Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
To be honest, since I’ve had physical challenges necessitating the use either of a wheelchair or a substantial walking aid, people couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful.
That's nice to hear.
I could get a wheelchair, but it's a bit of a drastic solution.
1. 10% 2. 31st October 2024 3. Same as they are now 4. NOM - Labour 10 seats short 5. Haley and Biden 6. Haley (or GOP if we just want the winning party) 7. 4.5% 8. 3.1% 9. £87 billion 10. 50
I've a hunch it will be October but not 31st. Too many opportunities for Halloween gags in tabloids.
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Not really
Given how much I travel, I am always struck by how British people are comparatively polite and amiable and usually quite cheerful
It is one of the crucial things that makes Britain a rather nice place to be, despite the weather and the Barratt homes
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
To be honest, since I’ve had physical challenges necessitating the use either of a wheelchair or a substantial walking aid, people couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful.
Hopefully that's not Mrs. OKC you're describing as substantial.
For the avoidance of doubt, absolutely not. I’m talking about something similar to, but bigger than, a Zimmer frame. And it’s not just in my home town, or favourite pub.
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
They were probably Londoners with an enormous sense of self-entitlement.
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
We have had a series of rude Tory governments, ready to show the finger to their critics, the law, propriety, or ordinary folk.
StillWaters said: » show previous quotes How did he know about Japan in advance… I think we should be told.
(Too dark?) I’m not that clairvoyant, fortunately.
My prediction of a natural disaster is simply on the basis of probability. In most decades a few things dominate the news for weeks or months:
- domestic and Anglosphere political crises and elections, every 2-3 years. - Economic crises (usually one big one per decade, and a couple of smaller / false alarm ones). Last one was of course the cozzy livs crisis. - Natural disasters including pandemics, floods, quakes and tsunamis, hurricanes. Loads every year but usually two or three big ones per decade that demand global or regional attention - big sporting stories like the olympics or World Cup. Dropping in significance in recent years. - wars and coups. They come and go and we’re in a bit of a rich vein currently, but still the big ones are more like once a decade
The last major natural disaster of global significance was Covid. Before that the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and West Africa, before that the Japanese tsunami and Thai floods, which disrupted global supply chains, before that the series of droughts in food producing regions that led to the Arab spring, before that Hurricane Katrina and a year earlier the Indian Ocean tsunami. And before that the apocalyptic Central European floods of 1997. We are due another this year or next. But notably it’s years since a huge volcanic eruption and decades since a major crop blight.
Domestic natural disasters have been thin on the ground too. It’s a long time since the 2013 floods that got Cameron in trouble, the foot and mouth epidemic that trashed UK farming, the catastrophic flooding of Boscastle, the 2007 summer floods.
So if a major natural disaster doesn’t dominate and derail the news agenda this year at some point we’ll be lucky.
You arrive in their current-model BMW 7 series, which picked you up from anywhere in the UAE, go into one of 25 totally private suites, order food from a menu prepared by a Michelin-starred chef, and drink the Krug while you’re waiting for it.
At some point, your passport control officer will come and say hi, take your passports for stamping and bring them back to you.
Once you’ve decided whether you want to be first or last to board the plane, you wait to be called to walk through your private security gate and out airside to another 7-series, which takes you straight to the plane.
You will never see another guest during your experience in Al Majlis Lounge, apart from your own party.
It costs £500 per person.
There’s also now also a similar one at LAX.
That does look quite sleek
I presume the fizz flows freely?
A truly world beating airport lounge would - it occurs to me - discreetly offer sexual relief
Can I reccomend the transit hotel in Guangzhou Airport (CAN)
I have not experienced people becoming ruder or more impatient.
I usually find people becoming more rude and impatient in hot weather. Worst driver behaviour i can remember, including wanker sign proliferation, was during the 2003 heatwave.
I've experienced nothing but kindness from strangers whilst I have lived in London, so it is disappointing to hear that there are unkind people out there.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
That is absolutely spot on. The amount of attention that gets paid to Trump’s court cases is hilarious, even more so when - in the US - you see several of these efforts are getting knocked back.
I’m just back from the States and, as you say, what is happening on the immigration front is insane. There is another 7000 strong caravan on the way through Mexico and the Administration can’t seem to do anything.
It is also now causing major fault lines in the Democrat party. As @Leon said, the pain is now being spread to places like NYC and Chicago whose Mayors have put limits on buses coming from Texas. So Abbott has now started putting them on planes instead.
But it is also causing the Democrats major issues in places like Arizona where Katie Hobbs has come out swinging against the Administration.
Two other issues to highlight which don’t get much attention.
One is the growing fault line with the Democrats younger voters over Israel / Gaza. Biden is in a pickle. I think the estimate is 50% of Democrat donations come from Jewish voters but the young graduate crowd are seriously pissed at US support for Israel.
Two, there are starting to be growing fractures within the Ds over the policy of trying to get Trump kicked off state ballots. Newsom came out against it very strongly in CA and so did Golden and King about in Maine. One big issue here is that politicians like Bellows and CA’s Lt-Gov are trying to use it to boost their own chances of higher office (Bellows is looking to become Governor of Maine for example).
Part 1 You, and many others, are clearly fans of Lincoln. But that’s not the point under discussion at all, the point here is everyone recognising Lincoln as the war causing disruptor he clearly was - disruptor to the ideas of Freedom others felt the formation and existence of the United States, and life in it was all about.
Freedoms and Rights at the centre of American politics back then, as the argument they make America great.
Let me prove my argument the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, but about Freedom and Rights, by using this Black Mirror. Delete and replace the constitutional freedom and right to own slaves, in a state opposed to slavery, with the freedom and right to bear arms in a state opposed to carrying guns. It doesn’t matter if it’s slavery, or gun ownership, or any point of moral or political contention - it’s where that freedom and right in America comes up against a disruptor, saying “can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow {slavery} to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.” Lifted straight from Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address you sent me.
Part 2 The more you send me, the more evidence it gives me that I am right. Let’s be honest in the terms we should use about Lincoln. He’s was a progressive, bringing a sense of duty to be progressive to any situation, into debate on any issue, and this made him the disruptor. I’m not saying you shouldn’t like Abraham Lincoln. But we must accept he is pressing for progressive change that is undoing what people believe are the Freedoms and Rights in America. And so Lincoln is the cause of the civil war.
The more I read up on this, when the secessionists fired the first shot in the war, their right to keep slaves not actually under immediate threat in the slave states, by all means put me right if that’s wrong. However, by this point they have clearly been pushed by their “Nationalist” opponents “clear intentions of redefining” the Freedom and Rights in US as they understood them, into a position to cede from the Union.
Recall “freedom and rights” are the words Haley used as to what the civil war was about in her instinctive answer to the question. And recall while she was, according to me, historically word perfect in her honest answer - that was used against her politically last week. However, rather than taking that answer out of the public sphere to believe it behind closed doors - a view of American history held behind closed doors, best not mentioned in public, which I claim is where it is being hidden, the US needs a more honest debate on this. And here’s the question, can the US have that honest debate on this right now? Or is the USA a place true history of Civil War is kept behind closed doors, because that same actual war hasn’t even been resolved yet?
because, biggest Elephant in the room in the USA is how the Freedom and Rights indoctrinated into Americans, from birth even like the first thing whispered into each baby’s ear after the stork has dropped it off, completely grates against progressive and nationalist politics of Lincoln’s Copper Union address: that the National government, Congress, has both the moral duty and constitutional power to override “everything”, on issues where there cannot be groping for contrivances in the middle ground.
Forget 1860 - instead take a little trip with Lincoln’s Copper Union Address through America today, and see just how many it can wind up into insurrection, even in 2024.
I rest my case here. I’ve explained myself fully, whether you want to agree or not.
The Fire Eaters had pushed the narrative that slavery had to expand or die. They also pushed a narrative that all Republicans were John Brown supporting abolitionists.
They also believed this themselves. They convinced themselves that no matter what assurances were given to them, on slavery, that the election of Lincoln was the beginning of an assault on slavery.
To remain in the USA, when pro slavery politicians were not in control of the government was intolerable to them.
They also believed that even if Lincoln wasn't going to do lead an assault on slavery himself - and he well might - the North would do so sooner or later, one way or another. And that it had the economic and political muscle to do so, if it voted as a block (as it just had under Lincoln, and as it might well continue to do if slavery was *the* defining divisive issue.
Except that any move against slavery required super majorities in both the House and Senate. Which were not possible. Until the South seceded!
(Although in the unlikely event of winning I would obviously have to recuse myself - due to being a time-travelling alien from the future and thus having inside information.)
I have misunderstood number 4 for the predictions so please consider this my updated entry:
1. 3% 2. 2nd May 2024 3. The same leaders as of 01/01/2024, with the exception of Reform who has Nigel Farage 4. Labour, 150 majority 5. Trump/Biden 6. Biden 7. The same as it is as of 01/01/2024 8. 2.8% 9. 150bn 10. 69
I have misunderstood number 4 for the predictions so please consider this my updated entry:
1. 3% 2. 2nd May 2024 3. The same leaders as of 01/01/2024, with the exception of Reform who has Nigel Farage 4. Labour, 150 majority 5. Trump/Biden 6. Biden 7. The same as it is as of 01/01/2024 8. 2.8% 9. 150bn 10. 69
Oh go on then: 1) 8% 2) 2nd May 2024 3) Farage replaces Tice for ReFUK, otherwise no change 4) Labour, majority of 55 5) GOP people would get death threats if they don't select Trump (whether he is in jail or ineligible or whatever), and Biden to face him 6) Biden I will guess the rest 7) 4.0% 8) 3.0% 9) £135bn 10) 60
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
To be honest, since I’ve had physical challenges necessitating the use either of a wheelchair or a substantial walking aid, people couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful.
Hopefully that's not Mrs. OKC you're describing as substantial.
For the avoidance of doubt, absolutely not. I’m talking about something similar to, but bigger than, a Zimmer frame. And it’s not just in my home town, or favourite pub.
Mrs OKC is "something similar to, but bigger than, a Zimmer frame"?
Sounds like she's very supportive in a substantial way - you're a lucky guy!
There is huge scope for the Tories to play the rest of the country against London, and to use London campaign stories in the rest of the country. This date has got to be top of the list.
4) UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%)
Conservative party, majority of 60 seats
They'll win it on immigration-xenophobia, basically doing what D Cummings allegedly proposed to R Sunak as a way to "smash" Labour:
1) slash taxes for the Tories' main base by more than they'd ever dreamed of (bye bye Reform);
2) "render" planeloads of non-white immigrants to Rwanda and boatloads of the same to le côté français of the maritime border (all good Tories know the line about beginning at Calais), while walking out of the ECHR and leaving "libtards" and internet commentators to discuss the legality and propriety (no bye bye to Lab-Con 2019 switchers); and
3) have a kind of mass mobilisation for the NHS. Did anyone think any lie in politics was too big to be told? If Starmer says no, no, that's Labour's issue, look, we've got some nurses here, just push a story about non-white quacks minting it from advising asylum seekers on how to navigate around immigration law ... before the government closed the loophole earlier in 2024, that is.
11) Most embarrassing TV appearance by a travel journalist:
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group) did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
Edit to add: in Wisconsin, 76% of voters said "worker shortages" was a major issue!
There is huge scope for the Tories to play the rest of the country against London, and to use London campaign stories in the rest of the country. This date has got to be top of the list.
4) UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%)
Conservative party, majority of 60 seats
They'll win it on immigration-xenophobia, basically doing what D Cummings allegedly proposed to R Sunak as a way to "smash" Labour:
1) slash taxes for the Tories' main base by more than they'd ever dreamed of (bye bye Reform);
2) "render" planeloads of non-white immigrants to Rwanda and boatloads of the same to le côté français of the maritime border (all good Tories know the line about beginning at Calais), while walking out of the ECHR and leaving "libtards" and internet commentators to discuss the legality and propriety (no bye bye to Lab-Con 2019 switchers);
and 3) have a kind of mass mobilisation for the NHS (did anyone think any lie in politics was too big to be told?)
11) Most embarrassing TV appearance by a travel journalist:
Fascinating 1st post! The interesting thing about the "render planeloads" idea is that it would be hugely illegal. But this government? Yeah, a temptation to do it - or even just try it - to pick a fight with the forces of woke (UK laws, lawyers, courts etc).
The November 2023 CPI inflation rate is 3.9%, not 4.2%.
Yes, sorry my mistake, I used the headline rate quoted on the ONS website which is 4.2% but is actually CPIH. Since the question states the "CPI figure" I assume predictions will be compared to the November 2024 CPI rate when that is issued in December.
There is huge scope for the Tories to play the rest of the country against London, and to use London campaign stories in the rest of the country. This date has got to be top of the list.
4) UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%)
Conservative party, majority of 60 seats
They'll win it on immigration-xenophobia, basically doing what D Cummings allegedly proposed to R Sunak as a way to "smash" Labour:
1) slash taxes for the Tories' main base by more than they'd ever dreamed of (bye bye Reform);
2) "render" planeloads of non-white immigrants to Rwanda and boatloads of the same to le côté français of the maritime border (all good Tories know the line about beginning at Calais), while walking out of the ECHR and leaving "libtards" and internet commentators to discuss the legality and propriety (no bye bye to Lab-Con 2019 switchers); and
3) have a kind of mass mobilisation for the NHS. Did anyone think any lie in politics was too big to be told? If Starmer says no, no, that's Labour's issue, look, we've got some nurses here, just push a story about non-white quacks minting it from advising asylum seekers on how to navigate around immigration law ... before the government closed the loophole earlier in 2024, that is.
11) Most embarrassing TV appearance by a travel journalist:
There is huge scope for the Tories to play the rest of the country against London, and to use London campaign stories in the rest of the country. This date has got to be top of the list.
4) UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%)
Conservative party, majority of 60 seats
They'll win it on immigration-xenophobia, basically doing what D Cummings allegedly proposed to R Sunak as a way to "smash" Labour:
1) slash taxes for the Tories' main base by more than they'd ever dreamed of (bye bye Reform);
2) "render" planeloads of non-white immigrants to Rwanda and boatloads of the same to le côté français of the maritime border (all good Tories know the line about beginning at Calais), while walking out of the ECHR and leaving "libtards" and internet commentators to discuss the legality and propriety (no bye bye to Lab-Con 2019 switchers); and
3) have a kind of mass mobilisation for the NHS. Did anyone think any lie in politics was too big to be told? If Starmer says no, no, that's Labour's issue, look, we've got some nurses here, just push a story about non-white quacks minting it from advising asylum seekers on how to navigate around immigration law ... before the government closed the loophole earlier in 2024, that is.
11) Most embarrassing TV appearance by a travel journalist:
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
Your point about the Dems being reflexively anti-Trump pretty much answers something I was questioning recently, as in, why if the Reps are tying the Ukraine support to spending on immigration crackdowns, the Dems aren’t just saying “Yes great”. The dems aren’t really left wing in a European sense so I didn’t see it as an ideological issue so it really must be that they don’t want to be seen as agreeing with Trumpism in any way. Which is stupid.
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
It should be a driver nationwide, not just in Georgia.
By October, I shall have recruited 650 alternative returning officers, who will have determined that, having counted the votes, Rishi Sunak has added another 60 to Boris's tally and is set for another five years with a whopping Conservative majority.
Which is essentially what Trump and his co-conspirators undertook.
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
It should be a driver nationwide, not just in Georgia.
By October, I shall have recruited 650 alternative returning officers, who will have determined that, having counted the votes, Rishi Sunak has added another 60 to Boris's tally and is set for another five years with a whopping Conservative majority.
Which is essentially what Trump and his co-conspirators undertook.
That's right.
Nothing is more important than the ability of the voters' voice to be heard. Once you start cancelling the results of elections, you are on an incredibly dangerous path.
As I've said many times before, I would choose someone who I disagreed with a thousand times over (say a Corbyn) and who upheld democratic processes, over someone who I agreed with on the issues, but who was willing to piss on democracy.
Sadly, the US has become so polarized, that (a) many people believe Trump's lies regarding the election, and (b) that even when they think he's talking shit, they are still willing to vote for him.
@TheKitchenCabinet regards this as us all being liberal consensus wankers. And maybe that's true. But countries that go to shit, well, normally the first step is removing the ability of the voters to kick the government out.
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I've noticed the opposite, but I have kind of been training the people that I interact with
I can't quite believe that I've managed sixteen months of it, but I've been unfailingly polite and relentlessly cheerful since I started as a postie
I think I have seen a good number of people become more polite, and cheerful, when they see me than they were when I first met them
Especially the kids
It's been quite heartening to observe how loads of children answering the door have gone from giving me a grunt as they took the parcel, to saying thank you and wishing me a good day even before I can wish it to them
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
That is absolutely spot on. The amount of attention that gets paid to Trump’s court cases is hilarious, even more so when - in the US - you see several of these efforts are getting knocked back.
I’m just back from the States and, as you say, what is happening on the immigration front is insane. There is another 7000 strong caravan on the way through Mexico and the Administration can’t seem to do anything.
It is also now causing major fault lines in the Democrat party. As @Leon said, the pain is now being spread to places like NYC and Chicago whose Mayors have put limits on buses coming from Texas. So Abbott has now started putting them on planes instead.
But it is also causing the Democrats major issues in places like Arizona where Katie Hobbs has come out swinging against the Administration.
Two other issues to highlight which don’t get much attention.
One is the growing fault line with the Democrats younger voters over Israel / Gaza. Biden is in a pickle. I think the estimate is 50% of Democrat donations come from Jewish voters but the young graduate crowd are seriously pissed at US support for Israel.
Two, there are starting to be growing fractures within the Ds over the policy of trying to get Trump kicked off state ballots. Newsom came out against it very strongly in CA and so did Golden and King about in Maine. One big issue here is that politicians like Bellows and CA’s Lt-Gov are trying to use it to boost their own chances of higher office (Bellows is looking to become Governor of Maine for example).
Which Trump court cases “are getting knocked back”? We still have damages to be awarded in the first Jean Carroll case, the second Jean Carroll case is going strong, the Georgia case is going strong, the New York fraud case is too, the federal election interference case is ongoing, as is the secret documents case. The Jan 6 police officers civil suit has just jumped a hurdle successfully. The hush money case is going forwards. His allies, like Giuliani, are in a whole host of difficulties.
Trump dropped *his* suit against Michael Cohen in October.
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
Your point about the Dems being reflexively anti-Trump pretty much answers something I was questioning recently, as in, why if the Reps are tying the Ukraine support to spending on immigration crackdowns, the Dems aren’t just saying “Yes great”. The dems aren’t really left wing in a European sense so I didn’t see it as an ideological issue so it really must be that they don’t want to be seen as agreeing with Trumpism in any way. Which is stupid.
Yes, Tump said “Build the wall”, to which the Democrats said the borders are open and we have “Sanctuary Cities”.
Right now, it’s Biden’s biggest problem, there’s thousands of illegals pouring over the border every day, and Republican border states are taking up the “sanctuary cities” on their promises, which the residents of those cities thought was great in theory but not in practice.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
Part 1 You, and many others, are clearly fans of Lincoln. But that’s not the point under discussion at all, the point here is everyone recognising Lincoln as the war causing disruptor he clearly was - disruptor to the ideas of Freedom others felt the formation and existence of the United States, and life in it was all about.
Freedoms and Rights at the centre of American politics back then, as the argument they make America great.
Let me prove my argument the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, but about Freedom and Rights, by using this Black Mirror. Delete and replace the constitutional freedom and right to own slaves, in a state opposed to slavery, with the freedom and right to bear arms in a state opposed to carrying guns. It doesn’t matter if it’s slavery, or gun ownership, or any point of moral or political contention - it’s where that freedom and right in America comes up against a disruptor, saying “can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow {slavery} to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.” Lifted straight from Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address you sent me.
Part 2 The more you send me, the more evidence it gives me that I am right. Let’s be honest in the terms we should use about Lincoln. He’s was a progressive, bringing a sense of duty to be progressive to any situation, into debate on any issue, and this made him the disruptor. I’m not saying you shouldn’t like Abraham Lincoln. But we must accept he is pressing for progressive change that is undoing what people believe are the Freedoms and Rights in America. And so Lincoln is the cause of the civil war.
The more I read up on this, when the secessionists fired the first shot in the war, their right to keep slaves not actually under immediate threat in the slave states, by all means put me right if that’s wrong. However, by this point they have clearly been pushed by their “Nationalist” opponents “clear intentions of redefining” the Freedom and Rights in US as they understood them, into a position to cede from the Union.
Recall “freedom and rights” are the words Haley used as to what the civil war was about in her instinctive answer to the question. And recall while she was, according to me, historically word perfect in her honest answer - that was used against her politically last week. However, rather than taking that answer out of the public sphere to believe it behind closed doors - a view of American history held behind closed doors, best not mentioned in public, which I claim is where it is being hidden, the US needs a more honest debate on this. And here’s the question, can the US have that honest debate on this right now? Or is the USA a place true history of Civil War is kept behind closed doors, because that same actual war hasn’t even been resolved yet?
because, biggest Elephant in the room in the USA is how the Freedom and Rights indoctrinated into Americans, from birth even like the first thing whispered into each baby’s ear after the stork has dropped it off, completely grates against progressive and nationalist politics of Lincoln’s Copper Union address: that the National government, Congress, has both the moral duty and constitutional power to override “everything”, on issues where there cannot be groping for contrivances in the middle ground.
Forget 1860 - instead take a little trip with Lincoln’s Copper Union Address through America today, and see just how many it can wind up into insurrection, even in 2024.
I rest my case here. I’ve explained myself fully, whether you want to agree or not.
The Fire Eaters had pushed the narrative that slavery had to expand or die. They also pushed a narrative that all Republicans were John Brown supporting abolitionists.
They also believed this themselves. They convinced themselves that no matter what assurances were given to them, on slavery, that the election of Lincoln was the beginning of an assault on slavery.
To remain in the USA, when pro slavery politicians were not in control of the government was intolerable to them.
No Malmsy. It was what those progressive politicians with moral duty would do with power, that was intolerable - take away your rights, take away your freedoms, take away your states sovereignty, strip it and you of democracy.
If the USA to you was all about the freedom and right to own slaves if you wanted to, carry guns if you wanted to, and progressive nationalist politicians went about saying central government have the power and moral duty to take those rights off you, then it’s no longer your USA, the one you were born into and celebrate the 4th of July in, is it? What is the 4th of July celebration, if it not celebration of freedom and rights?
And by not letting you break away from the Nation State so you can continue in a land of the free and home of the brave, then they are the ones declaring war on you, for it is you, not they, who own the true spirit of a free America.
So that’s definitely not a conflict about slavery alone, but your own freedom no less, and how to have real and functioning and fair democracy in a union of states.
If the civil war was about slavery, nowt else, then maybe we can call it over - after all, those slaves no longer on census as numbers but names, and they can stand as politicians, and run things. So yeah, let’s call it an argument about slavery, all over and in the past now.
But if it’s an argument over God given Freedoms and Rights in America, and whether those in National government can strip you of those rights, then this is an argument far from over. And history books should reflect that.
Part 1 You, and many others, are clearly fans of Lincoln. But that’s not the point under discussion at all, the point here is everyone recognising Lincoln as the war causing disruptor he clearly was - disruptor to the ideas of Freedom others felt the formation and existence of the United States, and life in it was all about.
Freedoms and Rights at the centre of American politics back then, as the argument they make America great.
Let me prove my argument the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, but about Freedom and Rights, by using this Black Mirror. Delete and replace the constitutional freedom and right to own slaves, in a state opposed to slavery, with the freedom and right to bear arms in a state opposed to carrying guns. It doesn’t matter if it’s slavery, or gun ownership, or any point of moral or political contention - it’s where that freedom and right in America comes up against a disruptor, saying “can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow {slavery} to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.” Lifted straight from Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address you sent me.
Part 2 The more you send me, the more evidence it gives me that I am right. Let’s be honest in the terms we should use about Lincoln. He’s was a progressive, bringing a sense of duty to be progressive to any situation, into debate on any issue, and this made him the disruptor. I’m not saying you shouldn’t like Abraham Lincoln. But we must accept he is pressing for progressive change that is undoing what people believe are the Freedoms and Rights in America. And so Lincoln is the cause of the civil war.
The more I read up on this, when the secessionists fired the first shot in the war, their right to keep slaves not actually under immediate threat in the slave states, by all means put me right if that’s wrong. However, by this point they have clearly been pushed by their “Nationalist” opponents “clear intentions of redefining” the Freedom and Rights in US as they understood them, into a position to cede from the Union.
Recall “freedom and rights” are the words Haley used as to what the civil war was about in her instinctive answer to the question. And recall while she was, according to me, historically word perfect in her honest answer - that was used against her politically last week. However, rather than taking that answer out of the public sphere to believe it behind closed doors - a view of American history held behind closed doors, best not mentioned in public, which I claim is where it is being hidden, the US needs a more honest debate on this. And here’s the question, can the US have that honest debate on this right now? Or is the USA a place true history of Civil War is kept behind closed doors, because that same actual war hasn’t even been resolved yet?
because, biggest Elephant in the room in the USA is how the Freedom and Rights indoctrinated into Americans, from birth even like the first thing whispered into each baby’s ear after the stork has dropped it off, completely grates against progressive and nationalist politics of Lincoln’s Copper Union address: that the National government, Congress, has both the moral duty and constitutional power to override “everything”, on issues where there cannot be groping for contrivances in the middle ground.
Forget 1860 - instead take a little trip with Lincoln’s Copper Union Address through America today, and see just how many it can wind up into insurrection, even in 2024.
I rest my case here. I’ve explained myself fully, whether you want to agree or not.
The Fire Eaters had pushed the narrative that slavery had to expand or die. They also pushed a narrative that all Republicans were John Brown supporting abolitionists.
They also believed this themselves. They convinced themselves that no matter what assurances were given to them, on slavery, that the election of Lincoln was the beginning of an assault on slavery.
To remain in the USA, when pro slavery politicians were not in control of the government was intolerable to them.
No Malmsy. It was what those progressive politicians with moral duty would do with power, that was intolerable - take away your rights, take away your freedoms, take away your states sovereignty, strip it and you of democracy.
If the USA to you was all about the freedom and right to own slaves if you wanted to, carry guns if you wanted to, and progressive nationalist politicians went about saying central government have the power and moral duty to take those rights off you, then it’s no longer your USA, the one you were born into and celebrate the 4th of July in, is it? What is the 4th of July celebration, if it not celebration of freedom and rights?
And by not letting you break away from the Nation State so you can continue in a land of the free and home of the brave, then they are the ones declaring war on you, for it is you, not they, who own the true spirit of a free America.
So that’s definitely not a conflict about slavery alone, but your own freedom no less, and how to have real and functioning and fair democracy in a union of states.
If the civil war was about slavery, nowt else, then maybe we can call it over - after all, those slaves no longer on census as numbers but names, and they can stand as politicians, and run things. So yeah, let’s call it an argument about slavery, all over and in the past now.
But if it’s an argument over God given Freedoms and Rights in America, and whether those in National government can strip you of those rights, then this is an argument far from over. And history books should reflect that.
You do seem to be overlooking that the greatest right in question is the right of slaves not to be slaves. It is a big important thing.
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
Your point about the Dems being reflexively anti-Trump pretty much answers something I was questioning recently, as in, why if the Reps are tying the Ukraine support to spending on immigration crackdowns, the Dems aren’t just saying “Yes great”. The dems aren’t really left wing in a European sense so I didn’t see it as an ideological issue so it really must be that they don’t want to be seen as agreeing with Trumpism in any way. Which is stupid.
Yes, Tump said “Build the wall”, to which the Democrats said the borders are open and we have “Sanctuary Cities”.
Right now, it’s Biden’s biggest problem, there’s thousands of illegals pouring over the border every day, and Republican border states are taking up the “sanctuary cities” on their promises, which the residents of those cities thought was great in theory but not in practice.
It is: but it's also not the end of the world for Biden electorally.
Losing votes in California or New York doesn't harm him, because he'll win those States anyway. Losing votes in Texas, ditto, because he'll lose there.
It matters in Nevada and Arizona, which is why I think he'll lose those States.
But it doesn't have a lot of salience in Wisconsin or Michigan, because there simply aren't many illegal immigrants in those places. It's why I posed the poll results from Wisconsin earlier: it's because different States have very different priorities. What sells in Texas or Arizona might not have the same salience in the frozen North.
For what it's worth, I think Biden and co made a terrible mistake in not agreeing to border measures in return for Ukraine aid. I simply don't think he'd be giving up many votes, and might actually benefit.
1. Smallest Labour lead Q1: 10 pts 2. Date of GE: 10th October 3. Party Leaders: Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice 4. GE outcome: Lab Maj of 80 5. US nominees: Biden and Trump 6. Winner: Trump 7. UK base rate at end year: 4.5% 8, CPI Nov: 4.1% 9. Borrowing: £128bn 10. Medals: Haven't a clue, so say 61
Part 1 You, and many others, are clearly fans of Lincoln. But that’s not the point under discussion at all, the point here is everyone recognising Lincoln as the war causing disruptor he clearly was - disruptor to the ideas of Freedom others felt the formation and existence of the United States, and life in it was all about.
Freedoms and Rights at the centre of American politics back then, as the argument they make America great.
Let me prove my argument the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, but about Freedom and Rights, by using this Black Mirror. Delete and replace the constitutional freedom and right to own slaves, in a state opposed to slavery, with the freedom and right to bear arms in a state opposed to carrying guns. It doesn’t matter if it’s slavery, or gun ownership, or any point of moral or political contention - it’s where that freedom and right in America comes up against a disruptor, saying “can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow {slavery} to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.” Lifted straight from Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address you sent me.
Part 2 The more you send me, the more evidence it gives me that I am right. Let’s be honest in the terms we should use about Lincoln. He’s was a progressive, bringing a sense of duty to be progressive to any situation, into debate on any issue, and this made him the disruptor. I’m not saying you shouldn’t like Abraham Lincoln. But we must accept he is pressing for progressive change that is undoing what people believe are the Freedoms and Rights in America. And so Lincoln is the cause of the civil war.
The more I read up on this, when the secessionists fired the first shot in the war, their right to keep slaves not actually under immediate threat in the slave states, by all means put me right if that’s wrong. However, by this point they have clearly been pushed by their “Nationalist” opponents “clear intentions of redefining” the Freedom and Rights in US as they understood them, into a position to cede from the Union.
Recall “freedom and rights” are the words Haley used as to what the civil war was about in her instinctive answer to the question. And recall while she was, according to me, historically word perfect in her honest answer - that was used against her politically last week. However, rather than taking that answer out of the public sphere to believe it behind closed doors - a view of American history held behind closed doors, best not mentioned in public, which I claim is where it is being hidden, the US needs a more honest debate on this. And here’s the question, can the US have that honest debate on this right now? Or is the USA a place true history of Civil War is kept behind closed doors, because that same actual war hasn’t even been resolved yet?
because, biggest Elephant in the room in the USA is how the Freedom and Rights indoctrinated into Americans, from birth even like the first thing whispered into each baby’s ear after the stork has dropped it off, completely grates against progressive and nationalist politics of Lincoln’s Copper Union address: that the National government, Congress, has both the moral duty and constitutional power to override “everything”, on issues where there cannot be groping for contrivances in the middle ground.
Forget 1860 - instead take a little trip with Lincoln’s Copper Union Address through America today, and see just how many it can wind up into insurrection, even in 2024.
I rest my case here. I’ve explained myself fully, whether you want to agree or not.
The Fire Eaters had pushed the narrative that slavery had to expand or die. They also pushed a narrative that all Republicans were John Brown supporting abolitionists.
They also believed this themselves. They convinced themselves that no matter what assurances were given to them, on slavery, that the election of Lincoln was the beginning of an assault on slavery.
To remain in the USA, when pro slavery politicians were not in control of the government was intolerable to them.
They also believed that even if Lincoln wasn't going to do lead an assault on slavery himself - and he well might - the North would do so sooner or later, one way or another. And that it had the economic and political muscle to do so, if it voted as a block (as it just had under Lincoln, and as it might well continue to do if slavery was *the* defining divisive issue.
Lincoln was not fighting to end slavery (until 1863).
But, the South was definitely fighting to maintain and hopefully, expand), it. The various Articles of Secession, and Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech are quite clear on that point.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
I'd give Biden the edge, but only by 11/9, in terms of odds. Sean Trende, who I take very seriously, makes Trump the slight favourite.
I think that's broadly right: Biden should be narrow favourite. I think Presidential incumbents tend to get reelected, and that the US economy is doing OK. (And interest rates should start falling next year, which will benefit him slightly.) He's also (probably) facing a candidate with significant issues.
But against that, he's old and infirm and has not been seen as a particularly effective President. He won because people hate Trump, not because they are enthused by him.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
There’s no actual way to stop it
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
FWIW, I agree with @TheKitchenCabinet and @Leon, that the biggest failure of the Biden administration has been failing to curb illegal immigration. (I would note that the same, of course, could be said for the Trump administration, where numbers doubled from around 0.5m annually under Obama, to close to 1.0m under Trump.)
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
Your point about the Dems being reflexively anti-Trump pretty much answers something I was questioning recently, as in, why if the Reps are tying the Ukraine support to spending on immigration crackdowns, the Dems aren’t just saying “Yes great”. The dems aren’t really left wing in a European sense so I didn’t see it as an ideological issue so it really must be that they don’t want to be seen as agreeing with Trumpism in any way. Which is stupid.
Yes, Tump said “Build the wall”, to which the Democrats said the borders are open and we have “Sanctuary Cities”.
Right now, it’s Biden’s biggest problem, there’s thousands of illegals pouring over the border every day, and Republican border states are taking up the “sanctuary cities” on their promises, which the residents of those cities thought was great in theory but not in practice.
It is: but it's also not the end of the world for Biden electorally.
Losing votes in California or New York doesn't harm him, because he'll win those States anyway. Losing votes in Texas, ditto, because he'll lose there.
It matters in Nevada and Arizona, which is why I think he'll lose those States.
But it doesn't have a lot of salience in Wisconsin or Michigan, because there simply aren't many illegal immigrants in those places. It's why I posed the poll results from Wisconsin earlier: it's because different States have very different priorities. What sells in Texas or Arizona might not have the same salience in the frozen North.
For what it's worth, I think Biden and co made a terrible mistake in not agreeing to border measures in return for Ukraine aid. I simply don't think he'd be giving up many votes, and might actually benefit.
I think he'll take Georgia too, which will make things extremely tight.
Like you, I don't want a Trump win, but I wouldn't be surprised by it.
1. 11% 2. 12 December 2024 3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice 4. Labour with a majority of 189 5. Trump and Biden 6. Biden - only just 7. 5% 8. 3.5% 9. £107 billion 10. 52
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
There’s no actual way to stop it
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
No one has the appetite for that.
So how do you stop them?
The equivalent to hostile environment policy. As unpopular as that is, it largely works.
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Yes - as I commented to @Cyclefree the other day, society has coarsened over the last 20 years
Has anyone else noticed that people have got ruder?
Not on here. Both my wife and I (on holiday in North Devon) have had two strangers be very rude to us in recent days. One guy flipped me the bird when I pointed out to him the area of the pub we were in with our kids was a dog-free area. And my wife had a lady in M&S get very rude with her for invading her "personal space" when she was packing her bags at the till, and my wife was next in line for the checkout. My half-sister also now works in retail part-time and she says the same - customers every day who are huffy and rude.
Of course, not everyone is like this but these incidents do stand out, and I sort of now start to understand why so many venues and outlets have signs up saying abuse of their staff is unacceptable.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I've noticed the opposite, but I have kind of been training the people that I interact with
I can't quite believe that I've managed sixteen months of it, but I've been unfailingly polite and relentlessly cheerful since I started as a postie
I think I have seen a good number of people become more polite, and cheerful, when they see me than they were when I first met them
Especially the kids
It's been quite heartening to observe how loads of children answering the door have gone from giving me a grunt as they took the parcel, to saying thank you and wishing me a good day even before I can wish it to them
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
There’s no actual way to stop it
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
No one has the appetite for that.
So how do you stop them?
You could stop them at the point of a gun, but no Western country would ever want to go there; it would mean shooting unarmed civilians.
Other than that you can use force (not lethal force) to detain and remove them, or repel them.
Don't forget that this evening there is the first episode of the four part drama – Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
It is a must see, if only in the hope that it will bring home to a wider public the scale and human impact of what has rightly been called the worst miscarriage of justice in English legal history. I do hope that such public interest might put pressure on politicians to put right – and without further delay – matters which are – or should be – an affront to the conscience of the British state.
It is shaming to see from the evidence given during the statutory public inquiry headed by Sir Wyn Williams how so many from my own profession behaved so unprofessionally, incompetently and potentially worse, both during the events which are the subject of the Inquiry and during the Inquiry itself.
If there is one thing to learn from it, it should be a reminder that practising law or carrying out investigations without any understanding of the ethical underpinning of one’s work and the necessity of ensuring that this informs everything you do is wrong. This is not what true professionalism requires. The question is never “Can I do this?". But “Should I?".
It is correct to say that this is the worst miscarriage of justice. But this description underplays the nature of the scandal. In reality, this is not just a scandal about the Post Office exploiting some flawed accounting software.
- It is a scandal about the development of flawed hardware and software systems, a flawed governmental and corporate procurement process and a flawed adoption and rolling out process.
- It is a scandal about how the Post Office, a state owned body with unlimited resources and its own prosecution service, operated with no effective corporate governance or Ministerial control or supervision and exploited flawed software, flawed contracts and the civil and criminal legal systems to extort from subpostmasters money it was not owed. Racketeering would more accurately describe the Post Office's conduct.
- It is a scandal about how the legal system failed – and continues to fail – to understand technical evidence.
- It is a scandal about how the legal system has failed for far too long those accused and convicted of crimes which did not happen. As the government’s own Compensation Advisory Board has said: “the justice system itself is called into question in the current circumstances.”
- It is a scandal about a failure of Parliamentary and Ministerial governance.
- It is a scandal about how the state fails to put right its mistakes and compensate those harmed by those mistakes.
Ultimately, it is a story about the abuse of power.
Possibly relevant to some of those predictions: "You won’t hear President Biden talking about it much, but a key record has been broken during his watch: The United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.
The flow of huge amounts of crude from American producers is playing a big role in keeping prices down at the pump, diminishing the geopolitical power of OPEC and taming inflation. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline nationwide has dropped to close to $3, and analysts project it could stay that way leading up to the presidential election, potentially assuaging the economic anxieties of swing-state voters who will be crucial to Biden’s hopes of a second term." source$:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/31/us-oil-production-has-hit-record-under-biden-he-hardly-mentions-it/
(The price of gasoline is powerful politically, and amplified by the coverage. One local TV station (KOMO, the ABC affiliate) mentions it every single morning on their news programs, and I have begun to see commercials attacking the Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, for his "carbon tax" that has helped make gasoline prices here in Washington state about a dollar higher per gallon than in the US as a whole.)
It seems clear Biden’s administration took a decision, when Russia invaded, to keep oil and gas prices as low as possible. The Middle East producers refused to help, so that meant keeping US production as high as possible.
At the same time, of course, the administration has financed massive expansion of renewables, battery production capacity, and modernisation of the interstate gird.
I don't like predictions so I'm opting out and all the best to the winner!
Thanks.
Probably the best strategy on something like this is to go outlandish rather than cluster around the mean.
So inflation rearing its ugly head again, rates staying higher etc and after that you get into rather black black swans like SKS being caught sodomising a leopard or something, with Corbyn coming back, so Rishi wins with a majority of 20 or something.
Foreign affairs is always the worry bead. No-one would have predicted Gaza flare-up last year and Korea and Taiwan both worry me, and I think there are important elections in both.
I also have a concern this year could have some very worrying climatic events that could be politically impactful and destabilising too.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
I'd give Biden the edge, but only by 11/9, in terms of odds. Sean Trende, who I take very seriously, makes Trump the slight favourite.
I think that's broadly right: Biden should be narrow favourite. I think Presidential incumbents tend to get reelected, and that the US economy is doing OK. (And interest rates should start falling next year, which will benefit him slightly.) He's also (probably) facing a candidate with significant issues.
But against that, he's old and infirm and has not been seen as a particularly effective President. He won because people hate Trump, not because they are enthused by him.
If they start falling next year, that's not going to help him electorally...
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
There’s no actual way to stop it
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
No one has the appetite for that.
So how do you stop them?
The Mexico USA border is both long and also unique in being the only land border between a first and a 3rd world nation (hinges a bit on definitions).
Rather like the migrations across the Sahara and Mediterranean it really isn't possible to make it hostile enough short of murder.
The only really way to intervene is to turn failed states into viable ones, particularly those like Mexico controlling access to the border.
Don't forget that this evening there is the first episode of the four part drama – Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
It is a must see, if only in the hope that it will bring home to a wider public the scale and human impact of what has rightly been called the worst miscarriage of justice in English legal history. I do hope that such public interest might put pressure on politicians to put right – and without further delay – matters which are – or should be – an affront to the conscience of the British state.
It is shaming to see from the evidence given during the statutory public inquiry headed by Sir Wyn Williams how so many from my own profession behaved so unprofessionally, incompetently and potentially worse, both during the events which are the subject of the Inquiry and during the Inquiry itself.
If there is one thing to learn from it, it should be a reminder that practising law or carrying out investigations without any understanding of the ethical underpinning of one’s work and the necessity of ensuring that this informs everything you do is wrong. This is not what true professionalism requires. The question is never “Can I do this?". But “Should I?".
It is correct to say that this is the worst miscarriage of justice. But this description underplays the nature of the scandal. In reality, this is not just a scandal about the Post Office exploiting some flawed accounting software.
- It is a scandal about the development of flawed hardware and software systems, a flawed governmental and corporate procurement process and a flawed adoption and rolling out process.
- It is a scandal about how the Post Office, a state owned body with unlimited resources and its own prosecution service, operated with no effective corporate governance or Ministerial control or supervision and exploited flawed software, flawed contracts and the civil and criminal legal systems to extort from subpostmasters money it was not owed. Racketeering would more accurately describe the Post Office's conduct.
- It is a scandal about how the legal system failed – and continues to fail – to understand technical evidence.
- It is a scandal about how the legal system has failed for far too long those accused and convicted of crimes which did not happen. As the government’s own Compensation Advisory Board has said: “the justice system itself is called into question in the current circumstances.”
- It is a scandal about a failure of Parliamentary and Ministerial governance.
- It is a scandal about how the state fails to put right its mistakes and compensate those harmed by those mistakes.
Ultimately, it is a story about the abuse of power.
(And thanks to @viewcode for the kind words on a previous thread. I am still thinking about the structure of a possible book.)
Hopefully a production that brings this scandal to a wider audience. I’ll try and find a way to watch it in the coming days.
However, it can’t be let go without mentioning the fact that the documentary doesn’t make any reference to a certain Mr Adam Crozier, Post Office Chief Exec from 2003 to 2010, who later became Chief Exec of, umm, ITV.
The survey by Deltapoll for The Mirror also puts Mr Starmer's Labour 14 points ahead of the warring Tories - 42% compared 28%. The pollster said if the results were replicated at a general election, Labour could be on track for a 1997-style landslide victory with a majority of 142 seats.
In a brutal verdict on the Tories' record in office, a majority (62%) believe life has got worse in Britain since 2010, including more than half of those who voted Conservative in 2019. In another boost to Labour the poll shows Mr Starmer and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves with a clear lead over the PM and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on who would be best for the British economy - by 43% to 32%.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
Indeed
During Biden’s presidency, 6 million illegal migrants have entered the USA. SIX MILLION. It is stupefying, and, as you note, it is actually getting worse not better
This alone could kill his chances in 2024. And we see nothing of it on British media
I was in New York over Christmas and there was a big report last week on CNN. Most of the criticism was coming from Dem Mayors because their streets are littered, so the report suggested, with South American vagrants. Blinken was in Mexico trying to arrange a deal to stop the caravan and send the migrants back South before they arrive at the border.
The report highlighted the migration issue from GHW Bush through Clinton, GW Bush, Obama and Trump. There was genuine criticism from local Dems that the Federal Government has dropped the ball, particularly under Biden.
You may be right and this issue gets your unstable old fool back in the Whitehouse. If it does, the chaos that ensues will be right up your right-wing hack strasse. Lots to write about no doubt.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
There’s no actual way to stop it
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
No one has the appetite for that.
So how do you stop them?
The Mexico USA border is both long and also unique in being the only land border between a first and a 3rd world nation (hinges a bit on definitions).
Rather like the migrations across the Sahara and Mediterranean it really isn't possible to make it hostile enough short of murder.
The only really way to intervene is to turn failed states into viable ones, particularly those like Mexico controlling access to the border.
Mexico is not a failed state - it certainly has the attributes of one, particularly given the cartel wars, but it also still functions and, economically, is going decently.I agree more needs to be done with other LatAm states.
However, it should also be pointed out that the biggest single increase has come from non-LatAm areas who now see the Mexico border as the easiest way to gain entry. And the single biggest cause of the explosion in migrants coming to the US is the signal Biden sent out that everyone is welcome.
That is the reason Biden is getting hammered in the polls on this issue. You can look at it from a nice cosy UK angle and think “if only the US was more welcoming” but the numbers coming in are truly epoch making.
It is also worthwhile pointing out that many of those who most strongly support immigration I.e. wealthy urban types are also those who benefit most from having an increasing supply of cheap labour that often doesn’t speak English (so doesn’t understand their rights)….
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
The Biden senility thing is as ridiculous as Obama being aloof and arrogant. It is a meme that works when you are terminally online, have Fox News pushing a narrative, and you see things in terms of short cherry picked video clips. It's easy to select moments that make him look out of touch when he has a stutter.
During an actual campaign, this will fall apart. And perhaps people will start paying attention to Trump's rantings about windmills or false memories about running against George Bush.
He literally wanders off stage the wrong way, calls dead people to ask him questions, and praises the Black and Tans in Ireland
This is not “a stutter”
We seem to woefully underreport US politics over here, and do so through quite a liberal perspective that would never be permitted were it our domestic politics.
For example, the migration numbers coming across the southern US border are simply insane (think Channel boats x 100, but getting steadily worse not better) and Biden seems powerless to stop it at best and disinterested at worst.
Hardly mentioned here. Where everyone seems to focus on Trump and his court cases, and how terrible he is.
There’s no actual way to stop it
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
No one has the appetite for that.
So how do you stop them?
The equivalent to hostile environment policy. As unpopular as that is, it largely works.
Not really - the issue here is millions of immigrants.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
I'd give Biden the edge, but only by 11/9, in terms of odds. Sean Trende, who I take very seriously, makes Trump the slight favourite.
I think that's broadly right: Biden should be narrow favourite. I think Presidential incumbents tend to get reelected, and that the US economy is doing OK. (And interest rates should start falling next year, which will benefit him slightly.) He's also (probably) facing a candidate with significant issues.
But against that, he's old and infirm and has not been seen as a particularly effective President. He won because people hate Trump, not because they are enthused by him.
He won last time because he isn't Donald Trump.
If Donald Trump, an elderly man showing alarming signs of cognitive decline and a failed and defeated president who has spent most of the last four years trying to explain why he first rigged an election and when that failed launched an abortive coup, is the Republican candidate Biden will likely win again unless the economy tanks or he suffers a major health episode.
If Haley or even De Santis were the candidate the Republicans would be strolling to victory and Biden would likely be the first one-term Democratic president not to seek re-election since James Buchanan.
This is, along with their multiple attempts at voter fraud, one of the more disturbing things about the current Republican Party. They seem to have completely lost touch with reality.
1 5% 2 24th October 2024 3 Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice 4 Labour 100 5 DeSantis and Biden 6 Biden 7 4% 8 3.5% 9 £100 bn 10 60
It really is end days if HYUFD is predicting a Labour landslide.
Yes but more Wilson 1966 level landslide than Blair 1997
With tactical voting it seems very plausible SKS wins the largest Labour majority in history
In Leave seats there will be less anti Tory tactical voting than 1997 in my view, even if more in Remain seats (outside Scotland where it will be anti SNP)
Possibly relevant to some of those predictions: "You won’t hear President Biden talking about it much, but a key record has been broken during his watch: The United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.
The flow of huge amounts of crude from American producers is playing a big role in keeping prices down at the pump, diminishing the geopolitical power of OPEC and taming inflation. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline nationwide has dropped to close to $3, and analysts project it could stay that way leading up to the presidential election, potentially assuaging the economic anxieties of swing-state voters who will be crucial to Biden’s hopes of a second term." source$:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/31/us-oil-production-has-hit-record-under-biden-he-hardly-mentions-it/
(The price of gasoline is powerful politically, and amplified by the coverage. One local TV station (KOMO, the ABC affiliate) mentions it every single morning on their news programs, and I have begun to see commercials attacking the Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, for his "carbon tax" that has helped make gasoline prices here in Washington state about a dollar higher per gallon than in the US as a whole.)
It seems clear Biden’s administration took a decision, when Russia invaded, to keep oil and gas prices as low as possible. The Middle East producers refused to help, so that meant keeping US production as high as possible.
At the same time, of course, the administration has financed massive expansion of renewables, battery production capacity, and modernisation of the interstate gird.
This has the potential to be the macro story of the next few years. US oil and gas production is soaring, combine that with a huge growth in renewables globally, slowing population growth, and Russia-induced leaps in fuel economy in European industry, and there’s the building blocks for a 1990s style decade of cheap energy.
In the 1990s it was the massive fall off of consumption in the former communist bloc combined with the overwhelming victory of the West in the Gulf War that led to a supply-demand imbalance. This time it would be different drivers, including the middle east becoming less globally relevant.
Cheap energy usually means cheap fertilisers, increased crop yields and cheaper food too. Whether cheap energy also leads to cheaper metals and other hard commodities is harder to tell. But I’d expect major new investments in lithium extraction to start pushing down battery prices too.
He’s ahead in the polls, Biden is senile (and won’t be able to avoid debates this time), the Donald will delay or overcome his legal problems, and the migration issue is a crapshow for the democrats
I reckon Trump should be a slight favourite to win
I'd give Biden the edge, but only by 11/9, in terms of odds. Sean Trende, who I take very seriously, makes Trump the slight favourite.
I think that's broadly right: Biden should be narrow favourite. I think Presidential incumbents tend to get reelected, and that the US economy is doing OK. (And interest rates should start falling next year, which will benefit him slightly.) He's also (probably) facing a candidate with significant issues.
But against that, he's old and infirm and has not been seen as a particularly effective President. He won because people hate Trump, not because they are enthused by him.
He won last time because he isn't Donald Trump.
If Donald Trump, an elderly man showing alarming signs of cognitive decline and a failed and defeated president who has spent most of the last four years trying to explain why he first rigged an election and when that failed launched an abortive coup, is the Republican candidate Biden will likely win again unless the economy tanks or he suffers a major health episode.
If Haley or even De Santis were the candidate the Republicans would be strolling to victory and Biden would likely be the first one-term Democratic president not to seek re-election since James Buchanan.
This is, along with their multiple attempts at voter fraud, one of the more disturbing things about the current Republican Party. They seem to have completely lost touch with reality.
They wouldn't as Trump would likely go 3rd party in many swing states where he can get on the ballot
There is huge scope for the Tories to play the rest of the country against London, and to use London campaign stories in the rest of the country. This date has got to be top of the list.
4) UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%)
Conservative party, majority of 60 seats
They'll win it on immigration-xenophobia, basically doing what D Cummings allegedly proposed to R Sunak as a way to "smash" Labour:
1) slash taxes for the Tories' main base by more than they'd ever dreamed of (bye bye Reform);
2) "render" planeloads of non-white immigrants to Rwanda and boatloads of the same to le côté français of the maritime border (all good Tories know the line about beginning at Calais), while walking out of the ECHR and leaving "libtards" and internet commentators to discuss the legality and propriety (no bye bye to Lab-Con 2019 switchers);
and 3) have a kind of mass mobilisation for the NHS (did anyone think any lie in politics was too big to be told?)
11) Most embarrassing TV appearance by a travel journalist:
Fascinating 1st post! The interesting thing about the "render planeloads" idea is that it would be hugely illegal. But this government? Yeah, a temptation to do it - or even just try it - to pick a fight with the forces of woke (UK laws, lawyers, courts etc).
Congratulations predicting a Con majority of 60!
Yes, they could try it, judge-baiting to the max, wait until a judge raises a big flag saying "I said NO - read my lips", and then call a snap general election.
Sunak could tell the judges, "Look, fine, you want to stop the renditions. That's OK - you're allowed to play at checks and balances. But neither the judiciary nor the government are sovereign in this country, because the people are. So I'm calling a general election. And item 1 in the Conservative manifesto is enable the renditions. And I must ask their lordships on the bench to stay out of it - stay out of the election completely, stop commenting on the issue being fought in it, and then accept the result once the British people have made their decision."
It would be hard for Starmer to de-lawyerise the way he puts himself across.
Then let Lee Anderson say if any f***ing judges want to help their fellow lawyer friend Keir "I fixed it for Jimmy" Starmer stop the planes going OUT while allowing the boats to come IN, they should either resign from the cushy numbers they call their jobs and join the Labour party or else stuff their ermine socks in their gobs and listen to the message that's about to come in from the British people.
If half the senior civil servants at the Justice Department resign, great.
They're going to move fast and smash stuff, and be really really obnoxious. That's what I'm predicting.
Comments
I could get a wheelchair, but it's a bit of a drastic solution.
Where comes close?
2. 24th October 2024
3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Forbes, Farage
4. Labour. Majority 6 (ie 328 seats)
5. Haley, Biden
6. Haley
7. 4.8%
8. 2.9%
9. £100bn
10. 38
StillWaters said:
» show previous quotes
How did he know about Japan in advance… I think we should be told.
(Too dark?)
I’m not that clairvoyant, fortunately.
My prediction of a natural disaster is simply on the basis of probability. In most decades a few things dominate the news for weeks or months:
- domestic and Anglosphere political crises and elections, every 2-3 years.
- Economic crises (usually one big one per decade, and a couple of smaller / false alarm ones). Last one was of course the cozzy livs crisis.
- Natural disasters including pandemics, floods, quakes and tsunamis, hurricanes. Loads every year but usually two or three big ones per decade that demand global or regional attention
- big sporting stories like the olympics or World Cup. Dropping in significance in recent years.
- wars and coups. They come and go and we’re in a bit of a rich vein currently, but still the big ones are more like once a decade
The last major natural disaster of global significance was Covid. Before that the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and West Africa, before that the Japanese tsunami and Thai floods, which disrupted global supply chains, before that the series of droughts in food producing regions that led to the Arab spring, before that Hurricane Katrina and a year earlier the Indian Ocean tsunami. And before that the apocalyptic Central European floods of 1997. We are due another this year or next. But notably it’s years since a huge volcanic eruption and decades since a major crop blight.
Domestic natural disasters have been thin on the ground too. It’s a long time since the 2013 floods that got Cameron in trouble, the foot and mouth epidemic that trashed UK farming, the catastrophic flooding of Boscastle, the 2007 summer floods.
So if a major natural disaster doesn’t dominate and derail the news agenda this year at some point we’ll be lucky.
My answers:
1. 9% (39:30, April)
2. 2nd May
3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Farage (by mutual agreement with Tice)
4. Labour majority 120
5. Trump vs Buttegieg, following a stroke for Biden
6. Buttegieg
7. 2.75%
8. 0.5%
9. £133bn
10. 45
2. 4th July 2024
3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousuf, Farage
4. Labour majority of 110
5. Trump and Biden
6. Trump
7. 4.0%
8. 2.9%
9. £94 billion
10. 55
I’m just back from the States and, as you say, what is happening on the immigration front is insane. There is another 7000 strong caravan on the way through Mexico and the Administration can’t seem to do anything.
It is also now causing major fault lines
in the Democrat party. As @Leon said, the pain is now being spread to places like NYC and Chicago whose Mayors have put limits on buses coming from Texas. So Abbott has now started putting them on planes instead.
But it is also causing the Democrats major issues in places like Arizona where Katie Hobbs has come out swinging against the Administration.
Two other issues to highlight which don’t get much attention.
One is the growing fault line with the Democrats younger voters over Israel / Gaza. Biden is in a pickle. I think the estimate is 50% of Democrat donations come from Jewish voters but the young graduate crowd are seriously pissed at US support for Israel.
Two, there are starting to be growing fractures within the Ds over the policy of trying to get Trump kicked off state ballots. Newsom came out against it very strongly in CA and so did Golden and King about in Maine. One big issue here is that politicians like Bellows and CA’s Lt-Gov are trying to use it to boost their own chances of higher office (Bellows is looking to become Governor of Maine for example).
1. The smallest Labour lead with a BPC registered pollster in Q1 2024.
12%
2. Date of the next UK General Election.
14th November 2024
3. Party leaders of Con, Lab, LD, SNP, and Reform when the GE is called
Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Farage
4. UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%).
Labour - 100
5. 2024 US Presidential Election: nominees for the GOP and Dems.
Trump vs Biden
6. 2024 US Presidential Election: winner.
Trump
7. UK base rate on 31 December 2024.
4%
8. UK CPI figure for November 2024 (Nov 2023 = 4.2%).
1.8%
9. UK borrowing in the financial year-to-November 2024 (Year to Nov 2023 = £116.4bn).
120bn
10. GB total medal haul at the 2024 Olympics ( 2020/21 = 64).
55
My predictions are:
1. 12%
2. 2 May 2024
3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice
4. Labour, 110 majority
5. Haley, Biden
6. Biden
7. 4.25%
8. 3.6%
9. £125bn
10. 58
(Although in the unlikely event of winning I would obviously have to recuse myself - due to being a time-travelling alien from the future and thus having inside information.)
1. 10%
2. November 14th 2024
3. Hunt, Starmer, Davey, Hamza, Tice
4. NOM
5. Trump / Biden
6. Trump
7. 3.25%
8. 3%
9. £100bn
10. 68
1. 3%
2. 2nd May 2024
3. The same leaders as of 01/01/2024, with the exception of Reform who has Nigel Farage
4. Labour, 150 majority
5. Trump/Biden
6. Biden
7. The same as it is as of 01/01/2024
8. 2.8%
9. 150bn
10. 69
Soon-to-be King Frederick X of Denmark will proclaim re-annexation of Danelaw into Kingdom of Denmark.
From perspective of those finally freed after centuries of oppression = Dlexit
1) 8%
2) 2nd May 2024
3) Farage replaces Tice for ReFUK, otherwise no change
4) Labour, majority of 55
5) GOP people would get death threats if they don't select Trump (whether he is in jail or ineligible or whatever), and Biden to face him
6) Biden
I will guess the rest
7) 4.0%
8) 3.0%
9) £135bn
10) 60
Sounds like she's very supportive in a substantial way - you're a lucky guy!
16%
2. Date of the next UK General Election.
2nd May 2024
3. Party leaders of Con, Lab, LD, SNP, and Reform when the GE is called
Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice.
4. UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%).
Labour + 25
5. 2024 US Presidential Election: nominees for the GOP and Dems.
Trump vs Biden
6. 2024 US Presidential Election: winner.
Trump
7. UK base rate on 31 December 2024.
3%
8. UK CPI figure for November 2024 (Nov 2023 = 4.2%).
3%
9. UK borrowing in the financial year-to-November 2024 (Year to Nov 2023 = £116.4bn).
£75bn
10. GB total medal haul at the 2024 Olympics ( 2020/21 = 64).
64
2 May 2024
There is huge scope for the Tories to play the rest of the country against London, and to use London campaign stories in the rest of the country. This date has got to be top of the list.
4) UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%)
Conservative party, majority of 60 seats
They'll win it on immigration-xenophobia, basically doing what D Cummings allegedly proposed to R Sunak as a way to "smash" Labour:
1) slash taxes for the Tories' main base by more than they'd ever dreamed of (bye bye Reform);
2) "render" planeloads of non-white immigrants to Rwanda and boatloads of the same to le côté français of the maritime border (all good Tories know the line about beginning at Calais), while walking out of the ECHR and leaving "libtards" and internet commentators to discuss the legality and propriety (no bye bye to Lab-Con 2019 switchers); and
3) have a kind of mass mobilisation for the NHS. Did anyone think any lie in politics was too big to be told? If Starmer says no, no, that's Labour's issue, look, we've got some nurses here, just push a story about non-white quacks minting it from advising asylum seekers on how to navigate around immigration law ... before the government closed the loophole earlier in 2024, that is.
11) Most embarrassing TV appearance by a travel journalist:
This one by Sean Thomas in 1998:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y93I329Z1ZA#t=11m45s
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pineapple-slice-of-the-action-naples-pizza-italy-0wmmp5pcf
The issue for the Democrats is simply that they've become so reflexively anti-Trump, that if Trump is anti illegal immigration, well then they're in favour. In the border states, particularly Nevada and Arizona, I think this is a major issue in 2024.
Against that, polling on salience for illegal immigration is very high in the border states (not surprisingly), but it's barely blipped in the rust belt. The Center for Excellence in Polling (which a Republican funded/aligned group) did a series of polls in 2023 in battleground States. And illegal immigration is an absolutely top issue in the South. But doesn't even get onto the the top list of concerns for Wisconsinites.
Which is why I expect Trump to win Nevada and Arizona, but to struggle in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Georgia is somewhere in the middle, and could be the key to the election. And here, I do wonder if the fake electors issue could be what sinks the Republicans. I think a conspiracy to deny Georgians their rightful choice as President - for that is exactly what happened - is going to be a massive turnout driver for the Democrats.
Edit to add: in Wisconsin, 76% of voters said "worker shortages" was a major issue!
Congratulations predicting a Con majority of 60!
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices
By October, I shall have recruited 650 alternative returning officers, who will have determined that, having counted the votes, Rishi Sunak has added another 60 to Boris's tally and is set for another five years with a whopping Conservative majority.
Which is essentially what Trump and his co-conspirators undertook.
Nothing is more important than the ability of the voters' voice to be heard. Once you start cancelling the results of elections, you are on an incredibly dangerous path.
As I've said many times before, I would choose someone who I disagreed with a thousand times over (say a Corbyn) and who upheld democratic processes, over someone who I agreed with on the issues, but who was willing to piss on democracy.
Sadly, the US has become so polarized, that (a) many people believe Trump's lies regarding the election, and (b) that even when they think he's talking shit, they are still willing to vote for him.
@TheKitchenCabinet regards this as us all being liberal consensus wankers. And maybe that's true. But countries that go to shit, well, normally the first step is removing the ability of the voters to kick the government out.
I don't like predictions so I'm opting out and all the best to the winner!
I can't quite believe that I've managed sixteen months of it, but I've been unfailingly polite and relentlessly cheerful since I started as a postie
I think I have seen a good number of people become more polite, and cheerful, when they see me than they were when I first met them
Especially the kids
It's been quite heartening to observe how loads of children answering the door have gone from giving me a grunt as they took the parcel, to saying thank you and wishing me a good day even before I can wish it to them
2. Until then, will seem to be "In the Year 2525 . . . ."
3. Lady Mone; Keir Hardie V; joint leadership Harry Windsor & Meghan Markle; Groundskeeper Willie aka our own Malc; Boris Johnson (unofficial)
4. Unofficial Official Monster Raving Loony Party + Greater East Cornwall Co-Prosperity Sphere, Unlimited Coalition; plus/minus -24.36.24
5. George Santos; Hunter Biden
6. Write-in ticket of Dolly Parton for POTUS, Taylor Swift for VP
7. No clue, but no doubt disgustingly base (this IS Britain we're talking about)
8. & 9. For answers, subscribe to my on-line newsletter of reliable financial advice for PBers with more money than's good for 'em . . .
10. You're on yer own!
Trump dropped *his* suit against Michael Cohen in October.
1. 14%
2. October 17th
3. Same as now - no changes
4. Labour 365 seats, majority 80
5. Haley/Biden
6. Haley
7. 3.8%
8. 2.7%
9. 94.2 billion
10. 64.
Right now, it’s Biden’s biggest problem, there’s thousands of illegals pouring over the border every day, and Republican border states are taking up the “sanctuary cities” on their promises, which the residents of those cities thought was great in theory but not in practice.
If the USA to you was all about the freedom and right to own slaves if you wanted to, carry guns if you wanted to, and progressive nationalist politicians went about saying central government have the power and moral duty to take those rights off you, then it’s no longer your USA, the one you were born into and celebrate the 4th of July in, is it? What is the 4th of July celebration, if it not celebration of freedom and rights?
And by not letting you break away from the Nation State so you can continue in a land of the free and home of the brave, then they are the ones declaring war on you, for it is you, not they, who own the true spirit of a free America.
So that’s definitely not a conflict about slavery alone, but your own freedom no less, and how to have real and functioning and fair democracy in a union of states.
If the civil war was about slavery, nowt else, then maybe we can call it over - after all, those slaves no longer on census as numbers but names, and they can stand as politicians, and run things. So yeah, let’s call it an argument about slavery, all over and in the past now.
But if it’s an argument over God given Freedoms and Rights in America, and whether those in National government can strip you of those rights, then this is an argument far from over. And history books should reflect that.
Tom Scott made a Youtube video every Monday for a decade. He got 6.5m subscribers. This is his last in that series.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7DKv5H5Frt0
Losing votes in California or New York doesn't harm him, because he'll win those States anyway. Losing votes in Texas, ditto, because he'll lose there.
It matters in Nevada and Arizona, which is why I think he'll lose those States.
But it doesn't have a lot of salience in Wisconsin or Michigan, because there simply aren't many illegal immigrants in those places. It's why I posed the poll results from Wisconsin earlier: it's because different States have very different priorities. What sells in Texas or Arizona might not have the same salience in the frozen North.
For what it's worth, I think Biden and co made a terrible mistake in not agreeing to border measures in return for Ukraine aid. I simply don't think he'd be giving up many votes, and might actually benefit.
1. Smallest Labour lead Q1: 10 pts
2. Date of GE: 10th October
3. Party Leaders: Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice
4. GE outcome: Lab Maj of 80
5. US nominees: Biden and Trump
6. Winner: Trump
7. UK base rate at end year: 4.5%
8, CPI Nov: 4.1%
9. Borrowing: £128bn
10. Medals: Haven't a clue, so say 61
But, the South was definitely fighting to maintain and hopefully, expand), it. The various Articles of Secession, and Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech are quite clear on that point.
But against that, he's old and infirm and has not been seen as a particularly effective President. He won because people hate Trump, not because they are enthused by him.
A significant number of people are migrating from Latin America (forget exactly where but south of the Darien Gap).
The only way to stop that is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for that region, rebuilding civic society to make them appealing countries to live in.
No one has the appetite for that.
So how do you stop them?
Like you, I don't want a Trump win, but I wouldn't be surprised by it.
1. 10%
2. 24 October 2024
3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice
4. Labour majority of 30 seats
5. Trump, Biden
6. Biden
7. 3%
8. 3.5%
9. 100bn
10. 60
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20240101-france-will-no-longer-accept-imams-trained-by-foreign-countries
1. 11%
2. 12 December 2024
3. Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice
4. Labour with a majority of 189
5. Trump and Biden
6. Biden - only just
7. 5%
8. 3.5%
9. £107 billion
10. 52
Other than that you can use force (not lethal force) to detain and remove them, or repel them.
It is a must see, if only in the hope that it will bring home to a wider public the scale and human impact of what has rightly been called the worst miscarriage of justice in English legal history. I do hope that such public interest might put pressure on politicians to put right – and without further delay – matters which are – or should be – an affront to the conscience of the British state.
It is shaming to see from the evidence given during the statutory public inquiry headed by Sir Wyn Williams how so many from my own profession behaved so unprofessionally, incompetently and potentially worse, both during the events which are the subject of the Inquiry and during the Inquiry itself.
If there is one thing to learn from it, it should be a reminder that practising law or carrying out investigations without any understanding of the ethical underpinning of one’s work and the necessity of ensuring that this informs everything you do is wrong. This is not what true professionalism requires. The question is never “Can I do this?". But “Should I?".
It is correct to say that this is the worst miscarriage of justice. But this description underplays the nature of the scandal. In reality, this is not just a scandal about the Post Office exploiting some flawed accounting software.
- It is a scandal about the development of flawed hardware and software systems, a flawed governmental and corporate procurement process and a flawed adoption and rolling out process.
- It is a scandal about how the Post Office, a state owned body with unlimited resources and its own prosecution service, operated with no effective corporate governance or Ministerial control or supervision and exploited flawed software, flawed contracts and the civil and criminal legal systems to extort from subpostmasters money it was not owed. Racketeering would more accurately describe the Post Office's conduct.
- It is a scandal about how the legal system failed – and continues to fail – to understand technical evidence.
- It is a scandal about how the legal system has failed for far too long those accused and convicted of crimes which did not happen. As the government’s own Compensation Advisory Board has said: “the justice system itself is called into question in the current circumstances.”
- It is a scandal about a failure of Parliamentary and Ministerial governance.
- It is a scandal about how the state fails to put right its mistakes and compensate those harmed by those mistakes.
Ultimately, it is a story about the abuse of power.
I do hope my articles have shed one light on this. If anyone wants to read them again - or for the first time - they can be found here: https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/category/woman-with-opinions/investigations/
(And thanks to @viewcode for the kind words on a previous thread. I am still thinking about the structure of a possible book.)
1) 7%
2) November 28th
3) Party leaders unchanged: Sunak, Starmer, Davies, Houseful, Tice
4) NOM Lab largest party on 315 (or majority of -10, if you prefer)
5) Haley, Harris
6) Haley
7) 3.25%
8) 1.2%
9) £106 billion
10) 52 medals
At the same time, of course, the administration has financed massive expansion of renewables, battery production capacity, and modernisation of the interstate gird.
I've just started making plans for my holiday in April/May though
I'm going to try to do the Camino de Santiago backwards. I'm not going to moonwalk, but I am going to start in Santiago and head for France
I doubt I'll follow the exact route of the original in reverse, or the route that google gives me, but it'll look something like this
Is there anything on the way that I really shouldn't miss?
2 11 October 24
3 Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yusuf, Farage
4 Labour 10%
5 Trump Biden
6 Trump
7 4%
8 5.1%
9 £123.3 billion
10 51
Would have been interesting to have questions on who will be in charge in Israel, Gaza, Russia and Ukraine!
1. The smallest Labour lead with a BPC registered pollster in Q1 2024.
12%
2. Date of the next UK General Election.
24th October 2024 (2 years to the day since Rish became PM)
3. Party leaders of Con, Lab, LD, SNP, and Reform when the GE is called
No leadership changes from now to election day.
4. UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%).
Labour - Majority 5 Seats
5. 2024 US Presidential Election: nominees for the GOP and Dems.
Trump/Biden
6. 2024 US Presidential Election: winner.
Biden (possibly by a landslide)
7. UK base rate on 31 December 2024.
4%
8. UK CPI figure for November 2024 (Nov 2023 = 4.2%).
3%
9. UK borrowing in the financial year-to-November 2024 (Year to Nov 2023 = £116.4bn).
Who knows.
10. GB total medal haul at the 2024 Olympics ( 2020/21 = 64).
Who knows.
Happy new year PB
So inflation rearing its ugly head again, rates staying higher etc and after that you get into rather black black swans like SKS being caught sodomising a leopard or something, with Corbyn coming back, so Rishi wins with a majority of 20 or something.
Foreign affairs is always the worry bead. No-one would have predicted Gaza flare-up last year and Korea and Taiwan both worry me, and I think there are important elections in both.
I also have a concern this year could have some very worrying climatic events that could be politically impactful and destabilising too.
2. 2nd May
3. Exactly as they are today
4. Labour with majority of 140
5. Trump/Biden
6. Biden
7. 4.5%
8. 3.1%
9. £106.9bn
10. 64
Rather like the migrations across the Sahara and Mediterranean it really isn't possible to make it hostile enough short of murder.
The only really way to intervene is to turn failed states into viable ones, particularly those like Mexico controlling access to the border.
2) 2 May 2024
3) as current
4) Lab 125
5) Biden & Trump
6) Trump
7) 4.75%
8) 3.1%
9) £130Bn
10) 53
However, it can’t be let go without mentioning the fact that the documentary doesn’t make any reference to a certain Mr Adam Crozier, Post Office Chief Exec from 2003 to 2010, who later became Chief Exec of, umm, ITV.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-scottish-mail-on-sunday/20231231/282437058944260
2 24th October 2024
3 Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Yousaf, Tice
4 Labour 100
5 DeSantis and Biden
6 Biden
7 4%
8 3.5%
9 £100 bn
10 60
24 Oct
Same as now
LAB majority 112
DeSantis/Obama
Obama
5%
5%
111 billion
66
@Benpointer
In a brutal verdict on the Tories' record in office, a majority (62%) believe life has got worse in Britain since 2010, including more than half of those who voted Conservative in 2019. In another boost to Labour the poll shows Mr Starmer and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves with a clear lead over the PM and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on who would be best for the British economy - by 43% to 32%.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/two-thirds-public-want-rishi-31784208
The report highlighted the migration issue from GHW Bush through Clinton, GW Bush, Obama and Trump. There was genuine criticism from local Dems that the Federal Government has dropped the ball, particularly under Biden.
You may be right and this issue gets your unstable old fool back in the Whitehouse. If it does, the chaos that ensues will be right up your right-wing hack strasse. Lots to write about no doubt.
Arbitarily though, I will only log entries that provide at least 6/10 predictions. On which basis, yours is logged!
However, it should also be pointed out that the biggest single increase has come from non-LatAm areas who now see the Mexico border as the easiest way to gain entry. And the single biggest cause of the explosion in migrants coming to the US is the signal Biden sent out
that everyone is welcome.
That is the reason Biden is getting hammered in the polls on this issue. You can look at it from a nice cosy UK angle and think “if only the US was more welcoming” but the numbers coming in are truly epoch making.
It is also worthwhile pointing out that many of those who most strongly support immigration I.e. wealthy urban types are also those who benefit most from having an increasing supply of cheap labour that often doesn’t speak English (so doesn’t understand their rights)….
If Donald Trump, an elderly man showing alarming signs of cognitive decline and a failed and defeated president who has spent most of the last four years trying to explain why he first rigged an election and when that failed launched an abortive coup, is the Republican candidate Biden will likely win again unless the economy tanks or he suffers a major health episode.
If Haley or even De Santis were the candidate the Republicans would be strolling to victory and Biden would likely be the first one-term Democratic president not to seek re-election since James Buchanan.
This is, along with their multiple attempts at voter fraud, one of the more disturbing things about the current Republican Party. They seem to have completely lost touch with reality.
The borrowing one I honestly have no idea about and the Olympics one, I don't really care about, lol!
Happy New Year
In the 1990s it was the massive fall off of consumption in the former communist bloc combined with the overwhelming victory of the West in the Gulf War that led to a supply-demand imbalance. This time it would be different drivers, including the middle east becoming less globally relevant.
Cheap energy usually means cheap fertilisers, increased crop yields and cheaper food too. Whether cheap energy also leads to cheaper metals and other hard commodities is harder to tell. But I’d expect major new investments in lithium extraction to start pushing down battery prices too.
Sunak could tell the judges, "Look, fine, you want to stop the renditions. That's OK - you're allowed to play at checks and balances. But neither the judiciary nor the government are sovereign in this country, because the people are. So I'm calling a general election. And item 1 in the Conservative manifesto is enable the renditions. And I must ask their lordships on the bench to stay out of it - stay out of the election completely, stop commenting on the issue being fought in it, and then accept the result once the British people have made their decision."
It would be hard for Starmer to de-lawyerise the way he puts himself across.
Then let Lee Anderson say if any f***ing judges want to help their fellow lawyer friend Keir "I fixed it for Jimmy" Starmer stop the planes going OUT while allowing the boats to come IN, they should either resign from the cushy numbers they call their jobs and join the Labour party or else stuff their ermine socks in their gobs and listen to the message that's about to come in from the British people.
If half the senior civil servants at the Justice Department resign, great.
They're going to move fast and smash stuff, and be really really obnoxious. That's what I'm predicting.