O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Its likely we can see 150-200 new Labour MPs at the GE, with a large overall majority. Is there any analysis of the likely balance of the party - my fear is a large and strong left-wing cohort - not a majority - but enough to wreak havoc. We know how much damage has occurred on the other side within the Conservatives. I woinder will we see a repeat. I think most voters are broadly centrist - it would be nice if they were governed from a centrist perspective.
I am hoping that the lessons of Sheffield Hallam have been learned and some serious vetting is being done on all candidates.
I remain totally astonished at the lack of vetting of Parliamentary candidates by all major parties.
It’s one thing to have a couple of mad councillors in an unexpected landslide, but to have a few mad MPs is on another level. Basic failures as well, such as checking Twitter from 2009. It doesn’t cost millions, each party could do it with a handful of people in a couple of months.
Somewhat ironically, the model to follow is Nigel Farage, and the way he dealt with UKIP councillors in recent years.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
And yet did nothing to make it possible. German bombers in the war were puny by comparison with the Heavies that the Allies deployed to great effect in the later war years.
Many people had been sucked in by fear of what bombing could do - the great alarm of the 20's and 30's. Douhet's theories and the idea that the bomber would always get through.
"‘I told Blair to cancel Horizon in 1998 – even I could see it was likely to go wrong’ Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
I think Kennedy suffers from two big problems:
(1) People are -mostly- voting against things in this election. You are either voting against Trump or against Biden. That makes it very hard for a third party to break through.
(2) He doesn't have an obvious niche that is unfulfilled by existing parties.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
And yet did nothing to make it possible. German bombers in the war were puny by comparison with the Heavies that the Allies deployed to great effect in the later war years.
Many people had been sucked in by fear of what bombing could do - the great alarm of the 20's and 30's. Douhet's theories and the idea that the bomber would always get through.
The oft-forgotten big scare leading up to the war was German bombers dropping poison gas, hence gas masks and public information films. Obviously it never happened and nowadays is barely remembered even as a Dr Who story.
ETA evacuation was also on/off. Many evacuated children had returned to London in time for the Blitz.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
I think you’ve correctly and succinctly identified the three major points of debate between now and the election, and a potential big fourth issue.
1. Kennedy. Big unknown, potentially puts the cat among the pigeons if he gets into the main TV debates. Will take votes from both main parties, in different ways in different States.
2. Immigration. Biggest Republican issue, could be about to blow up in Texas over the coming days and weeks, but also causing issues in Dem cities that have had their bluff called on being ‘sanctuaries’.
3. Abortion. Biggest Democratic issue, Dem-controlled States will try to put something on the ballot to drive turnout as happened in 2022, but also the chance of overreach of ballots that drive opposition turnout such as 40-week abortions.
4. Trump himself, and the various hurdles he needs to overcome between now and the election. At the moment, every attempt to drag him into court has led to his support increasing, but there’s going to be a line where that doesn’t work for the swing voters, and it’s possible that something could come up in one of the cases that crashes his support even among current supporters.
I think that's right, with one exception: I don't think Kennedy makes the debates. I think there's an enormous appetite in the US for a not-Biden, not-Trump sane (cogent) candidate, but Kennedy is not that person.
Kennedy is a weird one. I’m assuming that he’s going to dump a whole pile of targeted advertising following the major party conventions, to try and get his name recognition up.
We agree that there’s a big appetite for none-of-the-above-octogenarians, but I think RFK might have the means to pull off a Ross Perot. He’ll pick up both Dem and Rep big donors, if as expected we get Trump and Biden for the main parties.
Other factors are the known unknowns, mostly involving the health of two very old men. I’m stil not 100% convinced that something unprecedented doesn’t happen at the Dem convention - if I had a Betfair account, I’d put a pint or two on Newsom being the nominee.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
Biden's approval rating is only 38.7%
That is not the rating that wins re-election.
Fortunately for Biden, Trump's approval rating is little better.
As I said, Trump's approval is "little better", acknowledging that is better, but not by much.
OK I would have called that more than a little better, and more useful to have the actual numbers than vague terms like 'little better'. The polls are measuring slightly different things, and both of them fluctuate quite a bit over time.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
I think Kennedy suffers from two big problems:
(1) People are -mostly- voting against things in this election. You are either voting against Trump or against Biden. That makes it very hard for a third party to break through.
(2) He doesn't have an obvious niche that is unfulfilled by existing parties.
I think you may be missing the obvious. At 70 he provides the voters with the option for youth and vigour.
Michael Keegan, former CEO and chairman of Fujitsu (and husband to Gillian Keegan, education secretary) has been replaced as the Government's Crown Representative to BAE Systems. The part-time role, responsible for relationships with key govt suppliers, had a £500-a-day fee.
Perhaps now they can look at why a director of the CPS is also a director of the Post Office.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
I think you’ve correctly and succinctly identified the three major points of debate between now and the election, and a potential big fourth issue.
1. Kennedy. Big unknown, potentially puts the cat among the pigeons if he gets into the main TV debates. Will take votes from both main parties, in different ways in different States.
2. Immigration. Biggest Republican issue, could be about to blow up in Texas over the coming days and weeks, but also causing issues in Dem cities that have had their bluff called on being ‘sanctuaries’.
3. Abortion. Biggest Democratic issue, Dem-controlled States will try to put something on the ballot to drive turnout as happened in 2022, but also the chance of overreach of ballots that drive opposition turnout such as 40-week abortions.
4. Trump himself, and the various hurdles he needs to overcome between now and the election. At the moment, every attempt to drag him into court has led to his support increasing, but there’s going to be a line where that doesn’t work for the swing voters, and it’s possible that something could come up in one of the cases that crashes his support even among current supporters.
I think that's right, with one exception: I don't think Kennedy makes the debates. I think there's an enormous appetite in the US for a not-Biden, not-Trump sane (cogent) candidate, but Kennedy is not that person.
Kennedy is a weird one. I’m assuming that he’s going to dump a whole pile of targeted advertising following the major party conventions, to try and get his name recognition up.
We agree that there’s a big appetite for none-of-the-above-octogenarians, but I think RFK might have the means to pull off a Ross Perot. He’ll pick up both Dem and Rep big donors, if as expected we get Trump and Biden for the main parties.
Other factors are the known unknowns, mostly involving the health of two very old men. I’m stil not 100% convinced that something unprecedented doesn’t happen at the Dem convention - if I had a Betfair account, I’d put a pint or two on Newsom being the nominee.
Who’s going to pay for RFK’s targeted advertising?
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
Marginal numbers in 1940, though, of pilots. Another reason to focus on the defensive airfields, and push the air cover away from the Channel. Just been reading about the impact of a rselatively few Stukas on the naval war in the Mediterranean - even with armour on the flight decks of the RN carriers.
Also terrible numbers for the SNP who were often touching 5% the last time. It appears that their support might roughly halve in a lot of the current polling. Whilst I suspect that they will get some swingback from Independence supporters currently scunnered of them in Scotland it is going to be a competition between them and the Tories about whose vote has fallen more in some seats and the frankly bizarre possibility of a falling Conservative support picking up a seat or two.
FPTP. You gotta love it.
The Scotland sub-sample (i know, I know) shows a 12 point SNP lead over Slab. I suspect they would be clinging to that like a shipwrecked sailor to the last lifebelt.
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Well as a good Muslim boy I cannot comment on sausages.
Question - given that fine sausages can be made from lamb, beef and venison, are there halal sausages? If not, why not?
There are Halal sausages but the vegan ones taste like rubber and I prefer seekh kebabs made from lamb or chicken.
Vegan sausages are a strange idea to me - if you don’t want to eat meat, why eat something that looks like a meat product.
Lamb or venison sausages are especially good. I always include some in the mix for BBQ. Can’t see why you couldn’t make them without any pork products at all. Or do they?
Lamb kebabs made from pieces of real lamb are magnificent, if done right. The marinading is critical.
Linda McCartney sausages are great, particularly the Rosemary ones. I prefer them to regular sausages for toad in the hole, but they do benefit from being fried rather than grilled.
Interesting use of the word "benefit" there, as a doctor.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
"‘I told Blair to cancel Horizon in 1998 – even I could see it was likely to go wrong’ Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Yes it depends whether the change is temporary. I'm not sure Trump plans on just being in for 4 years then retiring gracefully.
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Trump has said the US shouldn’t support Taiwan militarily. What Far East interests do you think Trump would be interested in supporting?
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Trump has said the US shouldn’t support Taiwan militarily. What Far East interests do you think Trump would be interested in supporting?
"‘I told Blair to cancel Horizon in 1998 – even I could see it was likely to go wrong’ Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
Yep, the whole Post Office scandal was Tonty Blair's fault. Tonty and of course SKS as DPP plus Ed Davey as the sole minister with any responsibility.
The Tory grift on the PO and their ability to shift blame has been breathtaking and I think quite successful.
Yes, because it is all those evil Tories fault and no one else or no other party has to take any accountability for their actions because. Tories. Innit.
Ms Cyclefree produced a useful list of relevant Ministers over the period of the scandal. I can't trace it now. If you can, perhaps you could repost it here?
I recall that Swinson was in charge about this time, following on from Sir Ed, Norman Lamb, and Jenny Willott. I suspect that Ed is relatively blameless, despite what the press might have you believe, and Norman Lamb is one of the few Ministers to get a favorable word or two from Alan Bates.
Swinson, I think, has problems, as indeed does every subsequent Minister right through to the time the ITV series started and government began to notice that something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong.
Given the vast number of lies within this scandal, do we know for certain either way that ministers were (or weren't) fully informed by their civil servants - and will evidence for that be available to the enquiry, or does ministerial advice remain confidential ?
Ed Davey's defence was that he was lied to, or misled. Which is perfectly plausible given what we know about the scandal.
His sin was how he handled it when questioned.
I'd say it lack of curiosity at the time, but in that he was little different to all the others with the possible exception of Norman Lamb, who wasn't in post long enough to make a difference.
Let's ask an obvious question: does anyone really think that senior Post Office managers from the Chair down would have embarked on aggressive and expensive litigation to shut down the subpostmasters, would have sacked Second Sight, would have tried to cover this up if they had not had the backing of their owner and 100% funder, the government?
Of course not.
The cover up goes right to the heart of government: whether it was because Ministers were lied to or because they were uncurious or because they did not want to confront the consequences or a mix of all these hardly matters. This was an abuse of power by the government - an abuse of power prolonged and made worse by a determined attempt to cover it up or limit or deny its scale and extent and to make it as hard as possible for those suffering it to obtain compensation.
That decade old cover up and denial is still going on, as exemplified by the PO witnesses who are still refusing to accept the courts' verdict, by the Post Office which still believes many of its subpostmasters are guilty, by a Post Office management which still does not accept that it has never been able to prove that any crimes at all were committed let alone committed by subpostmasters, which is in denial about the reality that it is it which has extorted - through lies - monies it has never been owed and used that to enrich itself and those working for it.
The Post Office is a corporate racketeer.
Demands money without justification and under threat of punishment. Then lies about it.
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Yes it depends whether the change is temporary. I'm not sure Trump plans on just being in for 4 years then retiring gracefully.
Even Trump cannot avoid the Grim Reaper, of course. The question is whether America First isolationism and/or cosying up to the likes of Putin continues past Trump.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
I think you’ve correctly and succinctly identified the three major points of debate between now and the election, and a potential big fourth issue.
1. Kennedy. Big unknown, potentially puts the cat among the pigeons if he gets into the main TV debates. Will take votes from both main parties, in different ways in different States.
2. Immigration. Biggest Republican issue, could be about to blow up in Texas over the coming days and weeks, but also causing issues in Dem cities that have had their bluff called on being ‘sanctuaries’.
3. Abortion. Biggest Democratic issue, Dem-controlled States will try to put something on the ballot to drive turnout as happened in 2022, but also the chance of overreach of ballots that drive opposition turnout such as 40-week abortions.
4. Trump himself, and the various hurdles he needs to overcome between now and the election. At the moment, every attempt to drag him into court has led to his support increasing, but there’s going to be a line where that doesn’t work for the swing voters, and it’s possible that something could come up in one of the cases that crashes his support even among current supporters.
I think that's right, with one exception: I don't think Kennedy makes the debates. I think there's an enormous appetite in the US for a not-Biden, not-Trump sane (cogent) candidate, but Kennedy is not that person.
Kennedy is a weird one. I’m assuming that he’s going to dump a whole pile of targeted advertising following the major party conventions, to try and get his name recognition up.
We agree that there’s a big appetite for none-of-the-above-octogenarians, but I think RFK might have the means to pull off a Ross Perot. He’ll pick up both Dem and Rep big donors, if as expected we get Trump and Biden for the main parties.
Other factors are the known unknowns, mostly involving the health of two very old men. I’m stil not 100% convinced that something unprecedented doesn’t happen at the Dem convention - if I had a Betfair account, I’d put a pint or two on Newsom being the nominee.
Who’s going to pay for RFK’s targeted advertising?
He has a fair bit of family money, and will also attract donors that are now supporting the likes of Haley, those who have a dislike of both Trump and Biden.
I suspect that his campaign will be very new-media - like Vivek Ramaswarmy, he’s appeared on dozens of podcasts in the past year and will probably do the same again. Joe Rogan gets many times the audience of any TV channel these days.
Also interesting media news, is that Jon Stewart will be doing a weekly Daily Show reboot in the run up to the election. Assuming it ends up on Youtube and doesn’t stay on a cable channel that no-one watches any more, that could be significant. The US needs more Jon Stewarts and Bill Mahers, and fewer of the partisan hacks on cable news. It’s somewhat ironic that the two most trusted names in news are comedians rather than journalists, shows how far good journalism has fallen.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there could be a stay-at-home “Free Palestine” movement, especially among Muslim communities.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Trump has said the US shouldn’t support Taiwan militarily. What Far East interests do you think Trump would be interested in supporting?
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there could be a stay-at-home “Free Palestine” movement, especially among Muslim communities.
Today's interim ICJ ruling is going to create more problems for Western governments. Either they truly believe in the international rules based order, or they don't (or only when it suits them). I can't see Israel abiding by the ruling, so what do the US and UK do then?
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Trump has said the US shouldn’t support Taiwan militarily. What Far East interests do you think Trump would be interested in supporting?
Neither has Biden nor the UK government said they would support Taiwan militarily. Indeed technically neither the UK nor US recognise Taiwan even as an independent nation as they recognised Ukraine as independent pre Putin's invasion and they haven't sent troops or jets to Ukraine either, just some military supplies.
Even if the US and UK do not fully endorse Beijing's position on Taiwan they technically accept the One China policy
So we’re NOT giving back Diego Garcia, in particular we are NOT handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (alias China)
Good. We have to stop seeing the world as this peaceful place where we can do nice Wokey things just because. The world is a lot more hostile than it was - Russia and China scheme against the entire west
It's a disgusting decision. The Chagossians have been denied justice for too long. Let them return to their homeland. There's nothing "wokey" about the idea that people shouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes and have their lives destroyed by high handed imperial powers. Their return doesn't prevent the US continuing to operate the base on Diego Garcia. The fight will continue and in the end justice will prevail, whatever this unelected privileged POS says.
Let's see how much "justice" there is in the world when Russia, China and Iran all call the shots - as real imperial powers.
The rules have changed. We're no longer in a happy 1990s situation where the liberal democratic rules-based international order rules supreme, and we can freely indulge in lop-sided self-hatred.
We need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British. I'm sure the few hundred Chagossians who were displaced many decades ago - just as those displaced in London when Heathrow was built- can live with it.
You say we need to retain strategic bases and they need to be British, but the base on the Chagos archipelago is not British. It is American. Are you suggesting we kick the Americans out and set up a British base there?
It is a British territory and we lease it to them. We also have signals intelligence and administration stationed there.
The US is a close ally.
Yes, we lease it to the Americans. Id est, it is an American base, not a British one. So an argument about retaining British bases has no relevance to the Chagossians.
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
Alliances can survive temporary changes in political leadership. The US will always be a British ally in the Far East, even if they slowly withdraw from propping up NATO on their own.
Yes it depends whether the change is temporary. I'm not sure Trump plans on just being in for 4 years then retiring gracefully.
The chances of him amending the Constitution, or appointing a court that will overturn what’s written in very black and white, is close to zero. He will do his four years and leave office.
That doesn’t mean that he won’t hand pick a successor, but DJT definitely won’t be president on 21st Jan 2029 if he was also president two days before.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
“Joe Biden has single-handedly alienated almost every Arab-American and Muslim American voter in Michigan,” said state Rep. Alabas Farhat, a Democrat whose district includes Dearborn, which is home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American communities in the country.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
I think you’ve correctly and succinctly identified the three major points of debate between now and the election, and a potential big fourth issue.
1. Kennedy. Big unknown, potentially puts the cat among the pigeons if he gets into the main TV debates. Will take votes from both main parties, in different ways in different States.
2. Immigration. Biggest Republican issue, could be about to blow up in Texas over the coming days and weeks, but also causing issues in Dem cities that have had their bluff called on being ‘sanctuaries’.
3. Abortion. Biggest Democratic issue, Dem-controlled States will try to put something on the ballot to drive turnout as happened in 2022, but also the chance of overreach of ballots that drive opposition turnout such as 40-week abortions.
4. Trump himself, and the various hurdles he needs to overcome between now and the election. At the moment, every attempt to drag him into court has led to his support increasing, but there’s going to be a line where that doesn’t work for the swing voters, and it’s possible that something could come up in one of the cases that crashes his support even among current supporters.
I think that's right, with one exception: I don't think Kennedy makes the debates. I think there's an enormous appetite in the US for a not-Biden, not-Trump sane (cogent) candidate, but Kennedy is not that person.
Kennedy is a weird one. I’m assuming that he’s going to dump a whole pile of targeted advertising following the major party conventions, to try and get his name recognition up.
We agree that there’s a big appetite for none-of-the-above-octogenarians, but I think RFK might have the means to pull off a Ross Perot. He’ll pick up both Dem and Rep big donors, if as expected we get Trump and Biden for the main parties.
Other factors are the known unknowns, mostly involving the health of two very old men. I’m stil not 100% convinced that something unprecedented doesn’t happen at the Dem convention - if I had a Betfair account, I’d put a pint or two on Newsom being the nominee.
Who’s going to pay for RFK’s targeted advertising?
He has a fair bit of family money, and will also attract donors that are now supporting the likes of Haley, those who have a dislike of both Trump and Biden.
I suspect that his campaign will be very new-media - like Vivek Ramaswarmy, he’s appeared on dozens of podcasts in the past year and will probably do the same again. Joe Rogan gets many times the audience of any TV channel these days.
Also interesting media news, is that Jon Stewart will be doing a weekly Daily Show reboot in the run up to the election. Assuming it ends up on Youtube and doesn’t stay on a cable channel that no-one watches any more, that could be significant. The US needs more Jon Stewarts and Bill Mahers, and fewer of the partisan hacks on cable news. It’s somewhat ironic that the two most trusted names in news are comedians rather than journalists, shows how far good journalism has fallen.
Those who dislike both Biden and Trump are unlikely to find an answer in Kennedy, I'd have thought. They'd want a mainstream politician who just gets things done but won't be in his later eighties by the end of his term.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Do they actually regard Trump as the lesser of two evils - I mean Trump says all kinds of shit, but he's generally been very pro-Israeli? Or are they just not going to vote for Biden?
"‘I told Blair to cancel Horizon in 1998 – even I could see it was likely to go wrong’ Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
Yep, the whole Post Office scandal was Tonty Blair's fault. Tonty and of course SKS as DPP plus Ed Davey as the sole minister with any responsibility.
The Tory grift on the PO and their ability to shift blame has been breathtaking and I think quite successful.
Yes, because it is all those evil Tories fault and no one else or no other party has to take any accountability for their actions because. Tories. Innit.
There's only one party and its newspapers actively trying to make what was a failing of all parties into a partisan war, and it's not Labour or the Lib Dems. And as I say, they're being pretty successful in shifting blame, despite being as or more responsible than the LDs and substantially more responsible than Labour given the timing of when this all started to come out.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Do they actually regard Trump as the lesser of two evils - I mean Trump says all kinds of shit, but he's generally been very pro-Israeli? Or are they just not going to vote for Biden?
It's both. They refuse to vote for Biden, and they are dimissive of people saying, "But that means Trump will win!"
At a Lib Dem bash this evening. Consistent story from multiple blue wall constituencies that the Tories are throwing everything at them. Spamming Facebook and other elderly platforms, leaflets through the doors at almost Lib Dem levels, taking up local causes they never showed interest in before like there’s no tomorrow.
Less of that in the South West by all accounts.
So it seems they’ve decided to make the blue/yellow marginals in the Home Counties their Stalingrad. Perhaps they’ve given up on the red wall.
Yes, I'm seeing no evidence of a Tory effort here, where I'm in the (probably) unusual situation of the Boundary Commission moving me from a 2019 marginal into a 2024 marginal. I had one generic addressed letter last year from the Tory candidate (and current MP for Dewsbury), and that's it. It's also a marginal Tory ward (now - it was rock solid in the late 2010s but Lab won by 15 votes last May), and no activity on that front either. That said, precious little from Labour too.
In the two seats in which I have an interest, Godalming and Ash (Surrey) is seeing a massive LibDem effort (including lots of in-person deliveries) and a substantial Tory effort too. Didcot and Wantage (Oxon) is seeing less activity and nearly all of it by Royal Mail deliveries with the pizza ads. Labour had a street stand last week with decent takeup but it's the only such event by anyone that I'm aware of in recent months.
The difference is that Godalming and Ash is dominated by the town and has high-profile Tory (Jeremy Hunt) and LibDem (Paul Follows) candidates, whereas D+W is spread out across numerous small towns and villages, with many residents commuters from London or Oxford and not that interested in local politics. Seats with a lot of visible local campaigning are more liable to have levels of tactical voting; others will I suppose tend to go with national swings.
A lot of LD effort in Guildford. Lots of leaflets and canvassing. I have only seen one Tory newspaper delivered by Royal Mail with no mention of the LDs (which makes sense, why highlight they are the challengers). Tory and LD leaflets competing as to how many pictures of their candidates they can get on each leaflet. At one of the action days there was a story going around that the Guildford Tories had received £250,000 from central office. No idea if true.
From my facebook feeds there seems to be the same sort of LD effort in surrounding constituencies (How times change being surrounded by marginals in Surrey)
Pre Brexit the safest Tory seats were in Surrey, Kensington and Chelsea, Buckinghamshire etc.
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there could be a stay-at-home “Free Palestine” movement, especially among Muslim communities.
Today's interim ICJ ruling is going to create more problems for Western governments. Either they truly believe in the international rules based order, or they don't (or only when it suits them). I can't see Israel abiding by the ruling, so what do the US and UK do then?
The ruling mostly just says Israel has to do stuff it says it's already doing anyway, and the US and UK have generally agreed that it is doing those things, although maybe could do them a bit better. Nothing changes.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
The CPS reached the conclusion that “There was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction for murder” in the case of Valdo Colocane Does this mean they think the jury would find him Not Guilty if he had been tried for murder? What would have happened to him in that scenario?
"He believed his mind was being controlled by external influences and that his family was in danger if he didn't obey the voices in his head."
Chief crown prosecutor for the east midlands Janine McKinney speaking about killer Valdo Calocane.
If there had been a trial the jury would have convicted him of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. Which he pleaded to. The psychiatric evidence was unanimous that his responsibility was at least diminished, so there would have been no lawful basis for a murder conviction.
He would also have been convicted of attempted murder. The special case of diminished responsibility only applies to murder for historical rather than logical reasons.
The convictions recognise real and actual culpability, but diminished. The same can apply when, for example, a wife kills an abusive and violent husband when it is not in self defence.
Given that, whether it was murder or manslaughter, he is very unlikely to ever be freed, wouldn’t it be better to convict him of murder?
I say this because the bereaved families are furious at it being manslaughter, they feel let down, and a murder verdict doesn’t seem like it would make any practical difference to the guilty man anyway
The families have been let down, terribly, but not by the manslaughter charge, which as other have noted is likely the right one given the killer's psychotic state. Mental health services and the police have questions to answer about their engagement with the man in the months leading up to the crime, but I expect that at least some of the answer is that they were being asked to do more than their resources allowed.
They are very unhappy with the CPS that he wasn’t tried for murder "True justice has not been served today".
Mother of victim Barnaby Webber, Emma Webber, says the families were "horrified" that Calocane's manslaughter plea was accepted.
Families will always feel like that. If he had been tried for murder, they'd have been disappointed when he was found not guilty. If by some chance he had been found guilty of murder, he'd have got life and spent a week or so in prison before being moved to Broadmoor.
Grace's father said something along the lines of placing their faith in the courts and judiciary, so he was possibly more accepting of the way things turned out, or was putting on a stiff upper lip.
So long as he's going away for good, that is what matters.
I'm not sure. This is not the first case where opportunities were missed. Colocane was already in the system but fell through the cracks, like Zara Aleena's killer; as did the 2-year-old Bronson Battersby who starved to death last week, as when terrorists like Salman Abedi who bombed the Ariana Grande concert were known to Special Branch or MI5. Our public services are failing and people are dying.
That’s what happens when too many people prioritise tax cuts over funding our services, in this case social services and security services, sufficiently.
Its cute that you think tax cuts have been prioritised when this sorry excuse for a Government has put taxes up to the highest in decades.
No contradiction there. Taxes have gone up enormously for ordinary people, but cut for the super-wealthy.
Go on, how do you work that out? What are these tax cuts for the super rich of which you speak?
Where I sort of agree is that the main people who have been hammered are the top half of the middle class - frozen higher rate tax threshold, all the prattling about at around £100k etc. Also some sub contractors (the ever tightening IR35 net), and small businesses owners (they've put up tax rates on dividends).
"‘I told Blair to cancel Horizon in 1998 – even I could see it was likely to go wrong’ Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
Yep, the whole Post Office scandal was Tonty Blair's fault. Tonty and of course SKS as DPP plus Ed Davey as the sole minister with any responsibility.
The Tory grift on the PO and their ability to shift blame has been breathtaking and I think quite successful.
Yes, because it is all those evil Tories fault and no one else or no other party has to take any accountability for their actions because. Tories. Innit.
They saw what Labour and the Lib Dems had been up to and, with grudging admiration, awarded Vennels with a CBE in 2019.
At a Lib Dem bash this evening. Consistent story from multiple blue wall constituencies that the Tories are throwing everything at them. Spamming Facebook and other elderly platforms, leaflets through the doors at almost Lib Dem levels, taking up local causes they never showed interest in before like there’s no tomorrow.
Less of that in the South West by all accounts.
So it seems they’ve decided to make the blue/yellow marginals in the Home Counties their Stalingrad. Perhaps they’ve given up on the red wall.
Yes, I'm seeing no evidence of a Tory effort here, where I'm in the (probably) unusual situation of the Boundary Commission moving me from a 2019 marginal into a 2024 marginal. I had one generic addressed letter last year from the Tory candidate (and current MP for Dewsbury), and that's it. It's also a marginal Tory ward (now - it was rock solid in the late 2010s but Lab won by 15 votes last May), and no activity on that front either. That said, precious little from Labour too.
In the two seats in which I have an interest, Godalming and Ash (Surrey) is seeing a massive LibDem effort (including lots of in-person deliveries) and a substantial Tory effort too. Didcot and Wantage (Oxon) is seeing less activity and nearly all of it by Royal Mail deliveries with the pizza ads. Labour had a street stand last week with decent takeup but it's the only such event by anyone that I'm aware of in recent months.
The difference is that Godalming and Ash is dominated by the town and has high-profile Tory (Jeremy Hunt) and LibDem (Paul Follows) candidates, whereas D+W is spread out across numerous small towns and villages, with many residents commuters from London or Oxford and not that interested in local politics. Seats with a lot of visible local campaigning are more liable to have levels of tactical voting; others will I suppose tend to go with national swings.
A lot of LD effort in Guildford. Lots of leaflets and canvassing. I have only seen one Tory newspaper delivered by Royal Mail with no mention of the LDs (which makes sense, why highlight they are the challengers). Tory and LD leaflets competing as to how many pictures of their candidates they can get on each leaflet. At one of the action days there was a story going around that the Guildford Tories had received £250,000 from central office. No idea if true.
From my facebook feeds there seems to be the same sort of LD effort in surrounding constituencies (How times change being surrounded by marginals in Surrey)
Pre Brexit the safest Tory seats were in Surrey, Kensington and Chelsea, Buckinghamshire etc.
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
Where do the people who funded Brexit still want to live?
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, sorry, I meant more those vocally expressing an actual preference for Trump, rather than being anti-Biden
I think these people will mostly sit on their hands rather than vote for either Trump or Biden.
We’ll see the same phenomenon in the UK election, with 1997 as the template. From memory Blair got 2m votes more than Kinnock, but Major lost 4m between ‘92 and ‘97, the low turnout turning a good win into a landslide for Blair.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there could be a stay-at-home “Free Palestine” movement, especially among Muslim communities.
Today's interim ICJ ruling is going to create more problems for Western governments. Either they truly believe in the international rules based order, or they don't (or only when it suits them). I can't see Israel abiding by the ruling, so what do the US and UK do then?
The ruling mostly just says Israel has to do stuff it says it's already doing anyway, and the US and UK have generally agreed that it is doing those things, although maybe could do them a bit better. Nothing changes.
Punishing the officials whose statements have shown genocidal intent is going to be nigh-on impossible.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
“Joe Biden has single-handedly alienated almost every Arab-American and Muslim American voter in Michigan,” said state Rep. Alabas Farhat, a Democrat whose district includes Dearborn, which is home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American communities in the country.
I was more interested in examples of those increasingly vocally saying they actually prefer Trump because of foreign policy. Do these people think that Trump would be preferable on Israel/Palestine?
In our latest poll, conducted on the 24th and 25th of January 2024, we’ve observed a small reversal of fortunes in the political landscape, with the Labour Party regaining its lost ground while the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats have both experienced declines. The Reform Party has maintained its support, the Green Party has enjoyed a slight increase, and the SNP along with other parties remain steady.
Here are the latest figures, compared to the poll conducted on the 17th and 18th of January 2024:
Public confidence in the government’s ability to address the country’s priorities shows a net decrease, pointing to growing scepticism with a net minus 25%:
Confident: 34% Not Confident: 59%
I thought it might be interesting to look at past poll leads, given that Labour is regularly hitting the +20s at the moment.
The Tories under Cameron never managed a +20 or better lead during the final year of Brown's government. Labour didn't manage it at all between Iraq and Truss. The Tories did, under May and Johnson, though only for a month in the former case, which they then blew in the election campaign.
To be polling this strongly, this late in a parliament is exceptionally rare. It's roughly where Labour was in 2001 (though not 2000). Only Labour in 1996-7 was in a better position - and even then, not by much.
Obviously, a lot can change over 9-10 months but it's difficult to see anything which would obviously improve matters dramatically for the Tories, short of Labour shooting themselves in the foot, which is a risk Labour appears highly tuned to mitigating. Landslide incoming, probably.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
Biden's approval rating is only 38.7%
That is not the rating that wins re-election.
Trump's approval rating is not much higher however.
Remember even if Trump wins back Georgia and Arizona Biden can still win the EC narrowly if he holds the southern and western states Hillary won in 2016 and the northern states even Kerry won in 2004.
If it is Biden v Trump again it could be the year the Democrats win the EC but lose the popular vote and the GOP win the popular vote but lose the EC
At a Lib Dem bash this evening. Consistent story from multiple blue wall constituencies that the Tories are throwing everything at them. Spamming Facebook and other elderly platforms, leaflets through the doors at almost Lib Dem levels, taking up local causes they never showed interest in before like there’s no tomorrow.
Less of that in the South West by all accounts.
So it seems they’ve decided to make the blue/yellow marginals in the Home Counties their Stalingrad. Perhaps they’ve given up on the red wall.
Yes, I'm seeing no evidence of a Tory effort here, where I'm in the (probably) unusual situation of the Boundary Commission moving me from a 2019 marginal into a 2024 marginal. I had one generic addressed letter last year from the Tory candidate (and current MP for Dewsbury), and that's it. It's also a marginal Tory ward (now - it was rock solid in the late 2010s but Lab won by 15 votes last May), and no activity on that front either. That said, precious little from Labour too.
In the two seats in which I have an interest, Godalming and Ash (Surrey) is seeing a massive LibDem effort (including lots of in-person deliveries) and a substantial Tory effort too. Didcot and Wantage (Oxon) is seeing less activity and nearly all of it by Royal Mail deliveries with the pizza ads. Labour had a street stand last week with decent takeup but it's the only such event by anyone that I'm aware of in recent months.
The difference is that Godalming and Ash is dominated by the town and has high-profile Tory (Jeremy Hunt) and LibDem (Paul Follows) candidates, whereas D+W is spread out across numerous small towns and villages, with many residents commuters from London or Oxford and not that interested in local politics. Seats with a lot of visible local campaigning are more liable to have levels of tactical voting; others will I suppose tend to go with national swings.
A lot of LD effort in Guildford. Lots of leaflets and canvassing. I have only seen one Tory newspaper delivered by Royal Mail with no mention of the LDs (which makes sense, why highlight they are the challengers). Tory and LD leaflets competing as to how many pictures of their candidates they can get on each leaflet. At one of the action days there was a story going around that the Guildford Tories had received £250,000 from central office. No idea if true.
From my facebook feeds there seems to be the same sort of LD effort in surrounding constituencies (How times change being surrounded by marginals in Surrey)
Pre Brexit the safest Tory seats were in Surrey, Kensington and Chelsea, Buckinghamshire etc.
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
Where do the people who funded Brexit still want to live?
At a Lib Dem bash this evening. Consistent story from multiple blue wall constituencies that the Tories are throwing everything at them. Spamming Facebook and other elderly platforms, leaflets through the doors at almost Lib Dem levels, taking up local causes they never showed interest in before like there’s no tomorrow.
Less of that in the South West by all accounts.
So it seems they’ve decided to make the blue/yellow marginals in the Home Counties their Stalingrad. Perhaps they’ve given up on the red wall.
Yes, I'm seeing no evidence of a Tory effort here, where I'm in the (probably) unusual situation of the Boundary Commission moving me from a 2019 marginal into a 2024 marginal. I had one generic addressed letter last year from the Tory candidate (and current MP for Dewsbury), and that's it. It's also a marginal Tory ward (now - it was rock solid in the late 2010s but Lab won by 15 votes last May), and no activity on that front either. That said, precious little from Labour too.
In the two seats in which I have an interest, Godalming and Ash (Surrey) is seeing a massive LibDem effort (including lots of in-person deliveries) and a substantial Tory effort too. Didcot and Wantage (Oxon) is seeing less activity and nearly all of it by Royal Mail deliveries with the pizza ads. Labour had a street stand last week with decent takeup but it's the only such event by anyone that I'm aware of in recent months.
The difference is that Godalming and Ash is dominated by the town and has high-profile Tory (Jeremy Hunt) and LibDem (Paul Follows) candidates, whereas D+W is spread out across numerous small towns and villages, with many residents commuters from London or Oxford and not that interested in local politics. Seats with a lot of visible local campaigning are more liable to have levels of tactical voting; others will I suppose tend to go with national swings.
A lot of LD effort in Guildford. Lots of leaflets and canvassing. I have only seen one Tory newspaper delivered by Royal Mail with no mention of the LDs (which makes sense, why highlight they are the challengers). Tory and LD leaflets competing as to how many pictures of their candidates they can get on each leaflet. At one of the action days there was a story going around that the Guildford Tories had received £250,000 from central office. No idea if true.
From my facebook feeds there seems to be the same sort of LD effort in surrounding constituencies (How times change being surrounded by marginals in Surrey)
Pre Brexit the safest Tory seats were in Surrey, Kensington and Chelsea, Buckinghamshire etc.
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
I doubt that particular 'Brexit dividend' will last for much longer (if it even now exists at all). What a complete and utter bunch of twerps the Tories were for actively destroying their hitherto baked-in political alliances. One has to say this all started with Boris. The Tories must rue the day that man came along.
All parties have their hands dipped in blood. But as the latest revelations in the last day show, the government appointed director was involved in the decision to sack Second Sight in 2014 - see the unredacted minutes of Project Sparrow which have now been revealed. So the government's hands are all over the cover up. As was always going to be shown to be the case.
Post Office management would never have done what it did had it not had government backing.
Hi Cyclefree. I fully agree.
Indeed, as we go down the Post Office timeline, the actions of the government become progressively worse.
Prior to 2009, the Post Office cover up was already in full swing but complaints of individual sub-postmasters were essentially isolated. In the face of absolute denials from the Post Office no doubt parrotted in briefings by civil servants, it would have been very hard to convince any minister to take seriously what were isolated complaints of a few subpostmasters out of tens of thousands.
Then in 2009 there was the first national report of in Computer Weekly citing seven case studies and Alan Bates campaign mushroomed with the sub-postmasters acting in a coordinated way, assisted by MPs. Yet there still wasn't any direct evidence of Horizon system system, just inferences drawn from a few cases. I have some sympathy with Davey's inaction at this point (2010-12) in the face of a concerted cover up by officials and the lack of direct evidence with which to challenge what he was being told. It takes an exceptional minister to take on and question vigorously every supposed truth he is being fed.
The damning political scandal in my view begins with the publication of the Second Sight report in 2013 which exposed as false all the Post Office assurances about the supposed infallibility of their system.
From 2013, I cannot believe that the basic facts of the Horizon system failure were not appreciated by ministers, nor that the Treasury and Cabinet were not aware of the potential for vast compensation claims. So from 2013 the government was part of the active cover up. We also now know that civil servants were part of the committee which from 2014 determined to sack Second Sight, so the government cover up wasn't passive.
The worst political aspect of all this is the acquiesance at the highest levels of government from 2013 in the face of known facts. Ministers still allowed the Post Office to actively challenge and obstruct investigation every inch of the way for most of the next decade. I think that it's all about money from this point. Basically, the government appreciated that there was a chance that the Post Office could see off claims for compensation, and passively stood back so that it could use every trick in the book to avoid paying out ever or at least kick the can an awful long way down the road.
It wasn't until May 2021 that we finally got a statutory public inquiry, with the necessary powers to get around the continued Post Office tactics of obstruction.
Even then the government still paid for time until ITV forced their hand, and it's still going to be a long time yet before much serious cash is shelled out in compensation.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Do they actually regard Trump as the lesser of two evils - I mean Trump says all kinds of shit, but he's generally been very pro-Israeli? Or are they just not going to vote for Biden?
It's both. They refuse to vote for Biden, and they are dimissive of people saying, "But that means Trump will win!"
Biden thinks that he has the Arab American vote secured because Trump imposed the Muslim Ban.
In Biden's view, preventing Muslims from coming to America is worse than facilitating the slaughter of +24,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Not a single Arab American I have spoken to agrees
OK maybe I'm missing the bit where they actually say Trump would be better? I'm not saying that pro-Palestinian Americans aren't saying that, just curious if there are any examples you can point me too.
"‘I told Blair to cancel Horizon in 1998 – even I could see it was likely to go wrong’ Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
Curious coincidence how every article critical of Labour is not subject to their paywall. Those more subject to conspiracy theories than me might even infer they are just a propaganda rag now rather than a serious news reporting outlet.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there could be a stay-at-home “Free Palestine” movement, especially among Muslim communities.
Today's interim ICJ ruling is going to create more problems for Western governments. Either they truly believe in the international rules based order, or they don't (or only when it suits them). I can't see Israel abiding by the ruling, so what do the US and UK do then?
The ruling mostly just says Israel has to do stuff it says it's already doing anyway, and the US and UK have generally agreed that it is doing those things, although maybe could do them a bit better. Nothing changes.
Punishing the officials whose statements have shown genocidal intent is going to be nigh-on impossible.
Wording is sufficiently vague to offer lots of wriggle room, and that bit doesn't really affect the situation on the ground in Gaza in any noticeable way, so unlikely that anyone will care much.
The most important point is they didn't call for an immediate ceasefire - none of the people protesting in the streets will care much about any of the provisions they did announce.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
Yes, there could be a stay-at-home “Free Palestine” movement, especially among Muslim communities.
Today's interim ICJ ruling is going to create more problems for Western governments. Either they truly believe in the international rules based order, or they don't (or only when it suits them). I can't see Israel abiding by the ruling, so what do the US and UK do then?
The ruling mostly just says Israel has to do stuff it says it's already doing anyway, and the US and UK have generally agreed that it is doing those things, although maybe could do them a bit better. Nothing changes.
Punishing the officials whose statements have shown genocidal intent is going to be nigh-on impossible.
Indeed. BBC summary reads:
“Here are the provisional measures the court has made:
1. Israel must take all measures to prevent any acts that could be considered genocidal - killing members of a group, causing bodily harm, inflicting conditions designed to bring about the destruction of a group, preventing births
2. Israel must ensure its military does not commit any genocidal acts
3. Israel must prevent and punish any public comments that could be considered incitement to commit genocide in Gaza
4. Israel must take measures to ensure humanitarian access
5. Israel must prevent any destruction of evidence that could be used in a genocide case
6. Israel must submit a report to the court within one month of this order being given
The court also expressed grave concern about the fate of hostages being held by Hamas and called for their immediate release.”
Israel will say it is doing 1, 2 and 4. It will be very difficult for the Netanyahu administration to do 3 and even 6 might be difficult to do without losing face. 5 is clearly not going to happen.
At a Lib Dem bash this evening. Consistent story from multiple blue wall constituencies that the Tories are throwing everything at them. Spamming Facebook and other elderly platforms, leaflets through the doors at almost Lib Dem levels, taking up local causes they never showed interest in before like there’s no tomorrow.
Less of that in the South West by all accounts.
So it seems they’ve decided to make the blue/yellow marginals in the Home Counties their Stalingrad. Perhaps they’ve given up on the red wall.
Yes, I'm seeing no evidence of a Tory effort here, where I'm in the (probably) unusual situation of the Boundary Commission moving me from a 2019 marginal into a 2024 marginal. I had one generic addressed letter last year from the Tory candidate (and current MP for Dewsbury), and that's it. It's also a marginal Tory ward (now - it was rock solid in the late 2010s but Lab won by 15 votes last May), and no activity on that front either. That said, precious little from Labour too.
In the two seats in which I have an interest, Godalming and Ash (Surrey) is seeing a massive LibDem effort (including lots of in-person deliveries) and a substantial Tory effort too. Didcot and Wantage (Oxon) is seeing less activity and nearly all of it by Royal Mail deliveries with the pizza ads. Labour had a street stand last week with decent takeup but it's the only such event by anyone that I'm aware of in recent months.
The difference is that Godalming and Ash is dominated by the town and has high-profile Tory (Jeremy Hunt) and LibDem (Paul Follows) candidates, whereas D+W is spread out across numerous small towns and villages, with many residents commuters from London or Oxford and not that interested in local politics. Seats with a lot of visible local campaigning are more liable to have levels of tactical voting; others will I suppose tend to go with national swings.
A lot of LD effort in Guildford. Lots of leaflets and canvassing. I have only seen one Tory newspaper delivered by Royal Mail with no mention of the LDs (which makes sense, why highlight they are the challengers). Tory and LD leaflets competing as to how many pictures of their candidates they can get on each leaflet. At one of the action days there was a story going around that the Guildford Tories had received £250,000 from central office. No idea if true.
From my facebook feeds there seems to be the same sort of LD effort in surrounding constituencies (How times change being surrounded by marginals in Surrey)
Pre Brexit the safest Tory seats were in Surrey, Kensington and Chelsea, Buckinghamshire etc.
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
I doubt that particular 'Brexit dividend' will last for much longer (if it even now exists at all). What a complete and utter bunch of twerps the Tories were for actively destroying their hitherto baked-in political alliances. One has to say this all started with Boris. The Tories must rue the day that man came along.
Though it does reflect a larger trend across the western world, even absent Brexit.
The strongest vote for rightwing and conservative parties now tends to come from the skilled white working class and from pensioners.
Higher income graduates tend to be swing voters and will also often vote for liberal parties. Lower income graduates, those on welfare and the young tend to vote for leftwing parties
At a Lib Dem bash this evening. Consistent story from multiple blue wall constituencies that the Tories are throwing everything at them. Spamming Facebook and other elderly platforms, leaflets through the doors at almost Lib Dem levels, taking up local causes they never showed interest in before like there’s no tomorrow.
Less of that in the South West by all accounts.
So it seems they’ve decided to make the blue/yellow marginals in the Home Counties their Stalingrad. Perhaps they’ve given up on the red wall.
Yes, I'm seeing no evidence of a Tory effort here, where I'm in the (probably) unusual situation of the Boundary Commission moving me from a 2019 marginal into a 2024 marginal. I had one generic addressed letter last year from the Tory candidate (and current MP for Dewsbury), and that's it. It's also a marginal Tory ward (now - it was rock solid in the late 2010s but Lab won by 15 votes last May), and no activity on that front either. That said, precious little from Labour too.
In the two seats in which I have an interest, Godalming and Ash (Surrey) is seeing a massive LibDem effort (including lots of in-person deliveries) and a substantial Tory effort too. Didcot and Wantage (Oxon) is seeing less activity and nearly all of it by Royal Mail deliveries with the pizza ads. Labour had a street stand last week with decent takeup but it's the only such event by anyone that I'm aware of in recent months.
The difference is that Godalming and Ash is dominated by the town and has high-profile Tory (Jeremy Hunt) and LibDem (Paul Follows) candidates, whereas D+W is spread out across numerous small towns and villages, with many residents commuters from London or Oxford and not that interested in local politics. Seats with a lot of visible local campaigning are more liable to have levels of tactical voting; others will I suppose tend to go with national swings.
A lot of LD effort in Guildford. Lots of leaflets and canvassing. I have only seen one Tory newspaper delivered by Royal Mail with no mention of the LDs (which makes sense, why highlight they are the challengers). Tory and LD leaflets competing as to how many pictures of their candidates they can get on each leaflet. At one of the action days there was a story going around that the Guildford Tories had received £250,000 from central office. No idea if true.
From my facebook feeds there seems to be the same sort of LD effort in surrounding constituencies (How times change being surrounded by marginals in Surrey)
Pre Brexit the safest Tory seats were in Surrey, Kensington and Chelsea, Buckinghamshire etc.
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
Where do the people who funded Brexit still want to live?
I think I know the answer.
In my part of the Cotswolds, support for Remain was in the mid-70s to mid-80s in 2016. But it was close to zero among most owners of £5mn+ estates - most of whom still believe they were right to support Brexit, that it's been awful because our politicians are useless, and that any way of getting Brexit to "work" (as they see it) requires more "public interest philanthropy" from other rich gits, because without it our political representation will get even pinker than it's gone over the past decade. And while this gang have no interest living anywhere else in the UK, those helicopters are a handy way of commuting to boltholes in the Med, or to airports whence they can get to the Caribbean quickly.
Meanwhile, they're upping their investment in posh local restaurants...
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
Marginal numbers in 1940, though, of pilots. Another reason to focus on the defensive airfields, and push the air cover away from the Channel. Just been reading about the impact of a rselatively few Stukas on the naval war in the Mediterranean - even with armour on the flight decks of the RN carriers.
Am I right in thinking that at one point in the Battle of Britain the entire defending air force was committed? Had it gone badly there were no reserves, as I understand it.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Do they actually regard Trump as the lesser of two evils - I mean Trump says all kinds of shit, but he's generally been very pro-Israeli? Or are they just not going to vote for Biden?
It's both. They refuse to vote for Biden, and they are dimissive of people saying, "But that means Trump will win!"
Biden thinks that he has the Arab American vote secured because Trump imposed the Muslim Ban.
In Biden's view, preventing Muslims from coming to America is worse than facilitating the slaughter of +24,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Not a single Arab American I have spoken to agrees
OK maybe I'm missing the bit where they actually say Trump would be better? I'm not saying that pro-Palestinian Americans aren't saying that, just curious if there are any examples you can point me too.
Racist Biden thinks Arab-Americans will vote for him despite his genocide in Gaza bc Trump is more racist than he is. He’s gonna learn the hard way that genocide is the red line.
And for the white liberals who are already blaming us, if Biden loses it’s his fault, not the fault of Arabs who refuse to vote for a man that doesn’t see them as human.
"Voters between 18 and 29 years old, traditionally a heavily Democratic demographic, jump out. Nearly three quarters of them disapprove of the way Mr. Biden is handling the conflict in Gaza. And among registered voters, they say they would vote for Mr. Trump by 49 percent to 43 percent — in July, those young voters backed Mr. Biden by 10 percentage points."
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
In our latest poll, conducted on the 24th and 25th of January 2024, we’ve observed a small reversal of fortunes in the political landscape, with the Labour Party regaining its lost ground while the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats have both experienced declines. The Reform Party has maintained its support, the Green Party has enjoyed a slight increase, and the SNP along with other parties remain steady.
Here are the latest figures, compared to the poll conducted on the 17th and 18th of January 2024:
Public confidence in the government’s ability to address the country’s priorities shows a net decrease, pointing to growing scepticism with a net minus 25%:
Confident: 34% Not Confident: 59%
I thought it might be interesting to look at past poll leads, given that Labour is regularly hitting the +20s at the moment.
The Tories under Cameron never managed a +20 or better lead during the final year of Brown's government. Labour didn't manage it at all between Iraq and Truss. The Tories did, under May and Johnson, though only for a month in the former case, which they then blew in the election campaign.
To be polling this strongly, this late in a parliament is exceptionally rare. It's roughly where Labour was in 2001 (though not 2000). Only Labour in 1996-7 was in a better position - and even then, not by much.
Obviously, a lot can change over 9-10 months but it's difficult to see anything which would obviously improve matters dramatically for the Tories, short of Labour shooting themselves in the foot, which is a risk Labour appears highly tuned to mitigating. Landslide incoming, probably.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
1% drop under Thatcher 33% drop under Major 10% drop under Blair/Brown 21% cut under Cameron 5% cut under May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak
So the big cuts in numbers were under Major and Cameron. Obviously military commitments varied over this period, particularly in Northern Ireland, Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan.
So you agree there were cuts under New Labour then?
Thanks.
It seems to me, now that our passion for invading large middle eastern countries has subsided for now, that the big picture is a different question.
Namely, (two questions): How does NATO as a whole stack up as against the Russians and their likely allies.
How does NATO as a whole minus USA stack up as against the Russians etc.
(Third question, once The Trump Dynasty has started its 8th term: How does NATO minus USA stack up as against Russia and the USA combined).
Sub question: How well does UK/France nuclear deterrent work; and is it large enough.
"The King visited his daughter-in-law Catherine ahead of his prostate treatment"
So Catherine:
a. Has changed his preferred pronouns b. Has a prostate
Years ago I was called for a cervical smear test. Turned out a wrong box had been checked on the computer, but I always wondered if I should have turned up anyway...
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
Ah, the return of Gorgeous George?
I thought about writing his name but decided against it. There’s been a few attempts at a “Muslim Party” in London over the years, thinking of “Respect” and the infamous Lutfur Rahman. It’s easy to imagine that, in the context of a clear Labour win, some of these might gain traction at the election.
All parties have their hands dipped in blood. But as the latest revelations in the last day show, the government appointed director was involved in the decision to sack Second Sight in 2014 - see the unredacted minutes of Project Sparrow which have now been revealed. So the government's hands are all over the cover up. As was always going to be shown to be the case.
Post Office management would never have done what it did had it not had government backing.
Hi Cyclefree. I fully agree.
Indeed, as we go down the Post Office timeline, the actions of the government become progressively worse.
Prior to 2009, the Post Office cover up was already in full swing but complaints of individual sub-postmasters were essentially isolated. In the face of absolute denials from the Post Office no doubt parrotted in briefings by civil servants, it would have been very hard to convince any minister to take seriously what were isolated complaints of a few subpostmasters out of tens of thousands.
Then in 2009 there was the first national report of in Computer Weekly citing seven case studies and Alan Bates campaign mushroomed with the sub-postmasters acting in a coordinated way, assisted by MPs. Yet there still wasn't any direct evidence of Horizon system system, just inferences drawn from a few cases. I have some sympathy with Davey's inaction at this point (2010-12) in the face of a concerted cover up by officials and the lack of direct evidence with which to challenge what he was being told. It takes an exceptional minister to take on and question vigorously every supposed truth he is being fed.
The damning political scandal in my view begins with the publication of the Second Sight report in 2013 which exposed as false all the Post Office assurances about the supposed infallibility of their system.
From 2013, I cannot believe that the basic facts of the Horizon system failure were not appreciated by ministers, nor that the Treasury and Cabinet were not aware of the potential for vast compensation claims. So from 2013 the government was part of the active cover up. We also now know that civil servants were part of the committee which from 2014 determined to sack Second Sight, so the government cover up wasn't passive.
The worst political aspect of all this is the acquiesance at the highest levels of government from 2013 in the face of known facts. Ministers still allowed the Post Office to actively challenge and obstruct investigation every inch of the way for most of the next decade. I think that it's all about money from this point. Basically, the government appreciated that there was a chance that the Post Office could see off claims for compensation, and passively stood back so that it could use every trick in the book to avoid paying out ever or at least kick the can an awful long way down the road.
It wasn't until May 2021 that we finally got a statutory public inquiry, with the necessary powers to get around the continued Post Office tactics of obstruction.
Even then the government still paid for time until ITV forced their hand, and it's still going to be a long time yet before much serious cash is shelled out in compensation.
Spot on, Phil, in every respect.
I would just add that the Clarke letter (July 2013) was a decisive moment too, at which the PO and allies had a chance to come clean. This slightly preceeds the Second Sight Report, which as you indicate was damning, although I expect drafts and informal briefings were warning the PO of what was coming.
"The King visited his daughter-in-law Catherine ahead of his prostate treatment"
So Catherine:
a. Has changed his preferred pronouns b. Has a prostate
Years ago I was called for a cervical smear test. Turned out a wrong box had been checked on the computer, but I always wondered if I should have turned up anyway...
It’s 2024, how dare they refuse the rights of men to get their cervical smear tests.
"The King visited his daughter-in-law Catherine ahead of his prostate treatment"
So Catherine:
a. Has changed his preferred pronouns b. Has a prostate
This regular difficulty of pronoun ambiguity in the English language needs to be sorted out by parliament. The Pronouns (Ambiguity) Act 2024 would be a fitting conclusion to 14 glorious Tory years of progress, success and outcomes exceeding our wildest hopes.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
Marginal numbers in 1940, though, of pilots. Another reason to focus on the defensive airfields, and push the air cover away from the Channel. Just been reading about the impact of a rselatively few Stukas on the naval war in the Mediterranean - even with armour on the flight decks of the RN carriers.
Am I right in thinking that at one point in the Battle of Britain the entire defending air force was committed? Had it gone badly there were no reserves, as I understand it.
Not really. That applies more to the Battle of France in 1940 . 'Ou est le mass de manouvre?" "There is none".
The British had planes and pilots coming all the time, plus shot down pilots that survived could be back flying that day (if fit enough). There was also coastal command and bomber command as sources of other planes and pilots if needed.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
Marginal numbers in 1940, though, of pilots. Another reason to focus on the defensive airfields, and push the air cover away from the Channel. Just been reading about the impact of a rselatively few Stukas on the naval war in the Mediterranean - even with armour on the flight decks of the RN carriers.
Am I right in thinking that at one point in the Battle of Britain the entire defending air force was committed? Had it gone badly there were no reserves, as I understand it.
My father, who served in the RAF at the time, often spoke of the times in 1940-41 in which, as it all raged, it wasn't really possible to see a good outcome to the war.
"The King visited his daughter-in-law Catherine ahead of his prostate treatment"
So Catherine:
a. Has changed his preferred pronouns b. Has a prostate
Years ago I was called for a cervical smear test. Turned out a wrong box had been checked on the computer, but I always wondered if I should have turned up anyway...
It’s 2024, how dare they refuse the rights of men to get their cervical smear tests.
In their defence, I turned it down. I was worried that someone might try to go through with it...
1% drop under Thatcher 33% drop under Major 10% drop under Blair/Brown 21% cut under Cameron 5% cut under May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak
So the big cuts in numbers were under Major and Cameron. Obviously military commitments varied over this period, particularly in Northern Ireland, Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan.
So you agree there were cuts under New Labour then?
Thanks.
It seems to me, now that our passion for invading large middle eastern countries has subsided for now, that the big picture is a different question.
Namely, (two questions): How does NATO as a whole stack up as against the Russians and their likely allies.
How does NATO as a whole minus USA stack up as against the Russians etc.
(Third question, once The Trump Dynasty has started its 8th term: How does NATO minus USA stack up as against Russia and the USA combined).
Sub question: How well does UK/France nuclear deterrent work; and is it large enough.
Sounds like we are hoping the AI take over before some of those questions are tested......
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
Ah, the return of Gorgeous George?
I thought about writing his name but decided against it. There’s been a few attempts at a “Muslim Party” in London over the years, thinking of “Respect” and the infamous Lutfur Rahman. It’s easy to imagine that, in the context of a clear Labour win, some of these might gain traction at the election.
Question is where he would stand in the face of a big national swing to Labour. All the Labour MPs in constituencies with big Muslim populations (wisely) abstained from opposing the recent SNP amendment on IG. There’s no one who comes to my mind whom he could 1) depict as an Israeli stooge, and 2) have a chance of ousting.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
Ah, the return of Gorgeous George?
I thought about writing his name but decided against it. There’s been a few attempts at a “Muslim Party” in London over the years, thinking of “Respect” and the infamous Lutfur Rahman. It’s easy to imagine that, in the context of a clear Labour win, some of these might gain traction at the election.
Question is where he would stand in the face of a big national swing to Labour. All the Labour MPs in constituencies with big Muslim populations (wisely) abstained from opposing the recent SNP amendment on IG. There’s no one who comes to my mind whom he could 1) depict as an Israeli stooge, and 2) have a chance of ousting.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
.
Or the Italians and Austrians stuck up in icy mountains where you could barely dig a trench, in conditions and survival rates objectively worse than the Western Front.
Italy was the first European country to fall to fascism, and it grew from its WW1 experience.
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
Ah, the return of Gorgeous George?
I thought about writing his name but decided against it. There’s been a few attempts at a “Muslim Party” in London over the years, thinking of “Respect” and the infamous Lutfur Rahman. It’s easy to imagine that, in the context of a clear Labour win, some of these might gain traction at the election.
Question is where he would stand in the face of a big national swing to Labour. All the Labour MPs in constituencies with big Muslim populations (wisely) abstained from opposing the recent SNP amendment on IG. There’s no one who comes to my mind whom he could 1) depict as an Israeli stooge, and 2) have a chance of ousting.
Gorgeous could attempt a decapitation of Starmer.
He could, but I doubt he would. He really hates losing, and he’d only stand if there was a realistic possibility of winning.
GB News @GBNEWS ‘We are witnessing the death of a political party!'
Pollster and Professor of Politics as the University of Kent, @GoodwinMJ, reacts to the GB News people's poll showing 'widespread disillusionment with potential successors to Sunak.'
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Do they actually regard Trump as the lesser of two evils - I mean Trump says all kinds of shit, but he's generally been very pro-Israeli? Or are they just not going to vote for Biden?
It's both. They refuse to vote for Biden, and they are dimissive of people saying, "But that means Trump will win!"
Biden thinks that he has the Arab American vote secured because Trump imposed the Muslim Ban.
In Biden's view, preventing Muslims from coming to America is worse than facilitating the slaughter of +24,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Not a single Arab American I have spoken to agrees
I think Biden will definitely lose some Arab American votes, but I don't think those voters are going to actually vote Republican, I think they'll mostly stay at home.
This will, no doubt, have an impact on his vote share, and it could lose him Michigan. But it is worth noting that there simply aren't that many Arab Americans, and not every one of them is going to stay home.
(It is also worth noting that here in LA there were Mosques - admittedly pretty liberal ones - that came out in support of Israel at the beginning of the conflict. Although, I suspect that support may be wavering somewhat now.)
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
Ah, the return of Gorgeous George?
I thought about writing his name but decided against it. There’s been a few attempts at a “Muslim Party” in London over the years, thinking of “Respect” and the infamous Lutfur Rahman. It’s easy to imagine that, in the context of a clear Labour win, some of these might gain traction at the election.
Question is where he would stand in the face of a big national swing to Labour. All the Labour MPs in constituencies with big Muslim populations (wisely) abstained from opposing the recent SNP amendment on IG. There’s no one who comes to my mind whom he could 1) depict as an Israeli stooge, and 2) have a chance of ousting.
My thinking was that, if it’s going to be a landslide anyway, then a vote for the Palestine Party might see a couple of MPs who can keep the new Lab government in check on this issue.
Back on topic, no wonder the Tories tried to keep the elderly alive during Covid, at the expense of the prosperity and mental health of younger people. Imagine the effect on Tory votes if oldies had been allowed to die to protect the rest of the population, and there were 50% fewer over 65s. Or would under 65s have been more grateful and more inclined to vote Tory?
Absolutely spot on. We should have allowed the elderly to shield whilst young people got on with life. All that’s happened is the entitled older generation have got everything handed to them and instead of being reflective they just shout at everyone and call them thick, woke and stupid. Enough.
Quite a few people on this site give every impression of favouring euthanaising anyone aged over 55. I guess it's irritating to wait for an inheritance.
And to an audience which is clearly a lot older than the mean of the population.
If there are 4 things I would assume about PB it is that:
a) The mean of PB is older than the population as a whole b) The mean of PB is richer than the population as a whole c) The mean is more intelligent than the population as a whole d) 100% are interested in politics.
Is that accumulator bet available anywhere?
I wouldn't take it. KJH has worded it very carefully. 'population as a whole' includes children, so that's a bias in favour of b and c. And (with possibly a few exceptions) we don't get dements and the insane posting here, so that's b and c also biased.
That is very kind of you @Carnyx , but I am willing to stick my neck out and exclude children from the mean of the population and still go with my statements.
Just a bit worried that @rcs1000 was after an accumulator though. Have the mods got more info on all of us than we think they have?
Loved your 'possibly with a few exceptions we don't get dements and the insane'. Made me smile. Anyone in particular in mind?
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Do they actually regard Trump as the lesser of two evils - I mean Trump says all kinds of shit, but he's generally been very pro-Israeli? Or are they just not going to vote for Biden?
It's both. They refuse to vote for Biden, and they are dimissive of people saying, "But that means Trump will win!"
Biden thinks that he has the Arab American vote secured because Trump imposed the Muslim Ban.
In Biden's view, preventing Muslims from coming to America is worse than facilitating the slaughter of +24,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Not a single Arab American I have spoken to agrees
I think Biden will definitely lose some Arab American votes, but I don't think those voters are going to actually vote Republican, I think they'll mostly stay at home.
This will, no doubt, have an impact on his vote share, and it could lose him Michigan. But it is worth noting that there simply aren't that many Arab Americans, and not every one of them is going to stay home.
(It is also worth noting that here in LA there were Mosques - admittedly pretty liberal ones - that came out in support of Israel at the beginning of the conflict. Although, I suspect that support may be wavering somewhat now.)
On the other side, “Gays for Palestine” goes down as one of the more memorable political slogans of 2023.
The obvious ignorance between gay life in Israel and Palestine being totally lost on them.
GB News @GBNEWS ‘We are witnessing the death of a political party!'
Pollster and Professor of Politics as the University of Kent, @GoodwinMJ, reacts to the GB News people's poll showing 'widespread disillusionment with potential successors to Sunak.'
===
No, we are not.
If they really are massacred (say reduced to fewer seats than the LDs) it’d be interesting to see whether they could survive. It might be enough to trigger a long term realignment with a hard right anti-immigrant party facing a moderate Labour Party, who could probably accommodate some elements of the more moderate Conservative wing, and which might in turn see the Corbynites peel off to form their own party of the left.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
Marginal numbers in 1940, though, of pilots. Another reason to focus on the defensive airfields, and push the air cover away from the Channel. Just been reading about the impact of a rselatively few Stukas on the naval war in the Mediterranean - even with armour on the flight decks of the RN carriers.
Am I right in thinking that at one point in the Battle of Britain the entire defending air force was committed? Had it gone badly there were no reserves, as I understand it.
Not really. That applies more to the Battle of France in 1940 . 'Ou est le mass de manouvre?" "There is none".
The British had planes and pilots coming all the time, plus shot down pilots that survived could be back flying that day (if fit enough). There was also coastal command and bomber command as sources of other planes and pilots if needed.
There was however that incident when Churchill rocked up to a BoB command post and was told there were no reserves - slightly misleading in the context, ity should be said. But it wouldn't have taken much to run them down. The Poles and a few Czechoslovakians did make a difference. And bomber and Coastal pilots were neither trained on fighters nor spare in the context of the time.
O/T but the third TV drama serial, companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air, is released today from Apple, with the first episode free. One of the two writers worked on the earlier volumes and one of the directors is retained from the Pacific, and Spielberg and Hanks are executive directors.
Early reviews sound very positive. Any idea if it will eventually reach other platforms? Apple is one of the ones I dont subscribe too...
Eventually, I expect so, and DVD. The first episode you can watch free to see if you want more; I think there's also a seven day free trial offer, so you can binge the whole thing without paying
I love BoB, but have never finished the pacific. Don't quite know why.
Thee action stuff was good in The Pacific, the human interest stuff less so, cringey and/or boring.
James Holland and Al Murray are good on their Pod (We have ways of making you talk). One of their things is to change the narrative of the second world war. For many of us its very much:
Dunkirk - Battle of Britain - D-Day - Arnhem - VE day.
There is a lot of truth in that - a lot of fighting went on in 1945 in Western Europe, but most people know little about it. I suspect the pacific is a bit like that for many Brits, as in:
Pearl Harbour - (Midway, maybe?) - Hiroshima/Nagasaki- VJ day.
I said this before, but a while back I watched a Youtube channel covering the entirety of World War One. I reckon the majority of Brits just think of the big western front battles; perhaps Gallipoli, or even Lawrence of Arabia. In reality the war was much more widespread and complex than that. How many of us in the UK think about the German/Russia side of the war, which was perhaps more significant given the Russian revolution?
I like history; but my knowledge is incredibly patchy on so many areas.
Totally. One of the things I find very interesting is the different attitudes to Germany in 1914-18 compared to the Nazi flavour. And yet they were not that different. Plenty of atrocities, including in occupied parts of the West. And their territorial demands at Brest Litovsk would not be out of place for a Nazi settlement (had sense prevailed at the end of 1941 and they tried for peace.) People like to characterise WW1 as something that shouldn't have been fought, but this is a false interpretation, brought about by too much sodding poetry of by mostly posho public school officers...
If you think of the three big world wars which has Europe at their centre - Napoleonic War, WWI and WWII - the big difference with WWI is that it is the one where the main action involved the British Army fighting for the duration at the centre of the action. Consequently British losses, of men and money, were much greater.
If the British Army had been defeated in France in 1914, then even had Britain continued the war until achieving victory over Germany, the cost incurred would likely have been less.
Wars on land are astonishingly destructive, and that naturally makes people wonder if the cost were worthwhile.
Hence the Steel not Flesh attitude of the second world war leaders. People like to deride Bomber Harris, but he believed he could defeat Germany from the air, with troops on the ground only need to occupy a defeated nation. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men trying to do this (not all against German cities). Some historians think this was wasted effort and that the vast resources would have been better spent elsewhere (such as Max Hastings) but I think the devastation of German cities, infrastructure and then the complete aerial dominance over the D-Day beached and subsequent campaign show that it was worth it.
Goering thought the same about bombing this country into submission.
A focus on the radar stations, defence airfields and the naval bases and ships should have been maintained. That'd have been much more difficult for the UK, as well as destroying much of the primary defence against invasion (the RN).
Most of the ships were kept out of range of the Lufwaffe. There was no need to have the Home Fleet in the channel - we would have known the Germans were coming with enough time to come down from Scapa Flow or where ever.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
Marginal numbers in 1940, though, of pilots. Another reason to focus on the defensive airfields, and push the air cover away from the Channel. Just been reading about the impact of a rselatively few Stukas on the naval war in the Mediterranean - even with armour on the flight decks of the RN carriers.
Am I right in thinking that at one point in the Battle of Britain the entire defending air force was committed? Had it gone badly there were no reserves, as I understand it.
Not exactly.
You're thinking of the time when Churchill was in the Uxbridge bunker of 11 Group (the fighter group covering South-East England and London and the one overwhelmingly taking the brunt of the Battle), and turned to ask about reserves and was told there were none; all fighters were now committed.
But that was all fighters in 11 Group.
12 Group covered Norfolk and further north (and were supposed to augment them, but played around with their "Big Wing" philosophy where they spent valuable time amassing an overwhelming force to then belatedly chase home the bombers on their way back), and 10 Group covered the area west of Portsmouth, whilst Group 13 covered North England and Scotland.
But if 11 Group were to be smashed too badly, there would be a honking hole in the defences unless or untill they could get squadrons down from the other Groups.
Back on topic, no wonder the Tories tried to keep the elderly alive during Covid, at the expense of the prosperity and mental health of younger people. Imagine the effect on Tory votes if oldies had been allowed to die to protect the rest of the population, and there were 50% fewer over 65s. Or would under 65s have been more grateful and more inclined to vote Tory?
Absolutely spot on. We should have allowed the elderly to shield whilst young people got on with life. All that’s happened is the entitled older generation have got everything handed to them and instead of being reflective they just shout at everyone and call them thick, woke and stupid. Enough.
Quite a few people on this site give every impression of favouring euthanaising anyone aged over 55. I guess it's irritating to wait for an inheritance.
And to an audience which is clearly a lot older than the mean of the population.
If there are 4 things I would assume about PB it is that:
a) The mean of PB is older than the population as a whole b) The mean of PB is richer than the population as a whole c) The mean is more intelligent than the population as a whole d) 100% are interested in politics.
Is that accumulator bet available anywhere?
I wouldn't take it. KJH has worded it very carefully. 'population as a whole' includes children, so that's a bias in favour of b and c. And (with possibly a few exceptions) we don't get dements and the insane posting here, so that's b and c also biased.
That is very kind of you @Carnyx , but I am willing to stick my neck out and exclude children from the mean of the population and still go with my statements.
Just a bit worried that @rcs1000 was after an accumulator though. Have the mods got more info on all of us than we think they have?
Loved your 'possibly with a few exceptions we don't get dements and the insane'. Made me smile. Anyone in particular in mind?
On reflection, there are forms of insanity which don't affect operational intelligence (well, some kinds of it) so perhaps that inclusion of 'insanity' ought to be modified!
Even Fox News reports that the economy is in a sweet spot with good growth but not so much as to reignite inflation.
I remain of the view that these economic performance figures are going to drive Biden's popularity northwards during the coming months. If we end up with a Biden Trump rematch (and I think we will) it will not be as close as it was in 2020.
My view too. Economy plus incumbency plus uncommitted minds focusing properly on Trump. He loses again and it's not that close.
I've long thought that Biden will easily beat Trump. They could have indicted Trump eons ago for the January 6th nonsense. FFS he was telling the notrights beforehand to fight like hell on Twitter. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it suits the Democrats down to the ground to have the Court stuff running in election year and keeping January 6th omnipresent
Having Trump as the candidate helps a million other Democrats too down ticket fighting their own battles.
Matchup polls at this time are different from previous years because of Trump's name recognition. That is why he is riding high.
The opinion polls think different.
Now, with that said, the Democrats outperformed their polling markedly in the midterms, and I expect a little bit of swingback.
But anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Biden is engaging in wishcasting.
It should be fascinating, although potentially horrific too. Will Kennedy have an influence, if so who will it hurt the most? Impact of all the court cases? Will the "sane" Republicans finally make a last stand? Turnout differentials from abortion and migration in states with different demographics.
My guess is that Kennedy will have very little impact on the election.
He doesnt need a lot of votes to have a big impact.
He could get 10% equally from Trump and Biden and have little impact. If he got 4% but 3% was from Biden and 1% from Trump it could be pivotal.
And as a Trumpite Democrat with a Democratic heritage name whilst he is now harming Biden in the polling who knows what that will be if he gets more airtime at a time Trump is facing court case after court case. It could be he gets more from Trump than Biden by the time of the election.
Maybe, but I think there is polling showing that more people saying they will vote 'Biden' in Biden vs Trump h2h polling are unhappy with their candidate than those saying they will vote 'Trump', so perhaps a bigger potential to lose Biden voters to other candidates? Depends how convinced they are that it is essential to defeat Trump maybe.
There's an increasingly vocal element of the left that wants Biden to lose purely on foreign policy and regards Trump as the lesser of two evils.
The Israel - Hamas conflict is definitely going to depress Biden's vote.
Would you say that about Biden’s vote over there, but not about Labours vote over here? If you look at the UK poll wiki, Labour has a smile that looks a bit like the Tui logo, the autumn drop before the recovery coincided with the Labour resignations early in the conflict.
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Then it is a positive for Labour too, not just Biden, if the polls we are currently looking at can be even better for them, once the Gaza war vote depression unwinds throughout this year. The UK vote is on May 2nd, so not much time now for that post conflict unwind for Labour, but plenty of time for post conflict voter depression to unwind Biden’s side of the pond
I have a suspicion that there’s going to be a “Palestine Party” stand in many seats in the UK general election, and might actually win one or two.
Ah, the return of Gorgeous George?
I thought about writing his name but decided against it. There’s been a few attempts at a “Muslim Party” in London over the years, thinking of “Respect” and the infamous Lutfur Rahman. It’s easy to imagine that, in the context of a clear Labour win, some of these might gain traction at the election.
Question is where he would stand in the face of a big national swing to Labour. All the Labour MPs in constituencies with big Muslim populations (wisely) abstained from opposing the recent SNP amendment on IG. There’s no one who comes to my mind whom he could 1) depict as an Israeli stooge, and 2) have a chance of ousting.
My thinking was that, if it’s going to be a landslide anyway, then a vote for the Palestine Party might see a couple of MPs who can keep the new Lab government in check on this issue.
You mean stand as Labour, but renounce the whip shortly after and sit as independents? That I suppose would be possible.
In our latest poll, conducted on the 24th and 25th of January 2024, we’ve observed a small reversal of fortunes in the political landscape, with the Labour Party regaining its lost ground while the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats have both experienced declines. The Reform Party has maintained its support, the Green Party has enjoyed a slight increase, and the SNP along with other parties remain steady.
Here are the latest figures, compared to the poll conducted on the 17th and 18th of January 2024:
Public confidence in the government’s ability to address the country’s priorities shows a net decrease, pointing to growing scepticism with a net minus 25%:
Confident: 34% Not Confident: 59%
I thought it might be interesting to look at past poll leads, given that Labour is regularly hitting the +20s at the moment.
The Tories under Cameron never managed a +20 or better lead during the final year of Brown's government. Labour didn't manage it at all between Iraq and Truss. The Tories did, under May and Johnson, though only for a month in the former case, which they then blew in the election campaign.
To be polling this strongly, this late in a parliament is exceptionally rare. It's roughly where Labour was in 2001 (though not 2000). Only Labour in 1996-7 was in a better position - and even then, not by much.
Obviously, a lot can change over 9-10 months but it's difficult to see anything which would obviously improve matters dramatically for the Tories, short of Labour shooting themselves in the foot, which is a risk Labour appears highly tuned to mitigating. Landslide incoming, probably.
As of now, Labour's lead might even be a bit higher than the same point before 1997;
(And the 1997 averages are a bit flattered by the inclusion of some really Labour leaning polls. Gallup still had L57ishC25ish in autumn 1996. ICM, which is probably the most comparable with modern methods was around L47C32.)
There are plenty of reasons to thing that the polling gap shouldn't be this big or stable, but still it doesn't move.
Comments
Many people had been sucked in by fear of what bombing could do - the great alarm of the 20's and 30's. Douhet's theories and the idea that the bomber would always get through.
Sir Geoff Mulgan, adviser to multiple PMs, explains how the process was flawed – and why the winner of the next election needs to ‘a reset'"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/26/sir-geoff-mulgan-horizon-post-office-tony-blair-fujitsu/
(1) People are -mostly- voting against things in this election. You are either voting against Trump or against Biden. That makes it very hard for a third party to break through.
(2) He doesn't have an obvious niche that is unfulfilled by existing parties.
ETA evacuation was also on/off. Many evacuated children had returned to London in time for the Blitz.
But German consistently underestimated how many pilots and planes we had (as they did later with Soviet Tank and manpower).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09CMIzSmzU0
The US is a close ally for now, although possibly not if Trump is elected.
We agree that there’s a big appetite for none-of-the-above-octogenarians, but I think RFK might have the means to pull off a Ross Perot. He’ll pick up both Dem and Rep big donors, if as expected we get Trump and Biden for the main parties.
Other factors are the known unknowns, mostly involving the health of two very old men. I’m stil not 100% convinced that something unprecedented doesn’t happen at the Dem convention - if I had a Betfair account, I’d put a pint or two on Newsom being the nominee.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/joe-biden/
Biden net favorability -15.1%
Michael Keegan, former CEO and chairman of Fujitsu (and husband to Gillian Keegan, education secretary) has been replaced as the Government's Crown Representative to BAE Systems. The part-time role, responsible for relationships with key govt suppliers, had a £500-a-day fee.
Perhaps now they can look at why a director of the CPS is also a director of the Post Office.
The Tory grift on the PO and their ability to shift blame has been breathtaking and I think quite successful.
Sounds like normal business of government to me!
I suspect that his campaign will be very new-media - like Vivek Ramaswarmy, he’s appeared on dozens of podcasts in the past year and will probably do the same again. Joe Rogan gets many times the audience of any TV channel these days.
Also interesting media news, is that Jon Stewart will be doing a weekly Daily Show reboot in the run up to the election. Assuming it ends up on Youtube and doesn’t stay on a cable channel that no-one watches any more, that could be significant. The US needs more Jon Stewarts and Bill Mahers, and fewer of the partisan hacks on cable news. It’s somewhat ironic that the two most trusted names in news are comedians rather than journalists, shows how far good journalism has fallen.
Even if the US and UK do not fully endorse Beijing's position on Taiwan they technically accept the One China policy
That doesn’t mean that he won’t hand pick a successor, but DJT definitely won’t be president on 21st Jan 2029 if he was also president two days before.
“Joe Biden has single-handedly alienated almost every Arab-American and Muslim American voter in Michigan,” said state Rep. Alabas Farhat, a Democrat whose district includes Dearborn, which is home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American communities in the country.
https://x.com/tparsi/status/1748902995226407388
Biden thinks that he has the Arab American vote secured because Trump imposed the Muslim Ban.
In Biden's view, preventing Muslims from coming to America is worse than facilitating the slaughter of +24,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Not a single Arab American I have spoken to agrees
Post Brexit the safest Conservative seats are in areas like Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Essex
I’m agreeing with you. Unless the conflict, and the vote depression, unwinds during the year. It’s a positive for Biden if we already see something in current polling that could unwind.
Where I sort of agree is that the main people who have been hammered are the top half of the middle class - frozen higher rate tax threshold, all the prattling about at around £100k etc.
Also some sub contractors (the ever tightening IR35 net), and small businesses owners (they've put up tax rates on dividends).
https://x.com/manpalestine/status/1750639533132017723
We’ll see the same phenomenon in the UK election, with 1997 as the template. From memory Blair got 2m votes more than Kinnock, but Major lost 4m between ‘92 and ‘97, the low turnout turning a good win into a landslide for Blair.
The Tories under Cameron never managed a +20 or better lead during the final year of Brown's government. Labour didn't manage it at all between Iraq and Truss. The Tories did, under May and Johnson, though only for a month in the former case, which they then blew in the election campaign.
To be polling this strongly, this late in a parliament is exceptionally rare. It's roughly where Labour was in 2001 (though not 2000). Only Labour in 1996-7 was in a better position - and even then, not by much.
Obviously, a lot can change over 9-10 months but it's difficult to see anything which would obviously improve matters dramatically for the Tories, short of Labour shooting themselves in the foot, which is a risk Labour appears highly tuned to mitigating. Landslide incoming, probably.
In the key swing states Biden still leads in most Pennsylvania polls and the latest Michigan poll.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/pennsylvania/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/michigan/
Remember even if Trump wins back Georgia and Arizona Biden can still win the EC narrowly if he holds the southern and western states Hillary won in 2016 and the northern states even Kerry won in 2004.
If it is Biden v Trump again it could be the year the Democrats win the EC but lose the popular vote and the GOP win the popular vote but lose the EC
"The King visited his daughter-in-law Catherine ahead of his prostate treatment"
So Catherine:
a. Has changed his preferred pronouns
b. Has a prostate
Indeed, as we go down the Post Office timeline, the actions of the government become progressively worse.
Prior to 2009, the Post Office cover up was already in full swing but complaints of individual sub-postmasters were essentially isolated. In the face of absolute denials from the Post Office no doubt parrotted in briefings by civil servants, it would have been very hard to convince any minister to take seriously what were isolated complaints of a few subpostmasters out of tens of thousands.
Then in 2009 there was the first national report of in Computer Weekly citing seven case studies and Alan Bates campaign mushroomed with the sub-postmasters acting in a coordinated way, assisted by MPs. Yet there still wasn't any direct evidence of Horizon system system, just inferences drawn from a few cases. I have some sympathy with Davey's inaction at this point (2010-12) in the face of a concerted cover up by officials and the lack of direct evidence with which to challenge what he was being told. It takes an exceptional minister to take on and question vigorously every supposed truth he is being fed.
The damning political scandal in my view begins with the publication of the Second Sight report in 2013 which exposed as false all the Post Office assurances about the supposed infallibility of their system.
From 2013, I cannot believe that the basic facts of the Horizon system failure were not appreciated by ministers, nor that the Treasury and Cabinet were not aware of the potential for vast compensation claims. So from 2013 the government was part of the active cover up. We also now know that civil servants were part of the committee which from 2014 determined to sack Second Sight, so the government cover up wasn't passive.
The worst political aspect of all this is the acquiesance at the highest levels of government from 2013 in the face of known facts. Ministers still allowed the Post Office to actively challenge and obstruct investigation every inch of the way for most of the next decade. I think that it's all about money from this point. Basically, the government appreciated that there was a chance that the Post Office could see off claims for compensation, and passively stood back so that it could use every trick in the book to avoid paying out ever or at least kick the can an awful long way down the road.
It wasn't until May 2021 that we finally got a statutory public inquiry, with the necessary powers to get around the continued Post Office tactics of obstruction.
Even then the government still paid for time until ITV forced their hand, and it's still going to be a long time yet before much serious cash is shelled out in compensation.
The most important point is they didn't call for an immediate ceasefire - none of the people protesting in the streets will care much about any of the provisions they did announce.
“Here are the provisional measures the court has made:
1. Israel must take all measures to prevent any acts that could be considered genocidal - killing members of a group, causing bodily harm, inflicting conditions designed to bring about the destruction of a group, preventing births
2. Israel must ensure its military does not commit any genocidal acts
3. Israel must prevent and punish any public comments that could be considered incitement to commit genocide in Gaza
4. Israel must take measures to ensure humanitarian access
5. Israel must prevent any destruction of evidence that could be used in a genocide case
6. Israel must submit a report to the court within one month of this order being given
The court also expressed grave concern about the fate of hostages being held by Hamas and called for their immediate release.”
Israel will say it is doing 1, 2 and 4. It will be very difficult for the Netanyahu administration to do 3 and even 6 might be difficult to do without losing face. 5 is clearly not going to happen.
The strongest vote for rightwing and conservative parties now tends to come from the skilled white working class and from pensioners.
Higher income graduates tend to be swing voters and will also often vote for liberal parties. Lower income graduates, those on welfare and the young tend to vote for leftwing parties
In my part of the Cotswolds, support for Remain was in the mid-70s to mid-80s in 2016. But it was close to zero among most owners of £5mn+ estates - most of whom still believe they were right to support Brexit, that it's been awful because our politicians are useless, and that any way of getting Brexit to "work" (as they see it) requires more "public interest philanthropy" from other rich gits, because without it our political representation will get even pinker than it's gone over the past decade. And while this gang have no interest living anywhere else in the UK, those helicopters are a handy way of commuting to boltholes in the Med, or to airports whence they can get to the Caribbean quickly.
Meanwhile, they're upping their investment in posh local restaurants...
Racist Biden thinks Arab-Americans will vote for him despite his genocide in Gaza bc Trump is more racist than he is. He’s gonna learn the hard way that genocide is the red line.
And for the white liberals who are already blaming us, if Biden loses it’s his fault, not the fault of Arabs who refuse to vote for a man that doesn’t see them as human.
https://x.com/shibleytelhami/status/1737092213807444098
"Voters between 18 and 29 years old, traditionally a heavily Democratic demographic, jump out. Nearly three quarters of them disapprove of the way Mr. Biden is handling the conflict in Gaza. And among registered voters, they say they would vote for Mr. Trump by 49 percent to 43 percent — in July, those young voters backed Mr. Biden by 10 percentage points."
Namely, (two questions): How does NATO as a whole stack up as against the Russians and their likely allies.
How does NATO as a whole minus USA stack up as against the Russians etc.
(Third question, once The Trump Dynasty has started its 8th term: How does NATO minus USA stack up as against Russia and the USA combined).
Sub question: How well does UK/France nuclear deterrent work; and is it large enough.
I would just add that the Clarke letter (July 2013) was a decisive moment too, at which the PO and allies had a chance to come clean. This slightly preceeds the Second Sight Report, which as you indicate was damning, although I expect drafts and informal briefings were warning the PO of what was coming.
The British had planes and pilots coming all the time, plus shot down pilots that survived could be back flying that day (if fit enough). There was also coastal command and bomber command as sources of other planes and pilots if needed.
Italy was the first European country to fall to fascism, and it grew from its WW1 experience.
GB News
@GBNEWS
‘We are witnessing the death of a political party!'
Pollster and Professor of Politics as the University of Kent,
@GoodwinMJ, reacts to the GB News people's poll showing 'widespread disillusionment with potential successors to Sunak.'
===
No, we are not.
This will, no doubt, have an impact on his vote share, and it could lose him Michigan. But it is worth noting that there simply aren't that many Arab Americans, and not every one of them is going to stay home.
(It is also worth noting that here in LA there were Mosques - admittedly pretty liberal ones - that came out in support of Israel at the beginning of the conflict. Although, I suspect that support may be wavering somewhat now.)
Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester airports set for extensions past June deadline"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/100ml-liquid-rule-airports-travel-limit-8kqtrvcb9
Just a bit worried that @rcs1000 was after an accumulator though. Have the mods got more info on all of us than we think they have?
Loved your 'possibly with a few exceptions we don't get dements and the insane'. Made me smile. Anyone in particular in mind?
The obvious ignorance between gay life in Israel and Palestine being totally lost on them.
You're thinking of the time when Churchill was in the Uxbridge bunker of 11 Group (the fighter group covering South-East England and London and the one overwhelmingly taking the brunt of the Battle), and turned to ask about reserves and was told there were none; all fighters were now committed.
But that was all fighters in 11 Group.
12 Group covered Norfolk and further north (and were supposed to augment them, but played around with their "Big Wing" philosophy where they spent valuable time amassing an overwhelming force to then belatedly chase home the bombers on their way back), and 10 Group covered the area west of Portsmouth, whilst Group 13 covered North England and Scotland.
But if 11 Group were to be smashed too badly, there would be a honking hole in the defences unless or untill they could get squadrons down from the other Groups.
https://twitter.com/OwenWntr/status/1748403385160654890
(And the 1997 averages are a bit flattered by the inclusion of some really Labour leaning polls. Gallup still had L57ishC25ish in autumn 1996. ICM, which is probably the most comparable with modern methods was around L47C32.)
There are plenty of reasons to thing that the polling gap shouldn't be this big or stable, but still it doesn't move.