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Could Liz Truss improve Tory fortunes? – politicalbetting.com
Could Liz Truss improve Tory fortunes? – politicalbetting.com
Exclusive— Rishi Sunak is now polling **worse than Liz Truss** with the key voters who decided the last election— Sunak has presided over a “year of decline” that’s caused an “implosion” in the Tory vote, according to a major study by @JLPartnersPollshttps://t.co/flTxtASNVI
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Even after he resigned when he was still PM in August 2022 and after partygate and Pinchergate etc Boris retained 74% of 2019 Conservative voters. Truss retained just 63% of them after her disastrous budget and now Sunak is retaining just 59% of them (he has gained a handful of 2019 LDs which means the Tory voteshare is still fractionally above Truss' worst poll ratings but still much worse than under Boris)
(@DougSeal can't make it so asked me to fill in)
Please explain for us non-historians.
But I know there were a lot of Cons who liked the messaging but needed some detail on the numbers. For KK who has a PhD in this stuff it was unforgiveable but I hear from friends that he has a touch of the Borises about him wrt hard work.
The question is whether swingback will occur at all.
Commentators are still operating within their comfort zone of expectations, drawn from a blinkered experience.
Reducing voter identification with parties has led to huge swings in voting intention, which sometimes has also led to massive change at the polls and in MPs elected - though as that hasn't been at Con/Lab level, too many either haven't noticed or have dismissed it as 'circumstances' or 'small / regional thing'.
Since 2010, we've had:
- LD surge to 30% then collapse to sub-10%, all within 2010.
- LD surge to 20%+ then collapse back to near 10% against, all within 2019.
- SNP mother-of-all-landslides, at SLab/ScLD expense
- UKIP surge from 2-3% to 15%ish through 2012-17, then back to nothing
- BxP surge to 20%+ then collapse back to 3%ish, all in 2019
- Tories polling at 50%+ and sub-20%, all this parliament.
Rather than being stuck in a 1945-2010 mindset, we need to look more at the wild swings of the 1918-35 elections, with the same kind of voter / party fluidity.
- We need something to unite us as a nation
- Given the change in the way we watch, a drop in its viewing figures is inevitable
- If we were still forced to watch television in the way we used to - one set, three/four/five channels - we would think it was a golden age on the BBC
- PB is dependent on the BBC's political coverage, and we would really miss programmes like Laura Kuenssberg: State of Chaos
- Every other non-UK alternative (Netflix, CNN, YouTube) cannot replace it because of its parochial nature
So although I am comfortable with discussions of alternate funding models and its scope, I would regret the departure of the BBC. In fact, given their recent gutting of its news programmes and journalist staff, its news/current affairs/documentaries funding should be expanded not contracted.Having now definitively settled the matter, you can now speak of something else. You're welcome.
See also
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/genres/factual/politics
It started at 9am and it was over by 9.37am.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War
You can't freeze time at June 2022; events and opinion would have continued to move against him. There is an argument that he wouldn't have done as badly as Truss or even Sunak - but there's also an argument that even if he hadn't, the long-term damage he (and the MPs keeping him there) would have done the Tory brand, and indeed the body politic in general, would have been even greater.
Since then, he's been found to have lied to Parliament and, had he stayed on, he'd have been at real risk - as sitting PM - of suspension and recall. Had he remained, the COVID inquiry would have been even more horrific for PM Johnson. And he'd have suffered many of the misfortunes of his successors - fuel prices, inflation, failures on immigration etc - plus, no doubt, some extra ones that would have emerged due to his peculiar character defects.
It's ultimately an unknowable, but I think you're being extremely optimistic if you think Johnson's retention rate would have held up at August 2022 levels over the following 16 months had he somehow clung on to the keys to Number 10.
Maybe better to say instead that Boris shouldn't have had lockdown parties and shouldn't have covered for Pincher than the Tories shouldn't have got rid of him.
They are losing about 300k households a year as they go live tv we dont need that
And in a few years from now, broadcast TV will end. The license fee system is dying slowly.
Things must change so they remain the same.
Otherwise the BBC will go the way of the hydraulic power supply networks.
- By presenting the British case and the British point of view to the world
- To (attempt to) bring us news of the world
- To (attempt to) bring us news of the other parts of the UK
- To create, by hook or by crook, a concept of "the British" at a time where every economic and social force is insistent on defining us out
I really don't care if anybody watches it in real time at all. I just need something in that space. I don't want a world where news and a sense of self are dictated by Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, or any other non-Brit with a ten-figure account. I want something with a British flag on it fighting it out.Really, they should call a GE. They don't have a sharpness of policy, they don't have a sense of purpose, they're floundering around in government because that's better for them then floundering around in opposition.
I would say even if you are a Conservative an early GE and some time in the wilderness should be what you want from the party - it's not like SKS's Labour are going to do anything useful or good that massively overturns Tory orthodoxy.
It’s really keen for other Arab nations to get involved and attack Israel. They’ve got some Turkish-Palestinian activist who until recently has been saying “Turkey has an army of 2m million men and they will save the Gazans”… and now he looks all sheepish and evasive
At what point do the poor Palestinians realise that every other Muslim nation doesn’t give a fuck. It’s all for show. They won’t stop Israel, they won’t lift a finger. They barely give any aid. They are relying on America to rein in Bibi and…. That’s it
A sensible Budget Spring 2024 built on proper Conservative principles
Rishi to call the election for 2 May 2024
CON to provide a manifesto built on proper Conservative principles (which has been very much have been in absence recently)
CON will still lose but we go down with dignity and as you indicate could possibly get 250 max
If we're living in a world where only 10% or so pay the license fee, and even fewer watch it - we should accept that. The BBC does not need to representative of the British license fee payer, or even for them. It could just be another service that some people use, and some don't, that serves a public good and is paid for by a tax.
It could:
a) provide a hub for home grown talent that may not otherwise be commercially viable
b) provide educational television that may not otherwise be commercially viable
c) provide a non-partisan but still fact based news service
d) be an method of outreach and soft power of British culture
I would argue that the BBC is currently good at b) and d) - in terms of a) it does provide some avenues for home grown talent, but it could be riskier, and in terms of c) the BBC is very pro-establishment (currently Tory, but essentially whoever is in government) and mistakes attempts at being "balanced" as giving equal time to people who say 2+2=4 and people who believe 2+2=5.
In terms of news and (especially) politics - I think the BBC nationally is abysmal at giving opportunities to people who aren't "in the club". This is juxtaposed with their quite diverse and varied talent in their regional teams and coverage. I think more BBC regional news and politics media should be the powerhouse of news and politics talent - individuals who have worked their way up and proved themselves to be good at holding politicians to account and telling straight (as in not opinion) based news.
We dont need them, I wouldn't trust any of them to tell the truth and haven't for years. It is a common view held by most people because we used to read stuff where we knew a lot about the subject and the reporting of most were so hilariously wrong and misleading it was a joke.
Now I am not saying they are deliberately lying I am merely saying most journalists are drawn from non technical disciplines. They don't understand science, technology, basic maths which is what most of the real world turns on. Also over the last 2 decades they seem to have decided that reporting actual facts is less important than reporting their opinions about actual facts.
It also should not be up to the BBC to create a concept of "the British". I wouldn't mind the BBC hosting the conversation about what it means to be British, or the different ways to be British - but there shouldn't be any top down force defining Britishness on people; because, after you have that definition, what happens to those people (whether born here from a long line of people born here or not) who disagree with that idea of Britishness? Or even dislikes the very notion of a sense of Britishness, as I'm sure many Scotch, Welsh, Cornish etc. people would?
There aren't really any great options (and I class keeping Rishi Sunak as amongst those not great options), but I favour Jake Berry at the moment.
I don't think you can write off a return to the cabinet for Truss, as she was a fairly successful minister.
Since the other Arab nations have lost conventional war after conventional war against Israel between 1948 and 1973, they've now just given up.
They say (domestically) they support Palestine and want to push the Israelis into the sea, but that's just for domestic consumption. They've no intention of doing anything at all. Not even Egypt, who've been offered Gaza (And used to own it). They just don't want to know.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/04/jeremy-hunt-blames-brexit-instability
https://futurism.com/sports-illustrated-ai-generated-writers
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/sellafield-nuclear-site-hacked-groups-russia-china
Mother (Mary)
Queen (Elizabeth)
Leader (Truss)
HER TIME
Viewcode says we need something to unite us as a nation. Maybe. But it does not follow that this will actually occur.
The BBC was a candidate for this. PB alone indicates this is no more. Other candidates abound or once did; each person can make their own commentary:
The Crown/Crown in Parliament
Christian culture/church
The NHS
Effortless superiority of being top dog
The good chaps theory of government
Empire
The anglophone world
Common law and legal system
An incorruptible civil order
'No sex please we're British'
Our traditions of policing by consent
A locally spread out aristocracy with obligations as well as rights
Stiff upper lip/reserve
John Stuart Mill 'On Liberty'
The Times/Oxford/Cambridge
'Fair play' or 'It's not cricket'
The threat from Vikings/Normans/The French/The Germans/The Russians/Johnny Foreigner.
FWIW I struggle to identify now what would hold us together as a nation, unless it is a literati writing endless articles Why Oh Why on the loss of one or more of the above. Because of reasons.
Last time I looked, Israel had a greater volume of both imports and exports with Egypt than with the entire rest of the region combined.
So of all the Arab countries, Egypt is the one least like to get involved in Palestine. (Conversely, it makes Israel less likely to attempt to push everyone out of Gaza, because those people would end up in Egypt's Sinai desert, and would do nothing positive to the relations between the two countries.)
Defeat Israel, You Die.
This was simple enough for even those at the bottom table of the class.
But it's a tricky set of events to navigate. She'd have to first defect to (and be accepted by) Labour, then get a very senior position, ideally leader - that should improve Tory fortunes. I know she's got form what with the switch from the LDs, but it's a tough ask
https://www.thehundred.com/
Something, anything that addresses at least some of our long term problems. Who knows, doing the right thing might even turn out to be popular.
Britishness - in my mind - has as core values a deference to power (whether that be working class crab bucket mentality, or elitist arrogance), a weird exceptionalism (typically based in the Empire, but also as a kind of semi-mythic figure of enlightenment and giver of natural justice to the world) as well as a general view that "things are shit, they deserve to be shit", and "it was shit when I was young and it didn't do me any harm".
I'm mostly okay with this as an aim (although would say gender and sex rather than biological sex). But this isn't what Britain is, nor has it ever been. Our systems of law are always hugely deferential to power (like, literally laws that carve out exceptions for the monarch, and the way poor people are overpoliced and the elite are... not). We do not treat people equally and worthy of respect regardless of their race, religion, sexuality, gender etc. and movements towards being so are actively opposed by reactionaries and considered "woke". Like, these are just not what Britishness ever has been or currently is.
Can anything save the Tories? In a word, no.
And then I came across the Blackpool comedy carpet.
It's absolutely brilliant. It's impossible to be British and walk across it without AMAWGATing and ASCUMBing. It would be an exaggeration to say that it encompasses everything about British culture, but I've never come across anything which encompasses so much of British culture in one place.
And pretty much every British person would understand it. And almost no foreigners would.
I think it is in the top five pieces of public art in the UK. (I'd also add, OTTOMH, the Kelpies and the Angel of the North.) Well worth a trip to Blackpool for that alone.
https://whynotassociates.com/environmental/the-comedy-carpet
Personally, I feel The Ashes is overhyped and a legacy of a long-gone era but enough fans seem to think otherwise. The ICC should really sort out a proper test world championship with groups and a final, rather than the current ad hoc thing that no-one understands.
EDIT: can't get that link to work. You'll just have to trust me about the game at Wormsley!
But you absolutely do need a structure, including a final (which could also be a series). Anything else provides no focus and therefore no story. And without focus, the format will continue to die.
Is it really only rich migrants they want? (And if so, are they confident that there are enough British people to supply the market for low-paid labour?)
And then, if any of the Tories beating the anti-immigrant drum are children of migrants who weren't rich when they came here, aren't they being a little bit inconsistent?
Penny Mordaunt could have been completely useless, but she was the best choice for them to succeed Boris from what was on offer.