens favourite, 1/2 vs 6/4 maybe? I wonder if any bookie will offer it
If Farage became Reform leader that would change things I guess
Farage, a clever prick, will only step up if he sees a gap in the market. The Cons haven’t left much space on the right for him so I daresay he’ll stick to his other grifts for now.
Plus Lozzo is pretty poisonous at the mo and Nige has generally been careful to not step over the line into full-bore nutjob.
I still get Reform and Reclaim mixed up fwiw. There’s no strong brand there.
What gives you the idea that the Tories haven't given Farrage much of a gap on the right?
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
I don't buy it. Farage will wait until after the GE, hoping the Tories get eviscerated, then step in.
I think the 7% Reform number will split 2% Tory, 3% abstain, 2% Reform, come the election.
The Green's 7% will split about 4% Lab/LD, 2% Green, 1% abstain.
PS Tax burden it *not* the highest since WW2.
I looked back at the election squeeze effect on these two blocs in real elections and was rather surprised. I am now revising my views. Maybe both parties will cling on to more than we think.
Before 2019 election BXP was averaging 3-4% and got 2.1% in the real thing. Green averaged 2-3% and ended up with 2.8%.
But 2019 was unusual: it was a Brexit election, Boris had already rendered BXP surplus to requirements and Corbyn had rendered the watermelon bit of the greens surplus to requirements. 2017 also had the Brexit and Corbyn effects.
2015 feels more similar. UKIP was polling 11-13% with some outliers at up to 16%. They got 12.9% in the election. Remarkable thinking back that Cameron managed a majority with all those lost right wing votes. Green was polling 3-6% with a couple of higher outliers, and got 3.8% in the real thing.
And a year before the election both parties were polling pretty similar, so no real earlier squeeze effect either. Lesson to me: don’t assume, check.
Same pattern. Pollsters fairly accurate.
Interesting analysis, thanks. I may end up being wrong in my projections - it happens occasionally a lot.
"The figures contrast with a separate YouGov poll released by Bradshaw Advisory last week, which found that only 23 per cent of people thought the line should be scaled back to save money, compared to 39 per cent who disagreed."
Be interesting to compare and contract the qustions asked. I mean I know these firms abide by the BPC rules to be taken seriously but it is uncanny how, on so many issues and on so many occasions, the results of polls align with the views of the vested interest that commissioned them. This is a general point on issues polling rather than a comment on this specific issue.
In the latest levelling-up news, I see that Sunak is giving 55 towns £20m each spread over 10 years to help re-invigorate them. That's £2m per town per year, which feels paltry. Barely enough for a couple of cycle paths each year.
Meanwhile, I suspect that Sunak's decision to end the war on motorists will go down well with many. But it rather begs the question: who on earth has been waging this war on motorists over the last 13 years?
Leaving aside that the War on Motorists is a complete fiction (motoring costs are down 6% in real terms over 10 years, according to the RAC Cost of Motoring index), I wonder if Sunak has realised that we are nearly all motorists rather than them being a separate identifiable group, and that most of us want public realm investment to help us be able to use our motor vehicles a lot less.
We don't want ourselves, our partners, our children and our neighbours forced into dangerous traffic by antisocial parking, yet Sunak is majoring on "reducing parking over-enforcement"; the entire country knows from personal experience that that is 100% sweetbreads and we need more enforcement not less. The Government identified this in a response to the Transport Select Committee back in 2019, and promised to review laws in 2014 - yet here they are still sitting on their butt.
It's like the anti-ULEZ stuff; he's creating a fake issue and trying to leverage a minority constituency. Hail Mary Pass 96.
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I appreciate your love for Vlad is a big embarrassment for you but console yourself that you didn't have the reach of Rothermere:
What's so interesting about that article, of course, is that back then Fascism was the bright new thing. It was very popular amongst the young - and that article decries political rule by and for old men in their middle 60s.
Today, many of the youth worship at the fountain of Woke and see that as the future - as well as pulling down any symbols of the West and Establishment more broadly - and also decry political rule by and for older people.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
I'm sorry but the Italians did not invent football, what nonsense is that. Makes me suspect that the whole piece is probably flawed.
That would be rather more justifiable than crippling HS2.
There is only way to end the low growth econony. Cull all investment and panic. It is the only way.
It's a fair point, though, that some choices will have to be made. The cost/benefit case for the Thames tunnel is very poor, and it has yet to start.
What is needed - and there's no great likelihood that Labour will be massively better, though they certainly can't be as bad - is a government which can work out what is effective investment and what isn't.
I am not an expert on the cost/benefit of such projects but do know that without it drivers in Kent and Essex shall be limited to 20mph at rush hours for decades to come, and that is egregiously against long established British values.
Just thinking of my own life: I often try and trim day to day spending (eating out, supermarkets, subscriptions etc) to fund capex (improvements in the property, savings and investments etc.) for the longterm prosperity of my family.
It's almost the exact opposite of how HMT operates.
That's interesting because I can't think of a single PB Tory et al this week who has been impressed by Sunak.
Even HYUFD seems a tad embarrassed.
Sunak's performative bullshit isn't impressing anyone that I can see. If he wanted to actually make our roads better he could fund the long overdue construction of major new roads.
But that would take spending money. So he won't. So he does this crap that nobody admires instead.
Starmer could easily outflank Sunak here by pledging to finish HS2 AND fund the construction of major new road building for drivers too.
Boosting day to day spending isn't ideal, but the countries critical transport infrastructure needs investment and Sunak won't do it.
We surely have an infrastructure deficit due to woeful investment for decades. How refusing to build helps resolve that is beyond me. The government's plan seems to be to kick everything into the long grass.
Tory moderates arrive fretting over a collapse in the youth vote, net zero (in favour) and keeping Britain inside international human rights treaties. The traditional right of the party are worried about inheritance tax, net zero (opposed) and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. Red wallers want more levelling up. A small but noisy band of Trussites want tax cuts now – while an increasingly influential group on the radical right want a war on woke...
Russia is already at war with the West. The programme of subversion and propaganda, bribery, blackmail and murder against the UK alone marks Putinist Russia as an aggressor state. Yes, it is a hybrid war rather than a full scale military attack but threats to our communications cables, oil platforms and the rest are simply one step away from acts of war. The aggression in Ukraine will not cease if the West betrays its commitments to Kyiv. In fact Russia has made it clear that the defeat of Ukraine would be merely the first step in the subjugation of the whole of Europe.
Russia will not stop unless it is stopped. The West must face down the Moscow tyranny, and it is utterly wishful thinking that anything short of the Military defeat of Moscow will save us.
Russian subversion of the US and other Western democracies is very well advanced. We may only have a few months to save ourselves. To lose would see the end of the freedom we have taken for granted. It really is that simple.
I think that you are correct that Russia is at war with the west, but this has been the case for at least 20 years, this war is just a stage in that process and not some kind of existential endgame. Inevitably some pragmatism has to come in to play about how resources are best deployed.
There are also reasons to be optimistic. The reputation of Russia has been destroyed in the west. The war hasn't gone to plan. It has been hard work for them, the war is not that popular in Russia. They have lost vast amounts of troops. Their visions of imperial expansion have been revealed as fantasies. The Wagner group has imploded. NATO has expanded. The Russian economy - based on oil and gas- is going to get more and more obsolete as alternatives evolve and the war has accelerated this.
There are reasons for pessimism too. See US shutdown vote yesterday where Ukraine was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the Slovakian election result. Russia still has enough useful idiots dotted around the West to undermine opposition.
Russian propaganda is not totally inept. They’ve managed to persuade much of the US Right (and European counterparts) that they are the last bastion of white, Christian civilisation, despite having very low church attendance, a huge Muslim population, high rates of divorce and abortion. It’s enough that Putin persecuted gays.
I'm sure we all remember Leon extolling Putin's virtue as a champion of western values and anti-woke, before he turned into Hitler reincarnated (Putin, that is...)?
Tbf Leon has a reliable track record of backing future pariahs and failures (Putin, Truss, MTG, Boebart...)
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
MTG? Boebart? I don’t even know who they are
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
I appreciate your love for Vlad is a big embarrassment for you but console yourself that you didn't have the reach of Rothermere:
What's so interesting about that article, of course, is that back then Fascism was the bright new thing. It was very popular amongst the young - and that article decries political rule by and for old men in their middle 60s.
Today, many of the youth worship at the fountain of Woke and see that as the future - as well as pulling down any symbols of the West and Establishment more broadly - and also decry political rule by and for older people.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
I'm sorry but the Italians did not invent football, what nonsense is that. Makes me suspect that the whole piece is probably flawed.
Comments
Russia's bad reptuation didn't stop a pro-Moscow party topping the poll in Slovakia, alas:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66972984
For:
1. It’s out if kilter with the rest if last week’s polling.
2. The supplementaries show no real movement - Starmer’s best PM lead over Sunak is actually up one.
Against:
1. It’s a relatively small change and does reflect a continued drop in Labour’s number that has been a consistent feature of Opinium for a while.
If it’s truly reflective, the Tories should comfortably hold mid-Beds and Tamworth. So we’ll see soon enough.
One interesting thing about a later UK election is that it would be held at the same time as the US presidential election. Tory links to the Republican party could start getting a lot more attention. Liz Truss has been very clear she wants the GOP back in the White House, despite its majority position on Ukraine running entirely contrary to UK interests.
Essentially he followed the classic “Realist” position on the Yugoslav wars - where promoting Peace was the only objective. By denying opponents of the Serbs the means to defend themselves, the butchery continued for years and years.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Putins-People-Took-Russia-Turned/dp/0007578814
Scotland’s capital has been crowned the slowest-talking city in Britain with natives speaking at a rate of 132.27 words per minute.
Birmingham had the second-slowest talkers, with an unhurried 164.21 words per minute.
Glasgow has the second fastest speakers, with locals talking at a rate of 218.13 words per minute.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-word-on-the-street-in-edinburgh-is-slow-j62wqq765
My broader point is that there is an error in projecting the fate of the decades long geopolitical conflict between the West and Russia on to this one conflict, a conflict that was originally viewed by the west as a lost cause.
The peer – once dubbed the ex-PM’s “favourite pollster”, said the party was “out of ideas, out of energy”. He added: “There’s no clarity of leadership. It’s not really a party at all … It’s a collection of pretty bitterly-divided factions sellotaped together because there’s an election coming.”
The former Tory, kicked out over his opposition to Brexit, also said the prospect of cutting HS2 was “a catastrophically stupid decision”, adding: “I think everything they’re doing is defined by electoral politics and trying to try to create dividing lines, wedges and traps for Labour rather than by what’s in the interest of the country.”
I can offer you a seat at the open air beach cinema?
Taught me all I needed to know - and more - about Putin
The thing about the right wing interest in Putin is that can be interpreted as a response to the excesses of the woke, who are also being manipulated in to more and more extreme positions by Russian propoganda. Everyone is being manipulated. The aim is just to destabilise and fracture the entire political discourse.
If he ever decides to back, the Tories will be nailed on to win.
The latest guff from Sunak and the rest of the cesspit cabinet .
Putin is not a failure by his own metrics. I’m not even sure he is a pariah
That is a liberal west-o-centric view of him, and even in the west he has many fans (not me, even if I do entirely agree with his diagnosis of Woke, just as I agree with Hitler on autobahns)
Immigration at >500k net, mostly on government visas to hold down wages in low paid sectors. Forget the small boats, this is the real scandal.
Tax burden at 38% of GDP, the highest since WW2.
Forced nannying of everything, particularly with policies like ULEZ and net zero where costs are mostly falling those in the moderately poor to middle classes, and the benefits are rather nebulous at best.
We've Brexited and barely cut any EU regulations (see the saga over planning and the habit directive). Time for some Brexit Benefits.
Lots of easily identifiable government spending on fluff like diversity, whilst services which are actually needed are falling to bits.
If you were in Farrage's shoes, popping up with an actual Conservative party and stealing 10%+ of the vote off the Tories from the right using some of this list should be a walk in the park. The fact that Reform is hovering around 7% in the polls whilst completely invisible in the public debate is a good clue.
Rishi Sunak facing questions from
@bbclaurak
He appears to admit that if elected councils, including Tory ones, want to introduce 20mph zones they still can. Suggests govt, despite the “anti war on motorists” rhetoric this week, isn’t actually banning them…
Rishi Sunak, asked to say something about Keir Starmer that he admires, refuses. He says “I’m not interested in talking about personalities”, before waffling about how great he is at doing things.
“Inaction Man” REALLY wound him up, didn’t it? #bbclaurak
Sunak tells
@bbclaurak
“saying nothing” is an “abdication of leadership”.
Tories think Labour weak point is being decisive.
But also a bit awkward a few mins after refusing to discuss HS2 decision…
Sunak being shown a giant flatscreen of words the public associate with him is too iconic
I think the 7% Reform number will split 2% Tory, 3% abstain, 2% Reform, come the election.
The Green's 7% will split about 4% Lab/LD, 2% Green, 1% abstain.
PS Tax burden it *not* the highest since WW2.
So, no chance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoQCskvoIAY
The title's misleading, though, no plan for North Korea to attack Ukraine.
"Otherwise, it's unbelievably cack-handed."
The Telegraph is reporting a RedfieldWilton poll shows 40% support axing the Birmingham - Manchester section of HS2 to 24% who oppose
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/30/poll-public-think-rishi-sunak-should-scrap-hs2/
Or the same party that has been sending armaments to Ukraine? As would I believe to be fair the new leader of the Opposition unlike his predecessor.
Nebulous calls for peace, while opposing arms for Ukraine, is exactly what every Putin shill is doing. So Corbyn isn't unique.
We don't need peace right now, we need Russia to be defeated and then there can be a just peace.
For evil to succeed just requires good to do nothing.
I'm sure that there are adrenaline junkies who have enjoyed the last decade, but "Make Britain Boring Again" has been Starmer's implicit message all along, and it's mostly more popular than unpopular.
The risk was that Sunak would out-bore Starmer, but he turns out to generate chaos as well, just in different ways to his predecessors.
Insult to injury!
Today, many of the youth worship at the fountain of Woke and see that as the future - as well as pulling down any symbols of the West and Establishment more broadly - and also decry political rule by and for older people.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Before 2019 election BXP was averaging 3-4% and got 2.1% in the real thing. Green averaged 2-3% and ended up with 2.8%.
But 2019 was unusual: it was a Brexit election, Boris had already rendered BXP surplus to requirements and Corbyn had rendered the watermelon bit of the greens surplus to requirements. 2017 also had the Brexit and Corbyn effects.
2015 feels more similar. UKIP was polling 11-13% with some outliers at up to 16%. They got 12.9% in the election. Remarkable thinking back that Cameron managed a majority with all those lost right wing votes.
Green was polling 3-6% with a couple of
higher outliers, and got 3.8% in the real thing.
And a year before the election both parties were polling pretty similar, so no real earlier squeeze effect either. Lesson to me: don’t assume, check.
Same pattern. Pollsters fairly accurate.
"The figures contrast with a separate YouGov poll released by Bradshaw Advisory last week, which found that only 23 per cent of people thought the line should be scaled back to save money, compared to 39 per cent who disagreed."
Starmer is going to have to make decisions in office, rather than follow the pack as the tedious tactical triangulator he really is, and that's where his support will start to fall away.
Right now, people are projecting onto him whatever they want to believe.
Being rich or wealthy isn't a problem per say, it's how Sunak wears it that is.
A great many UKIP/Brexit/Reform voters are ex Labour voters disenchanted with Labour but wouldn't be seen dead voting Tory.
I assume he will continue to claim he has done so. And PB Tories et al will continue to make out that he has done so, even as the reality hangs in the air like a bad smell...
Anyway, Ryder Cup for me today and then to cook a nice meal for my dear wife, all politics free
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/01/9bn-thames-tunnel-faces-axe-amid-fears-over-tory-infrastructure-plans
That would be rather more justifiable than crippling HS2.
Even HYUFD seems a tad embarrassed.
Sunak's performative bullshit isn't impressing anyone that I can see. If he wanted to actually make our roads better he could fund the long overdue construction of major new roads.
But that would take spending money. So he won't. So he does this crap that nobody admires instead.
Starmer could easily outflank Sunak here by pledging to finish HS2 AND fund the construction of major new road building for drivers too.
Boosting day to day spending isn't ideal, but the countries critical transport infrastructure needs investment and Sunak won't do it.
A reasonable amount of storage would buffer against price fluctuations and provide a modest supply guarantee.
As it is, according to the piece Rough storage is has been reopened to only 20% of capacity - nothing has been done beyond the initial panic last year.
And Rishi the Reckless has killed energy efficiency programmes, which would have made a small but material difference in a 12 month period, for entirely self-serving political reasons. He has also cut Local Housing Allowance which is to help poorer people afford their rent by about 15-20% in 2 years - for the record a large majority of that goes to people who live in Social Housing.
Meanwhile, I suspect that Sunak's decision to end the war on motorists will go down well with many. But it rather begs the question: who on earth has been waging this war on motorists over the last 13 years?
No, it will still be massively cack handed and will hack off the merry band of opinionated men down pubs he's taken on this magical mystery car ride.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/01/major-uk-retail-bosses-plead-for-staff-protection-as-violent-criminals-empty-stores
Almost 90 retail leaders, including the bosses of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Boots and WH Smith, have written to the government demanding action on rising retail crime, in which violent criminals are “emptying stores”.
The retailers, who also include the bosses of Aldi, Primark and Superdrug, call for the creation of a new UK-wide aggravated offence of assaulting or abusing a retail worker – as already exists in Scotland – which would carry tougher sentences and require police to record all incidents of retail crime and allow the allocation of more resources.
“The police consistently tell us that a lack of data about these offences means they have no visibility about the nature or scale of the issue,” the letter says...
There are right wing arguments about cutting day to day spending, and various suggestions as to areas to cut at the start of this thread by right wingers with their various hobby horses (no surprises for my first pick).
But this is genuine investment on capital. It's what the country desperately needs and is what the country should be spending taxes on, whether from a left or right wing perspective.
Brown tarnished the word investment by calling all expenditure 'investment'. But roads, rails etc are genuine investment. Cutting them to fund day to day spending or tax changes is completely counterproductive!
The cost/benefit case for the Thames tunnel is very poor, and it has yet to start.
What is needed - and there's no great likelihood that Labour will be massively better, though they certainly can't be as bad - is a government which can work out what is effective investment and what isn't.
It would be a bit more fun to watch than the current shitshow, though.
We don't want ourselves, our partners, our children and our neighbours forced into dangerous traffic by antisocial parking, yet Sunak is majoring on "reducing parking over-enforcement"; the entire country knows from personal experience that that is 100% sweetbreads and we need more enforcement not less. The Government identified this in a response to the Transport Select Committee back in 2019, and promised to review laws in 2014 - yet here they are still sitting on their butt.
It's like the anti-ULEZ stuff; he's creating a fake issue and trying to leverage a minority constituency. Hail Mary Pass 96.
It's almost the exact opposite of how HMT operates.
‘No one knows what we stand for’: Tory MPs in despair ahead of Sunak’s crucial conference
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/01/tory-mps-rishi-sunak-conservative-conference
...the Conservative party is suffering from an identity crisis many years in the making. This week’s Manchester conference feels more like the uneasy peace talks of warring tribes than a major rallying point before an election.
Tory moderates arrive fretting over a collapse in the youth vote, net zero (in favour) and keeping Britain inside international human rights treaties. The traditional right of the party are worried about inheritance tax, net zero (opposed) and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. Red wallers want more levelling up. A small but noisy band of Trussites want tax cuts now – while an increasingly influential group on the radical right want a war on woke...
You think?