I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
Churchill and Wilson stayed party leaders after their election defeats. Nowadays that’s not so common. Heath and Callaghan did, briefly, but Major and Brown both resigned immediately. Corbyn stayed in post after losing once, but Milliband didn’t.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
Under the ball because they had brought down the maul. Just look at the momentum. Anyway I thought it was a decent effort by Wales since the forwards plainly weren't able to get over the gain line. And not an obvious try given how England pass the ball.
The Orange Order has accused a panel of Scotland’s most senior judges of “not taking crimes against the Protestant community seriously” after it ruled that the term “hun” was not a sectarian slur.
The Loyal Orange institution, known for organising contentious marches in central Scotland and across Northern Ireland, said that the proportion of hate crimes that was committed against Protestants was 16 per cent — the same proportion as against Muslims — and they demanded government talks to quell the attacks.
Police Scotland statistics show that in 47 per cent of religion-aggravated hate crimes, the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Catholic community.
David Walters, executive officer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, said that the mantra “one Scotland, many cultures” did not resonate “if you are Protestant to many of our members”.
In a ruling that clarified what was and was not offensive language, appeal judges said the expression “hun” did not contain a religious aspect or indicate malice or ill will towards Protestants.
We can shout 'hun' at Tom Harrison very loudly every time we see him?
And it's not sectarian or xenophobic? Just a reference to the Hun-dred nonsense he invented?
The Huns have been misunderstood. Attila the Hun crossed the English channel by rowing boat, accompanied by teachers of meditation and yoga. He famously founded the Women's Institute branch at Attlebridge, which was named after him, and created the Boys Grammar School in Attleborough, a town also named in his honour. Famed for his reconciliation discussion groups between Britons, Scots, Saxons and Picts, he always arrived at meetings laden with delicious scones and cakes.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
Under the ball because they had brought down the maul. Just look at the momentum. Anyway I thought it was a decent effort by Wales since the forwards plainly weren't able to get over the gain line. And not an obvious try given how England pass the ball.
The Orange Order has accused a panel of Scotland’s most senior judges of “not taking crimes against the Protestant community seriously” after it ruled that the term “hun” was not a sectarian slur.
The Loyal Orange institution, known for organising contentious marches in central Scotland and across Northern Ireland, said that the proportion of hate crimes that was committed against Protestants was 16 per cent — the same proportion as against Muslims — and they demanded government talks to quell the attacks.
Police Scotland statistics show that in 47 per cent of religion-aggravated hate crimes, the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Catholic community.
David Walters, executive officer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, said that the mantra “one Scotland, many cultures” did not resonate “if you are Protestant to many of our members”.
In a ruling that clarified what was and was not offensive language, appeal judges said the expression “hun” did not contain a religious aspect or indicate malice or ill will towards Protestants.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
England are a work in progress. The World Cup was a short term patch up for that tournament. I think if by the end of next six nations we are a bit rubbish then fair play with the criticism but plenty of young players and new coaching team need time to work.
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
England are a work in progress. The World Cup was a short term patch up for that tournament. I think if by the end of next six nations we are a bit rubbish then fair play with the criticism but plenty of young players and new coaching team need time to work.
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
NOT CARE ABOUT RUGBY???
I love rugger. But I shall take your advice and suspend judgement until the end of the 6N
I would be happier with Marcus Smith back in the team, and fucksake find a way to get Arundell qualified
I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
You missed Thatcher.
Heath and Thatcher are the only Leaders of the Opposition who had never been PM before who led their party back to power and won a general election after less than 10 years in Opposition in the last 100 years. Starmer if he wins still won't beat that given Labour lost power 14 years ago
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
England are a work in progress. The World Cup was a short term patch up for that tournament. I think if by the end of next six nations we are a bit rubbish then fair play with the criticism but plenty of young players and new coaching team need time to work.
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
I suspect your first paragraph also applies to Wales.
My preference would be for the right of the party to coalesce around Jake Berry, get him through to the members run off, and the rest is history. Not just because my £3 bet on him would turn into £500.
However, far from showing recent signs of being up for the fight, he seems to have gained a second belly and only hit the news recently for being handbagged about the post office scandal by Ian Hislop on TV. He needs to get on the Robert Jenrick diet and get himself out there.
Nadine Dorries says that the powers that be will get Sunk out before the GE. I don't see this as entirely implausible. That means no Boris.
Nadine Dorries talks more shit than Marjorie Taylor Greene.
A few weeks ago she was saying the plan was for Cameron to replace Sunak after the election.
Believing Nadine Dorries is a rookie error.
Yes, I do see that. But her theory that influential Tories are shitting themselves because Sunak is rubbish, and would therefore prefer to roll the dice with Kemi, is not without basic logic.
Where it falls down though is asking why any Tory with serious long-term leadership ambitions - as opposed to someone at the end of a career and happy to take one for the team and have been PM - would want the job.
You're liable to be on the end of shellacking you'll partly get the blame for, and despised by those who wanted to keep Sunak and blamed those being disloyal. Meaning you probably won't last all that long as LoTO.
You get to be PM, but as a 'quiz question PM' remembered as a footnote. The only other reason would be to get through a passion project - but there's not time for that.
Why would Braverman or Badenoch - who both hold absurdly safe seats - allow themselves to front a leadership coup that likely results in electoral humiliation and the burning up of their big shot? You'd wait, let Sunak fail then ride the recriminations unless you really did think an historic wipeout was likely.
The only way I could see Sunak ousted is to install a caretaker to stem the losses. But that's very unlikely as the remaining party greybeards have the most loyalty to Sunak. The Tory Party is also so ungovernable that it would be almost impossible to stitch it up.
The idea isn't to stem the losses; the idea is the remain in power. The thought is that Bojo turned it around in 6 months, let's give Kemi that mantle and do it again.
I myself would like to think that's possible - I despair of the miserablist consensus of the three main parties and I don't think I'm alone. I think the election will be won by a party with a good retail offer, and that means seriously upsetting the applecart and taking some sacred cows to market. I'm not sure that Kemi and her backers have the balls or the brains to do it, but I do agree that it's possible.
With respect, I think that is completely delusional - especially with a politician who is essentially doubling down on past Tory policy but shouting it louder with some added anti-woke bluster.
The current iteration of the Tory Party are absolutely despised in swathes of the country who have really had enough - including among lots who were previously pretty open to voting Tory. Even a big retail offer would not be believed - especially when the public's most significant priorities are either against the Tories' ideological priors, or things they have demonstrably failed to do despite numerous snake oil promises.
You can't fix that in eight months. Especially if you're relying on someone who is effectively doubling down on your failures to do it. And there isn't the time to prove people's scepticism wrong with policies. The Tories blew those opportunities for a reset with Truss and Sunak.
The biggest sacred cow you could take to market in the Tory Party of course, that would genuinely shift perceptions of them, would be agreeing with where the general public are now and admitting Brexit was a terrible mistake. But somehow that is not what I think you had in mind. It certainly isn't going to happen with Badenoch or any other potential replacement.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
England are a work in progress. The World Cup was a short term patch up for that tournament. I think if by the end of next six nations we are a bit rubbish then fair play with the criticism but plenty of young players and new coaching team need time to work.
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
NOT CARE ABOUT RUGBY???
I love rugger. But I shall take your advice and suspend judgement until the end of the 6N
I would be happier with Marcus Smith back in the team, and fucksake find a way to get Arundell qualified
I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
And I suspect Heath (landslide defeat on his first outing in '66) wouldn't have got a second chance these days. Nor would Wilson have been allowed to hang around until '74.
We take the "kick out the bums" aspect of FPTP a bit too seriously. Which is why the next Conservative PM quite possibly isn't an MP yet
I also doubt if Churchill would have been allowed to get away with being a more or less nominal leader for six years.
Baldwin of course was twice nearly unseated due to defeats, and Macdonald was eventually expelled from his own party.
Any lower to the ground and I would need to ask @AussieGrit to return the ball !!
Didn't they have that angle then? Looks clear enough.
Scotland cheated once again. Quelle suprise as the French would say.
You were absolutely swindled
What made it worse was that the TMO said "yes. That's grounded" - clearly. Then at the last moment he kinda changed his mind and said Oooh, maybe I can't quite see it maybe not....
I don't believe it was corrupt but it was unprofessional. The ball was obvs grounded. Endex
I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
Does Thatcher not count?
I suppose x2 elections in 1974 buggers that up.
It could, but I'm happy to add her. After all, there wasn't a leader between Heath and her.
Certainly if the relatively centrist Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election, the odds are that they will take the blame and the party will shift back in a more rightwing direction.
If party members alone had the final say Badenoch would be odds on the be next Conservative leader and Leader of the Opposition. However when she stood last summer neither she, nor Braverman nor even Mordaunt go enough support from Tory MPs to make the final 2 to get to the membership.
Other Cabinet members like Cleverly or Barclay therefore would come into contention as they are more likely to get support amongst Conservative MPs. However Cleverly may have damaged his chances with his poor taste 'date rape' joke so Barclay, a Leaver but not ERG, a former Health Secretary and current Environment Secretary might be a good outside bet to be the Hague or Ed Miliband figure to take over in Opposition. Barclay also backed Sunak for leader last year and I would expect much of Sunak's parliamentary backing to shift to him. Tugendhat would also likely stand again and probably pick up support from the One Nation wing of Tory MPs. Jenrick I don't think has much support in the House or amongst members
Regarding Barclay, I'm not sure that "Continuity Abject Failure" is a recipe for success.
How the likely next Labour government performs on the economy is likely to be the main determinant of whether it is re elected or not. As long as the Conservatives don't pick a complete ideological extremist, which Barclay isn't, they would therefore have a shot if inflation and interest rates are high, taxes go up and strikes resume under a Starmer government
Likely to be tougher than that I think. Provided Labour don't have their own self-inflicted disaster then they will very much be able to adopt the Cameron/Osborne strategy of blaming any pain on the previous regime and saying "stick with us, we'll fix it - don't let the vandals back in".
A large chunk of the electorate - look at their polling numbers with people of working age - has become so repulsed by the Tories that it'll take a pretty big mea culpa and apology for the past decade to get them to look at them again. Even if Labour disappoints.
Depends, all over the western world newly elected governments have swiftly seen their poll numbers decline from Germany to Australia and the US due to inflation and interest rates and cost of living particularly. Remember too the Conservatives can win most seats even if they lose most voters under 45
True, but they've often been losing votes to insurgent parties (less of an option in the UK due to the electoral system) and being the largest party isn't good enough when every other party - except possibly the DUP - will refuse to join a coalition you are part of. Reform would - but if they're getting enough seats to be a potential partner, the Tories are toast anyway.
Plus, at the moment it's way worse than the Under 45s being more likely to vote Labour. The Under 60s have what we used to regard as student-like voting patterns. They're not just unpopular, they're polling at a similar level to the minor parties. People who should be solid Tories are disgusted by them - and may be put off for life.
Things obviously likely improve in the face of a less than-popular Lab government - but it needs to change a lot and perceptions the Tories are the party of decline, chaos, selfish blockers, and a grand project that has been an abject failure have to be addressed.
Their name is absolute mud - and rightly so. It's going to take a lot more - much more of a change and a mea culpa -than Barclay or whoever sounding a bit less mad and rabid than the crazies but saying that fundamentally, the last 14 years have been an example of governance worthy of voting back those responsible back in any time soon.
40-60 year olds are the swing voters who decide elections. They mostly voted Conservative in 2019 and on current polls mostly back Starmer Labour. if Labour muck up the economy they could easily swing back to the Conservatives as they did in the 1960s and 1970s.
Blair and Brown ran the economy relatively well after 1997 which was why New Labour was re elected by a landslide in 2001 over Hague's Tories but previous Labour governments did not.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
England are a work in progress. The World Cup was a short term patch up for that tournament. I think if by the end of next six nations we are a bit rubbish then fair play with the criticism but plenty of young players and new coaching team need time to work.
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
NOT CARE ABOUT RUGBY???
I love rugger. But I shall take your advice and suspend judgement until the end of the 6N
I would be happier with Marcus Smith back in the team, and fucksake find a way to get Arundell qualified
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
The average Tory member is a selfish, reactionary, elderly golf club bore from the Home Counties. A defeat will leave them hurt, smarting, furiously convinced that Sunak was beaten because he was a wet socialist, and very eager to seek out and install whichever leadership candidate appears the most ideologically pure and in lockstep with their base instincts. Expect them to pick the most virulent right wing populist available; Braverman is the standout candidate provided that she holds her seat.
As far as the fiasco at Twickenham is concerned, the only surprise is that England - so poor that they almost lost to Italy - aren't further behind. Still, the best thing to do with almost any England team is to proceed from the assumption that they will find a way to lose. That way, if they don't, it comes as a pleasant surprise.
Rather stereotypical dont you think. Some tory members may be like that but plenty arent.
Old, extreme, disinterested in and remote from the opinions of the average citizen (or, at any rate, those of the average citizen who isn't asset rich and aged over fifty.)
Not that Labour members are really much different when it comes to economics. Your typical North London champagne trot is every inch as selfish, as proven by the fact that the stubborn refusal of Reeves to do anything about the imbalance in taxation of earned incomes versus that of assets caused barely a murmur of dissent. The main dividing lines between parties (in England anyway; the remainder of the UK also has the pro and anti separatism divide to throw into the mix) are on fringe culture war issues like refugees and trans rights which don't motivate the huge and growing bloc of the ignored and thoroughly disengaged.
The next election is just going to result in a new cabal of austerity fixated upper middle class folk taking over ministerial offices in London. Nothing of significance will change in the country.
The Orange Order has accused a panel of Scotland’s most senior judges of “not taking crimes against the Protestant community seriously” after it ruled that the term “hun” was not a sectarian slur.
The Loyal Orange institution, known for organising contentious marches in central Scotland and across Northern Ireland, said that the proportion of hate crimes that was committed against Protestants was 16 per cent — the same proportion as against Muslims — and they demanded government talks to quell the attacks.
Police Scotland statistics show that in 47 per cent of religion-aggravated hate crimes, the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Catholic community.
David Walters, executive officer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, said that the mantra “one Scotland, many cultures” did not resonate “if you are Protestant to many of our members”.
In a ruling that clarified what was and was not offensive language, appeal judges said the expression “hun” did not contain a religious aspect or indicate malice or ill will towards Protestants.
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
Abandon democracy in this sense is taking power by non electoral means.
Further proof that dog owners are selfish twats, clean up the mess your beast creates, on this occasion I am on the side of the rozzers.
A row has erupted after a police staff member was said to have ordered a man to clean up his pet dog’s urine.
Steve Schuurman, 56, was walking his six-year-old pet Saluki rescue dog Margot through Bournemouth’s main square last week when she cocked her leg to relieve herself.
As the NHS worker walked off, he claims an “aggressive” female member of Dorset Police shouted at him “clear your f-----g dog p--s”.
He said when he challenged her, a council community safety patrol officer allegedly threatened to have him arrested if he did not move on.
Dorset Police and Bournemouth Council had a stall and van in the seaside town’s centre as part of a “day of action” after several high-profile crimes, including a fatal stabbing, in the area.
Mr Schuurman said he would have cleaned up any dog mess but he did not know what they expected him to do with dog urine.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part.
From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The Orange Order has accused a panel of Scotland’s most senior judges of “not taking crimes against the Protestant community seriously” after it ruled that the term “hun” was not a sectarian slur.
The Loyal Orange institution, known for organising contentious marches in central Scotland and across Northern Ireland, said that the proportion of hate crimes that was committed against Protestants was 16 per cent — the same proportion as against Muslims — and they demanded government talks to quell the attacks.
Police Scotland statistics show that in 47 per cent of religion-aggravated hate crimes, the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Catholic community.
David Walters, executive officer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, said that the mantra “one Scotland, many cultures” did not resonate “if you are Protestant to many of our members”.
In a ruling that clarified what was and was not offensive language, appeal judges said the expression “hun” did not contain a religious aspect or indicate malice or ill will towards Protestants.
I have to say that had my eyebrows somewhere over the top my head. A truly remarkable decision.
I did read that the logic behind the decision would allow antisemites to call Jewish people 'Yids' without penalty.
A part of the problem is the shockingly poor legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. But it is the job of the courts to try and make a rational analysis out of the garbage, not highlight its patent deficiencies.
Further proof that dog owners are selfish twats, clean up the mess your beast creates, on this occasion I am on the side of the rozzers.
A row has erupted after a police staff member was said to have ordered a man to clean up his pet dog’s urine.
Steve Schuurman, 56, was walking his six-year-old pet Saluki rescue dog Margot through Bournemouth’s main square last week when she cocked her leg to relieve herself.
As the NHS worker walked off, he claims an “aggressive” female member of Dorset Police shouted at him “clear your f-----g dog p--s”.
He said when he challenged her, a council community safety patrol officer allegedly threatened to have him arrested if he did not move on.
Dorset Police and Bournemouth Council had a stall and van in the seaside town’s centre as part of a “day of action” after several high-profile crimes, including a fatal stabbing, in the area.
Mr Schuurman said he would have cleaned up any dog mess but he did not know what they expected him to do with dog urine.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
And I suspect Heath (landslide defeat on his first outing in '66) wouldn't have got a second chance these days. Nor would Wilson have been allowed to hang around until '74.
We take the "kick out the bums" aspect of FPTP a bit too seriously. Which is why the next Conservative PM quite possibly isn't an MP yet
I also doubt if Churchill would have been allowed to get away with being a more or less nominal leader for six years.
Baldwin of course was twice nearly unseated due to defeats, and Macdonald was eventually expelled from his own party.
Special circumstances. Churchill had just won the war and his most obvious successor, Eden, was related to him by marriage and was not in the best of health.
ETA it was Hague (and arguably Major before him) who created this lose and resign fad.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
Abandon democracy in this sense is taking power by non electoral means.
I don't think there's any chance of a revolution. The prospective revolutionaries are all too worn down and demotivated for that, and besides who are they going to shoot? It's not like this is one of the seventeenth century upheavals and we can blame the King, and few young people are going to be up for the job of overthrowing Granny.
In the current age, engagement in the political process is worthless. If you want to be helpful and achieve anything then all you can really do is try to help yourself, your own family and friends, and be active in the local community and in support networks. Parliament might as well be on the Moon for all the use it is, and it's inhabitants aren't worth our time or worry.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
I'm trying to think how often first-time leaders of the opposition - i.e. the first leaders of the opposition elected/chosen by a party on being turned out of government- have become PM.
The list is Heath, Derby, Russell, Peel.
That takes us back 250 years.
It is not common.
Of course, some former Prime Ministers have led the opposition and returned to power. Wilson. Churchill. Macdonald. Baldwin. Salisbury. Gladstone. Disraeli. Palmerston.
It's worth noting that none of them have been born since the end of the First World War.
And I suspect Heath (landslide defeat on his first outing in '66) wouldn't have got a second chance these days. Nor would Wilson have been allowed to hang around until '74.
We take the "kick out the bums" aspect of FPTP a bit too seriously. Which is why the next Conservative PM quite possibly isn't an MP yet
I also doubt if Churchill would have been allowed to get away with being a more or less nominal leader for six years.
Baldwin of course was twice nearly unseated due to defeats, and Macdonald was eventually expelled from his own party.
Special circumstances. Churchill had just won the war and his most obvious successor, Eden, was related to him by marriage and was not in the best of health.
ETA it was Hague (and arguably Major before him) who created this lose and resign fad.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
What is screwing them is paying for unprecedented levels of fraud during the pandemic.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part.
From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
So fewer young adults own homes than in 1990 in every major western nation just in the UK it is a much bigger percentage drop
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
Abandon democracy in this sense is taking power by non electoral means.
Well they aren't manning the barricades either are they
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
Abandon democracy in this sense is taking power by non electoral means.
Well they aren't manning the barricades either are they
Slim pickings indeed here. My money is staying in my pocket on this market, but gun to head I’d go Braverman as she’s in an ultra safe seat, has an extensive nutbag constituency in the party and the Tories have still not quite hit their rock bottom - they need go the full NatCon to actually exorcise it and move on back to become a vaguely sensible and electable party again.
Very thin.
I've looked at the market regularly and cannot for the life of me understand why Badenoch is favorite. Normally when you spot an underpriced favorite it's a clear flag that there is value elsewhere, but damned if I can see it. Maybe it's true that the next Tory leader isn't in the House yet.
Like Pip (thanks for the piece, btw) I'd certainly lay KB at 2/1 but there's no fortune to made in that and even laying the other no-hopers too doesn't do more than sweat a few quid.
Bit of a no-bet market really. Maybe after the deluge....?
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
I see the easy scapegoat ! How does Germany end up 8 points down v GB 22 points when it has high levels of immigration ?
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
Yeah, reminds me of the much-memed pirates/global warming ‘relationship’.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
It is both
Correct. The mass importation of workers excuses both the state and industry from the hard graft of training up the less able members of the domestic workforce, and exacerbates the housing shortage (thus further enriching predominantly elderly homeowners and the rentier class) into the bargain.
Most of what is wrong with this country can be traced back to over-indulgence of well-to-do older voters and of the very wealthy. Stuffing the land with more people like there's no tomorrow is just one aspect of this.
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
Abandon democracy in this sense is taking power by non electoral means.
Well they aren't manning the barricades either are they
Yes, hence as I originally said cynical Tories don't want young people to get out to the polling booth, if they stay home on election day that is not a major problem for Tory candidates, much more of a problem for Labour candidates
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
Shall I tell you what's fucking the world over?
The death of nuance. The lack of awareness that things are complicated. And things very, very rarely have single causes.
Immigration is undoubtedly a factor in the drop in the rate of UK home ownership. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. But it is far from the only cause: if it is was the sole cause, then house prices would have risen much faster in the post-2006 period than in the twenty years before.
Here's two blindingly obvious factors that have played a role:
(1) Stamp duty preventing older people from trading down. Britain has an epidemic of homes that are too big for people. But - once stamp duty is taken into account - it's very rarely worth someone whose kids have left home downsizing. The number of homes in Britain with empty rooms is at a record, even as the housing shortage has gotten worse.
(2) Building regulations and raw material costs have made the cost of new builds dramatically higher. It costs - in real terms - more than twice as much to build a home today than it did in the early 2000s.
I have the distinct impression that’s the last England win this 6 nations. Away to the Scots and French and home to the grand slam winners… It’s tricky because I am English, but that refereeing was appalling. The interpretation of starting his kick for Ford was nonsense, plain and simple. The TMO should have had a word. The firstyellow card was bollocks. No doubt we will have a red card as per usual against Ireland.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
I see the easy scapegoat ! How does Germany end up 8 points down v GB 22 points when it has high levels of immigration ?
Germany's increase in immigration came much later. They had net emigration as recently as the late 2000s:
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Then you should never vote Conservative again.
It's true that a Starmer government will probably move to the right on immigration and criminal justice relative to the Tories.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
Probably not, because most pensioners pay tax anyway.
Might see some results if you reduced pensions to pay down Government debt. Not a snowball in hell's chance of it happening though.
Slim pickings indeed here. My money is staying in my pocket on this market, but gun to head I’d go Braverman as she’s in an ultra safe seat, has an extensive nutbag constituency in the party and the Tories have still not quite hit their rock bottom - they need go the full NatCon to actually exorcise it and move on back to become a vaguely sensible and electable party again.
Very thin.
I've looked at the market regularly and cannot for the life of me understand why Badenoch is favorite. Normally when you spot an underpriced favorite it's a clear flag that there is value elsewhere, but damned if I can see it. Maybe it's true that the next Tory leader isn't in the House yet.
Like Pip (thanks for the piece, btw) I'd certainly lay KB at 2/1 but there's no fortune to made in that and even laying the other no-hopers too doesn't do more than sweat a few quid.
Bit of a no-bet market really. Maybe after the deluge....?
I’d be surprised if the next leader was a new entrant to parliament. Sunak will surely be out on his ear after the election so we’d be talking about someone going straight from debut election to the leader seat. An exception of course would be a returning figure; I guess Boris the most likely but afaik he is not about to stand anywhere.
I don’t think any candidate is truly beyond the pale, and if the party has a truly catastrophic result (<150) there’s no telling the depths of insanity to which they will plumb.
Gove is conceivably a ‘unity’ candidate from a political POV, has the ambition and is in a reasonably safe seat. But l suspect policy is where unity ends with him, as he’s made a lot of enemies in his time (and tbh is not electorally appealing, though perhaps an ‘elder statesman’ gloss would help him a bit there). 66/1 atm.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
Shall I tell you what's fucking the world over?
The death of nuance. The lack of awareness that things are complicated. And things very, very rarely have single causes.
Immigration is undoubtedly a factor in the drop in the rate of UK home ownership. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. But it is far from the only cause: if it is was the sole cause, then house prices would have risen much faster in the post-2006 period than in the twenty years before.
Here's two blindingly obvious factors that have played a role:
(1) Stamp duty preventing older people from trading down. Britain has an epidemic of homes that are too big for people. But - once stamp duty is taken into account - it's very rarely worth someone whose kids have left home downsizing. The number of homes in Britain with empty rooms is at a record, even as the housing shortage has gotten worse.
(2) Building regulations and raw material costs have made the cost of new builds dramatically higher. It costs - in real terms - more than twice as much to build a home today than it did in the early 2000s.
Point 2 is only a factor because of immigration. Without an increase in the population, we wouldn't need to expand the housing stock and new builds wouldn't need to be 'affordable' because enough of the existing houses already would be.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
Shall I tell you what's fucking the world over?
The death of nuance. The lack of awareness that things are complicated. And things very, very rarely have single causes.
Immigration is undoubtedly a factor in the drop in the rate of UK home ownership. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. But it is far from the only cause: if it is was the sole cause, then house prices would have risen much faster in the post-2006 period than in the twenty years before.
Here's two blindingly obvious factors that have played a role:
(1) Stamp duty preventing older people from trading down. Britain has an epidemic of homes that are too big for people. But - once stamp duty is taken into account - it's very rarely worth someone whose kids have left home downsizing. The number of homes in Britain with empty rooms is at a record, even as the housing shortage has gotten worse.
(2) Building regulations and raw material costs have made the cost of new builds dramatically higher. It costs - in real terms - more than twice as much to build a home today than it did in the early 2000s.
With regard to immigration by 2006 house prices had already risen to a level that was pushing the limits of affordability in many areas. Thus mass immigration may well just have kept house prices propped up at this artificially high level. Mass immigration thus acts as a backstop to the housing market.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Then you should never vote Conservative again.
It's true that a Starmer government will probably move to the right on immigration and criminal justice relative to the Tories.
You’ve just posted a graph showing that immigration has been highest since 2010 under the Tories than it was under earlier administrations. The Starmer government doesn’t need to move to the right. They just have to not be the Tories.
If you want lower immigration, don’t vote for the party in power that has overseen the highest ever immigration on record.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
It is both
Correct. The mass importation of workers excuses both the state and industry from the hard graft of training up the less able members of the domestic workforce, and exacerbates the housing shortage (thus further enriching predominantly elderly homeowners and the rentier class) into the bargain.
Most of what is wrong with this country can be traced back to over-indulgence of well-to-do older voters and of the very wealthy. Stuffing the land with more people like there's no tomorrow is just one aspect of this.
Sure but the country shows no sign of being willing to change this arrangement even Starmer will likely just tinker.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Then you should never vote Conservative again.
It's true that a Starmer government will probably move to the right on immigration and criminal justice relative to the Tories.
I’m not sure properly funding justice and immigration necessarily constitutes a move to the right.
Both areas are in a right state, and the Jenrick approach of being beastly to Johnny Foreigner or Suella’s ludicrous Rwanda ‘dream/obsession’ are just signals when it’s actual substance that is necessary.
Arguably the Conservative’s greatest impact on migration has been the destabilisation of Libya to massively empower criminal people traffickers (also, for different reasons and perhaps less culpability, the involvement in Syria and Afghanistan).
Slim pickings indeed here. My money is staying in my pocket on this market, but gun to head I’d go Braverman as she’s in an ultra safe seat, has an extensive nutbag constituency in the party and the Tories have still not quite hit their rock bottom - they need go the full NatCon to actually exorcise it and move on back to become a vaguely sensible and electable party again.
Very thin.
I've looked at the market regularly and cannot for the life of me understand why Badenoch is favorite. Normally when you spot an underpriced favorite it's a clear flag that there is value elsewhere, but damned if I can see it. Maybe it's true that the next Tory leader isn't in the House yet.
Like Pip (thanks for the piece, btw) I'd certainly lay KB at 2/1 but there's no fortune to made in that and even laying the other no-hopers too doesn't do more than sweat a few quid.
Bit of a no-bet market really. Maybe after the deluge....?
I’d be surprised if the next leader was a new entrant to parliament. Sunak will surely be out on his ear after the election so we’d be talking about someone going straight from debut election to the leader seat. An exception of course would be a returning figure; I guess Boris the most likely but afaik he is not about to stand anywhere.
I don’t think any candidate is truly beyond the pale, and if the party has a truly catastrophic result (
Gove is good value at 66s, and you wouldn't need to stake much. The trouble is that it is hard to put a figure on how low Tory seats could go. Betfair has a market on this and it seems there are takers at values as low as <49. Would even Gove survive at that level? They may well turn to a New Face in those straightened circumstances.
It would be worth trawling the list to find a first time candidate inheriting a rock-solid seat but after an exhausting day watching the Rugby, I can't be bothered.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Then you should never vote Conservative again.
It's true that a Starmer government will probably move to the right on immigration and criminal justice relative to the Tories.
You’ve just posted a graph showing that immigration has been highest since 2010 under the Tories than it was under earlier administrations. The Starmer government doesn’t need to move to the right. They just have to not be the Tories.
If you want lower immigration, don’t vote for the party in power that has overseen the highest ever immigration on record.
"Not being the Tories" in this case does mean moving to the right, if you take being pro-immigration as a left wing position.
Michael Gove: If the young can’t get housing, they will abandon democracy
Restoring young people’s dreams of a roof over their heads will give the Conservatives — and democracy itself — hope of survival, says the housing secretary
I would have thought cynical Tories would prefer that young people abandon democracy and stay home on polling day than mostly vote Labour as they do now
Abandon democracy in this sense is taking power by non electoral means.
I don't think there's any chance of a revolution. The prospective revolutionaries are all too worn down and demotivated for that, and besides who are they going to shoot? It's not like this is one of the seventeenth century upheavals and we can blame the King, and few young people are going to be up for the job of overthrowing Granny.
In the current age, engagement in the political process is worthless. If you want to be helpful and achieve anything then all you can really do is try to help yourself, your own family and friends, and be active in the local community and in support networks. Parliament might as well be on the Moon for all the use it is, and it's inhabitants aren't worth our time or worry.
Very good point. The micro is more important to most peoples happiness forget about politicians they are worthless.
A trickle at first, queuing patiently in the early morning gloom, wrapped up warm against the bitter Midlands chill.
Then, as thin winter sun fails to break through skies grey as slate, that trickle turns to a deluge and the line grows ever longer, snaking back from the shuttered beige food truck emblazoned with 'JACKET SPUDS', through Tamworth's St Editha's Square, and back, deep into the shopping precinct.
By 10am, when the wagon opens for business, it's two hours to the front. These potato pilgrims hail from every corner of the globe, as far afield as Australia. And they're all here to see one man - Ben Newman, right, better known to his 2.3million TikTok followers as Spudman. 'It's like this every day,' says Ben, luxuriously bearded and sporting his now trademark pink Mohican. 'It's just crazy.'"
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
It is both
Correct. The mass importation of workers excuses both the state and industry from the hard graft of training up the less able members of the domestic workforce, and exacerbates the housing shortage (thus further enriching predominantly elderly homeowners and the rentier class) into the bargain.
Most of what is wrong with this country can be traced back to over-indulgence of well-to-do older voters and of the very wealthy. Stuffing the land with more people like there's no tomorrow is just one aspect of this.
Sure but the country shows no sign of being willing to change this arrangement even Starmer will likely just tinker.
Well exactly. Like I said previously, Starmer's platform will end up being not very much different to that offered by Sunak. The retail offer will be, essentially, more of the same, less incompetently managed. There will be no enthusiasm for this in the country, and the likely result is a weak Labour minority followed by reversion to the Tories and even more of the same nonsense. And on we all go, circling the plughole.
So no penalty try because the ref couldn’t guarantee that England would have scored in acres of space but a penalty try to Wales in first half when there was no guarantee they would score surrounded by England played with Itoje under the ball. OK.
The ref was an absolute roaster but England are so lifeless
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
England are a work in progress. The World Cup was a short term patch up for that tournament. I think if by the end of next six nations we are a bit rubbish then fair play with the criticism but plenty of young players and new coaching team need time to work.
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
NOT CARE ABOUT RUGBY???
I love rugger. But I shall take your advice and suspend judgement until the end of the 6N
I would be happier with Marcus Smith back in the team, and fucksake find a way to get Arundell qualified
You’re in +7 time zone, coming up on 2am?
Exactly! That's how much I care
And stone cold sober
Love those tropical nights. A nice cold beer sitting outside with the temperature still in the 70s. Bliss.
Our latest research with the @ECIU_UK shows that voters are more likely to interpret the climate U-turn as Labour lacking real plans for power (43%) rather than merely demonstrating that they will be fiscally responsible (25%).
Our latest research with the @ECIU_UK shows that voters are more likely to interpret the climate U-turn as Labour lacking real plans for power (43%) rather than merely demonstrating that they will be fiscally responsible (25%).
Possibly, but let’s see how what happens with the voting intention polling. I suspect it will be unchanged.
Fundamentally, nobody coming into Government is going to be able to plausibly offer or effect meaningful change without the redistribution of wealth from the rich and old to the poor and young. This would entail policies including mass housebuilding, the equalisation (at least) of tax rates on assets with those on earned incomes, the abolition of the pension triple lock, and the targeting of the immense store of sunk money locked up in residential property, through both land value taxation and much more broadly applied death duties.
The chances of any of these things happening are zero. Neither the immensely powerful grey vote nor the various party memberships will wear it. Thus there is no prospect of meaningful change and no point in engagement with the political process. Britain is no longer a functioning democracy, it is an oligarchy. The cycle of elections is just window dressing intended to maintain a pretence to the contrary, and barely more convincing than the more obvious sham votes in Russia and other such places.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
It is both
Correct. The mass importation of workers excuses both the state and industry from the hard graft of training up the less able members of the domestic workforce, and exacerbates the housing shortage (thus further enriching predominantly elderly homeowners and the rentier class) into the bargain.
Most of what is wrong with this country can be traced back to over-indulgence of well-to-do older voters and of the very wealthy. Stuffing the land with more people like there's no tomorrow is just one aspect of this.
Sure but the country shows no sign of being willing to change this arrangement even Starmer will likely just tinker.
Well exactly. Like I said previously, Starmer's platform will end up being not very much different to that offered by Sunak. The retail offer will be, essentially, more of the same, less incompetently managed. There will be no enthusiasm for this in the country, and the likely result is a weak Labour minority followed by reversion to the Tories and even more of the same nonsense. And on we all go, circling the plughole.
It is to be hoped that a Labour government will be considerably less corrupt than appears to be the case at present. That alone ought to be enough to get them a second term.
Our latest research with the @ECIU_UK shows that voters are more likely to interpret the climate U-turn as Labour lacking real plans for power (43%) rather than merely demonstrating that they will be fiscally responsible (25%).
Sunak is half right. Starmer won't bring change. It's just the pretence that he somehow will that's laughable.
Certainly if the relatively centrist Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election, the odds are that they will take the blame and the party will shift back in a more rightwing direction.
If party members alone had the final say Badenoch would be odds on the be next Conservative leader and Leader of the Opposition. However when she stood last summer neither she, nor Braverman nor even Mordaunt go enough support from Tory MPs to make the final 2 to get to the membership.
Other Cabinet members like Cleverly or Barclay therefore would come into contention as they are more likely to get support amongst Conservative MPs. However Cleverly may have damaged his chances with his poor taste 'date rape' joke so Barclay, a Leaver but not ERG, a former Health Secretary and current Environment Secretary might be a good outside bet to be the Hague or Ed Miliband figure to take over in Opposition. Barclay also backed Sunak for leader last year and I would expect much of Sunak's parliamentary backing to shift to him. Tugendhat would also likely stand again and probably pick up support from the One Nation wing of Tory MPs. Jenrick I don't think has much support in the House or amongst members
Regarding Barclay, I'm not sure that "Continuity Abject Failure" is a recipe for success.
How the likely next Labour government performs on the economy is likely to be the main determinant of whether it is re elected or not. As long as the Conservatives don't pick a complete ideological extremist, which Barclay isn't, they would therefore have a shot if inflation and interest rates are high, taxes go up and strikes resume under a Starmer government
Likely to be tougher than that I think. Provided Labour don't have their own self-inflicted disaster then they will very much be able to adopt the Cameron/Osborne strategy of blaming any pain on the previous regime and saying "stick with us, we'll fix it - don't let the vandals back in".
A large chunk of the electorate - look at their polling numbers with people of working age - has become so repulsed by the Tories that it'll take a pretty big mea culpa and apology for the past decade to get them to look at them again. Even if Labour disappoints.
Depends, all over the western world newly elected governments have swiftly seen their poll numbers decline from Germany to Australia and the US due to inflation and interest rates and cost of living particularly. Remember too the Conservatives can win most seats even if they lose most voters under 45
True, but they've often been losing votes to insurgent parties (less of an option in the UK due to the electoral system) and being the largest party isn't good enough when every other party - except possibly the DUP - will refuse to join a coalition you are part of. Reform would - but if they're getting enough seats to be a potential partner, the Tories are toast anyway.
Plus, at the moment it's way worse than the Under 45s being more likely to vote Labour. The Under 60s have what we used to regard as student-like voting patterns. They're not just unpopular, they're polling at a similar level to the minor parties. People who should be solid Tories are disgusted by them - and may be put off for life.
Things obviously likely improve in the face of a less than-popular Lab government - but it needs to change a lot and perceptions the Tories are the party of decline, chaos, selfish blockers, and a grand project that has been an abject failure have to be addressed.
Their name is absolute mud - and rightly so. It's going to take a lot more - much more of a change and a mea culpa -than Barclay or whoever sounding a bit less mad and rabid than the crazies but saying that fundamentally, the last 14 years have been an example of governance worthy of voting back those responsible back in any time soon.
40-60 year olds are the swing voters who decide elections. They mostly voted Conservative in 2019 and on current polls mostly back Starmer Labour. if Labour muck up the economy they could easily swing back to the Conservatives as they did in the 1960s and 1970s.
Blair and Brown ran the economy relatively well after 1997 which was why New Labour was re elected by a landslide in 2001 over Hague's Tories but previous Labour governments did not.
At the 2019 election the Tories won 40-49 year-olds by 6 points and 49-59 year olds by 21 points (YouGov). At the end of January the same pollster had them 36 and 19 points behind with the same groups. That's just not normal. Especially as while the Tories used to lose by single digits or break even (when they did well) among those in their 30s, they are 46 points behind.
In 2015, the crossover point in how you voted by age was your late 30s. It was early 40s in 2019. At the moment it's around 70. This isn't normal and there is a deeper thing going on here where people have stopped voting Tory, or becoming slightly more sympathetic to conservatism as they age. In 2019, despite Corbyn still having dire ratings (he even still had negative ratings with 18-24 year olds, just not as much) with those in their 30s, Labour was ahead with them by 16 points. That looks to just be carrying on as people age. There's a divide there that's generational and anti-Tory having spent their adult lives living under Tory governments they see as having failed them. And it's a long-term distaste.
At the moment if you meet someone under 60 they are roughly as likely to believe the moon landings didn't happen as vote Conservative.
Absent something restoring the general drift towards conservatism as people age, demographics mean that's going to become worse. And worryingly for them the one thing that might have in the past - housing - if fixed by Labour on any scale, may well lock in people more.
Is that recoverable eventually? Sure. No one ever won money betting on permanent Tory extinction. But I think it's going to require much more of a dark night of the soul and rethinking than installing someone who isn't from the demonstrably crackers wing of the party (but still believes in its shibboleths) and hoping the electorate see the error of their ways in a few years.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
Shall I tell you what's fucking the world over?
The death of nuance. The lack of awareness that things are complicated. And things very, very rarely have single causes.
Immigration is undoubtedly a factor in the drop in the rate of UK home ownership. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. But it is far from the only cause: if it is was the sole cause, then house prices would have risen much faster in the post-2006 period than in the twenty years before.
Here's two blindingly obvious factors that have played a role:
(1) Stamp duty preventing older people from trading down. Britain has an epidemic of homes that are too big for people. But - once stamp duty is taken into account - it's very rarely worth someone whose kids have left home downsizing. The number of homes in Britain with empty rooms is at a record, even as the housing shortage has gotten worse.
(2) Building regulations and raw material costs have made the cost of new builds dramatically higher. It costs - in real terms - more than twice as much to build a home today than it did in the early 2000s.
I'd have thought the main issue was that the second half of the 90s saw a biggish fall in inflation and hence interest rates.
So, provided you have some equity to start with, very high house prices became much more affordable. And most of the time, house prices stick to the 'highest price a buyer will pay' bit of the grey area, rather than 'the lowest price a seller will accept'.
(The deposit on my first house in 2001 was £7000, and that was commutable from Cambridge. Read and weep, millennials.)
The benefit of making that the key (not only, but key) issue is that it explains the Two Nations effect we are seeing. A chunk of the country utterly screwed, and a chunk who have never had it so good.
And while we could squeeze more capacity out of our current housing stock by downsizing retirees and freeing up family homes for families, that's not just a fiscal thing. As anyone with elderly parents knows, it can be bloody hard to persuade them to move, even when they can't really run a big house any more.
We do actually have to build some more family sized houses.
But the image of the indefatigable Gallic lover has taken a huge knock this week: according to a major new survey, France is in the middle of its very own “sex recession”.
The poll by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) found that 24 per cent of French adults aged between 18 and 69 said they had had no sex over the previous 12 months, compared with 9 per cent in 2006. The proportion of those aged 18 to 24 who had never had sex was 28 per cent, up from 5 per cent in 2006. Overall, 43 per cent of the 1,911 respondents said they had sex at least once a week, compared with 58 per cent in 2009.
Overall, the proportion of French people who have had sexual intercourse in the past year – 76 per cent on average – is at its lowest level in 50 years.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
That's ridiculous. If you cut income tax by 2% to reduce pensions it wouldn't change the structural dynamics at all.
Shall I tell you what's fucking the world over?
The death of nuance. The lack of awareness that things are complicated. And things very, very rarely have single causes.
Immigration is undoubtedly a factor in the drop in the rate of UK home ownership. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. But it is far from the only cause: if it is was the sole cause, then house prices would have risen much faster in the post-2006 period than in the twenty years before.
Here's two blindingly obvious factors that have played a role:
(1) Stamp duty preventing older people from trading down. Britain has an epidemic of homes that are too big for people. But - once stamp duty is taken into account - it's very rarely worth someone whose kids have left home downsizing. The number of homes in Britain with empty rooms is at a record, even as the housing shortage has gotten worse.
(2) Building regulations and raw material costs have made the cost of new builds dramatically higher. It costs - in real terms - more than twice as much to build a home today than it did in the early 2000s.
I'd have thought the main issue was that the second half of the 90s saw a biggish fall in inflation and hence interest rates.
So, provided you have some equity to start with, very high house prices became much more affordable. And most of the time, house prices stick to the 'highest price a buyer will pay' bit of the grey area, rather than 'the lowest price a seller will accept'.
(The deposit on my first house in 2001 was £7000, and that was commutable from Cambridge. Read and weep, millennials.)
The benefit of making that the key (not only, but key) issue is that it explains the Two Nations effect we are seeing. A chunk of the country utterly screwed, and a chunk who have never had it so good.
And while we could squeeze more capacity out of our current housing stock by downsizing retirees and freeing up family homes for families, that's not just a fiscal thing. As anyone with elderly parents knows, it can be bloody hard to persuade them to move, even when they can't really run a big house any more.
We do actually have to build some more family sized houses.
Fundamentally, nobody coming into Government is going to be able to plausibly offer or effect meaningful change without the redistribution of wealth from the rich and old to the poor and young. This would entail policies including mass housebuilding, the equalisation (at least) of tax rates on assets with those on earned incomes, the abolition of the pension triple lock, and the targeting of the immense store of sunk money locked up in residential property, through both land value taxation and much more broadly applied death duties.
The chances of any of these things happening are zero. Neither the immensely powerful grey vote nor the various party memberships will wear it. Thus there is no prospect of meaningful change and no point in engagement with the political process. Britain is no longer a functioning democracy, it is an oligarchy. The cycle of elections is just window dressing intended to maintain a pretence to the contrary, and barely more convincing than the more obvious sham votes in Russia and other such places.
Agreed. Hence my point about the value of strong man dictators.
The average Tory member is a selfish, reactionary, elderly golf club bore from the Home Counties. A defeat will leave them hurt, smarting, furiously convinced that Sunak was beaten because he was a wet socialist, and very eager to seek out and install whichever leadership candidate appears the most ideologically pure and in lockstep with their base instincts. Expect them to pick the most virulent right wing populist available; Braverman is the standout candidate provided that she holds her seat.
As far as the fiasco at Twickenham is concerned, the only surprise is that England - so poor that they almost lost to Italy - aren't further behind. Still, the best thing to do with almost any England team is to proceed from the assumption that they will find a way to lose. That way, if they don't, it comes as a pleasant surprise.
Posts that essentially just say "I don't like party X" aren't particularly enlightening IMO.
My preference would be for the right of the party to coalesce around Jake Berry, get him through to the members run off, and the rest is history. Not just because my £3 bet on him would turn into £500.
However, far from showing recent signs of being up for the fight, he seems to have gained a second belly and only hit the news recently for being handbagged about the post office scandal by Ian Hislop on TV. He needs to get on the Robert Jenrick diet and get himself out there.
Nadine Dorries says that the powers that be will get Sunk out before the GE. I don't see this as entirely implausible. That means no Boris.
Nadine Dorries talks more shit than Marjorie Taylor Greene.
A few weeks ago she was saying the plan was for Cameron to replace Sunak after the election.
Believing Nadine Dorries is a rookie error.
Yes, I do see that. But her theory that influential Tories are shitting themselves because Sunak is rubbish, and would therefore prefer to roll the dice with Kemi, is not without basic logic.
Where it falls down though is asking why any Tory with serious long-term leadership ambitions - as opposed to someone at the end of a career and happy to take one for the team and have been PM - would want the job.
You're liable to be on the end of shellacking you'll partly get the blame for, and despised by those who wanted to keep Sunak and blamed those being disloyal. Meaning you probably won't last all that long as LoTO.
You get to be PM, but as a 'quiz question PM' remembered as a footnote. The only other reason would be to get through a passion project - but there's not time for that.
Why would Braverman or Badenoch - who both hold absurdly safe seats - allow themselves to front a leadership coup that likely results in electoral humiliation and the burning up of their big shot? You'd wait, let Sunak fail then ride the recriminations unless you really did think an historic wipeout was likely.
The only way I could see Sunak ousted is to install a caretaker to stem the losses. But that's very unlikely as the remaining party greybeards have the most loyalty to Sunak. The Tory Party is also so ungovernable that it would be almost impossible to stitch it up.
The idea isn't to stem the losses; the idea is the remain in power. The thought is that Bojo turned it around in 6 months, let's give Kemi that mantle and do it again.
I myself would like to think that's possible - I despair of the miserablist consensus of the three main parties and I don't think I'm alone. I think the election will be won by a party with a good retail offer, and that means seriously upsetting the applecart and taking some sacred cows to market. I'm not sure that Kemi and her backers have the balls or the brains to do it, but I do agree that it's possible.
With respect, I think that is completely delusional - especially with a politician who is essentially doubling down on past Tory policy but shouting it louder with some added anti-woke bluster.
The current iteration of the Tory Party are absolutely despised in swathes of the country who have really had enough - including among lots who were previously pretty open to voting Tory. Even a big retail offer would not be believed - especially when the public's most significant priorities are either against the Tories' ideological priors, or things they have demonstrably failed to do despite numerous snake oil promises.
You can't fix that in eight months. Especially if you're relying on someone who is effectively doubling down on your failures to do it. And there isn't the time to prove people's scepticism wrong with policies. The Tories blew those opportunities for a reset with Truss and Sunak.
The biggest sacred cow you could take to market in the Tory Party of course, that would genuinely shift perceptions of them, would be agreeing with where the general public are now and admitting Brexit was a terrible mistake. But somehow that is not what I think you had in mind. It certainly isn't going to happen with Badenoch or any other potential replacement.
Well I'm sorry, but you would say that wouldn't you? What the polling has repeatedly indicated to me is that people are not minded to vote resentfully to 'punish' anyone, or there wouldn't be so many don't knows, and Starmer would be rating a lot more positively. They will vote wisely and self-interestedly, as all voters should, looking to the future not the past. That means if the Tories adopt a dynamic leader and start to put pro-British policies into operation, all bets are off, as they should be in a democracy. In a democracy, the best party offering the best vision for the future and the best means to get there, wins. It's not buggins turn. There's no iron law that says Labour should get in because it's not fair otherwise. Bugger that and bugger them.
I can understood why you would find that disturbing, but I am sure you understand why I find it enlivening.
Fundamentally, nobody coming into Government is going to be able to plausibly offer or effect meaningful change without the redistribution of wealth from the rich and old to the poor and young. This would entail policies including mass housebuilding, the equalisation (at least) of tax rates on assets with those on earned incomes, the abolition of the pension triple lock, and the targeting of the immense store of sunk money locked up in residential property, through both land value taxation and much more broadly applied death duties.
The chances of any of these things happening are zero. Neither the immensely powerful grey vote nor the various party memberships will wear it. Thus there is no prospect of meaningful change and no point in engagement with the political process. Britain is no longer a functioning democracy, it is an oligarchy. The cycle of elections is just window dressing intended to maintain a pretence to the contrary, and barely more convincing than the more obvious sham votes in Russia and other such places.
Agreed. Hence my point about the value of strong man dictators.
Indeed, Putin putting the dick in dictator and some other places.
Fundamentally, nobody coming into Government is going to be able to plausibly offer or effect meaningful change without the redistribution of wealth from the rich and old to the poor and young. This would entail policies including mass housebuilding, the equalisation (at least) of tax rates on assets with those on earned incomes, the abolition of the pension triple lock, and the targeting of the immense store of sunk money locked up in residential property, through both land value taxation and much more broadly applied death duties.
The chances of any of these things happening are zero. Neither the immensely powerful grey vote nor the various party memberships will wear it. Thus there is no prospect of meaningful change and no point in engagement with the political process. Britain is no longer a functioning democracy, it is an oligarchy. The cycle of elections is just window dressing intended to maintain a pretence to the contrary, and barely more convincing than the more obvious sham votes in Russia and other such places.
Agreed. Hence my point about the value of strong man dictators.
The ones who invariably redistribute wealth from the rich *and* the poor to their cronies?
David Cameron put a “knife in Israel’s back” by floating possible UK recognition of a Palestinian state in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct 7 attack, John Bolton, the former US national security adviser, has said.
Mr Bolton said that the Foreign Secretary’s remarks were no way to treat an ally at a time when Israel was being “menaced” by Iran and responding to an attack that he said was “comparable” to 9/11.
In January, Lord Cameron told a meeting of Arab ambassadors in London that Britain would “look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state” to see whether it could help to secure “irreversible” progress towards a two-state solution.
I myself refuse to sell my UK property in large part because stamp duty makes the cost of buying *back* into the market extortionate.
It must be a massive block on downsizing, as @rcs1000 and indeed free movement of labour.
Reduce stamp duty; increase land value taxation. That will incentivise downsizing.
Forcing people out of their homes against their will?
Well stamp duty, at least, is keeping people in their homes against their will.
Just a straw in the wind, Cookie, but I can relate that we tried hard to move last year, and twice agreed prices on suitable properties. Both times the Surveyor's report suggested six figure sums to repair them. They weren't derelict. The costs simply reflected current building costs. So yes, I'd have to say RCS has a point.
Stamp Duty was also a factor, but much less of one.
@Sean_F was musing yesterday about whether the US doesn’t have many of the same issues as the UK.
In part. From John Murdoch in the FT - We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
The shape of that graph almost exactly mirrors the increase in net immigration.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
Bollocks.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
It is both
Correct. The mass importation of workers excuses both the state and industry from the hard graft of training up the less able members of the domestic workforce, and exacerbates the housing shortage (thus further enriching predominantly elderly homeowners and the rentier class) into the bargain.
Most of what is wrong with this country can be traced back to over-indulgence of well-to-do older voters and of the very wealthy. Stuffing the land with more people like there's no tomorrow is just one aspect of this.
Sure but the country shows no sign of being willing to change this arrangement even Starmer will likely just tinker.
Well exactly. Like I said previously, Starmer's platform will end up being not very much different to that offered by Sunak. The retail offer will be, essentially, more of the same, less incompetently managed. There will be no enthusiasm for this in the country, and the likely result is a weak Labour minority followed by reversion to the Tories and even more of the same nonsense. And on we all go, circling the plughole.
It is to be hoped that a Labour government will be considerably less corrupt than appears to be the case at present. That alone ought to be enough to get them a second term.
We're going to get a repetition of 2010-15, but in reverse: Labour doing austerity and blaming it on the ineptitude of the Tories. Except that the public is totally sick of austerity and unwilling to stomach an endless diet of cuts as the price of somehow restoring the economy to health (which no amount of magical thinking about growth without useful action to achieve it is going to do.)
Labour will fail because it has no plan either to significantly redistribute wealth or to change spending priorities. It'll tinker around the edges, the state will continue to rot, and the remaining voters who can still be arsed with the circus will go straight back to the Tories next time.
Comments
I was worried
I suppose x2 elections in 1974 buggers that up.
This is a Welsh team of ten year olds, we should be trampling them at home
Nonetheless they showed character to come back fromt that deficit
That's ANOTHER match he called correctly. And he was close to the margin as well
He says he got all three right last week as well. Perhaps he is our new Roger-with-the-Oscars
There is still a lot of late Eddie Jones to get out of the system so don’t be a scared ninny and embrace hope. Or just watch and not care that much.
I love rugger. But I shall take your advice and suspend judgement until the end of the 6N
I would be happier with Marcus Smith back in the team, and fucksake find a way to get Arundell qualified
Heath and Thatcher are the only Leaders of the Opposition who had never been PM before who led their party back to power and won a general election after less than 10 years in Opposition in the last 100 years. Starmer if he wins still won't beat that given Labour lost power 14 years ago
The current iteration of the Tory Party are absolutely despised in swathes of the country who have really had enough - including among lots who were previously pretty open to voting Tory. Even a big retail offer would not be believed - especially when the public's most significant priorities are either against the Tories' ideological priors, or things they have demonstrably failed to do despite numerous snake oil promises.
You can't fix that in eight months. Especially if you're relying on someone who is effectively doubling down on your failures to do it. And there isn't the time to prove people's scepticism wrong with policies. The Tories blew those opportunities for a reset with Truss and Sunak.
The biggest sacred cow you could take to market in the Tory Party of course, that would genuinely shift perceptions of them, would be agreeing with where the general public are now and admitting Brexit was a terrible mistake. But somehow that is not what I think you had in mind. It certainly isn't going to happen with Badenoch or any other potential replacement.
Baldwin of course was twice nearly unseated due to defeats, and Macdonald was eventually expelled from his own party.
What made it worse was that the TMO said "yes. That's grounded" - clearly. Then at the last moment he kinda changed his mind and said Oooh, maybe I can't quite see it maybe not....
I don't believe it was corrupt but it was unprofessional. The ball was obvs grounded. Endex
Still vanishingly rare.
Blair and Brown ran the economy relatively well after 1997 which was why New Labour was re elected by a landslide in 2001 over Hague's Tories but previous Labour governments did not.
And stone cold sober
Not that Labour members are really much different when it comes to economics. Your typical North London champagne trot is every inch as selfish, as proven by the fact that the stubborn refusal of Reeves to do anything about the imbalance in taxation of earned incomes versus that of assets caused barely a murmur of dissent. The main dividing lines between parties (in England anyway; the remainder of the UK also has the pro and anti separatism divide to throw into the mix) are on fringe culture war issues like refugees and trans rights which don't motivate the huge and growing bloc of the ignored and thoroughly disengaged.
The next election is just going to result in a new cabal of austerity fixated upper middle class folk taking over ministerial offices in London. Nothing of significance will change in the country.
Nightynight
A row has erupted after a police staff member was said to have ordered a man to clean up his pet dog’s urine.
Steve Schuurman, 56, was walking his six-year-old pet Saluki rescue dog Margot through Bournemouth’s main square last week when she cocked her leg to relieve herself.
As the NHS worker walked off, he claims an “aggressive” female member of Dorset Police shouted at him “clear your f-----g dog p--s”.
He said when he challenged her, a council community safety patrol officer allegedly threatened to have him arrested if he did not move on.
Dorset Police and Bournemouth Council had a stall and van in the seaside town’s centre as part of a “day of action” after several high-profile crimes, including a fatal stabbing, in the area.
Mr Schuurman said he would have cleaned up any dog mess but he did not know what they expected him to do with dog urine.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/10/dog-pee-bournemouth-police-swear-clean-up-complaint-dorset/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you
In part.
From John Murdoch in the FT -
We tend to talk about the decline in young adults’ home ownership as if it were a universal phenomenon. This is wrong. The share of 25-34-year-olds who own their home in the US is 6 percentage points lower today than it was in 1990. In Germany it’s down 8 points, in France just 3, but in Britain the drop is 22 points.
It is immigration that has shafted young people in Britain.
ETA it was Hague (and arguably Major before him) who created this lose and resign fad.
What is screwing them is their taxes being used to feather the nests of retirees.
In the current age, engagement in the political process is worthless. If you want to be helpful and achieve anything then all you can really do is try to help yourself, your own family and friends, and be active in the local community and in support networks. Parliament might as well be on the Moon for all the use it is, and it's inhabitants aren't worth our time or worry.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/09/nao_pandemic_fraud_data/
See this poll from 2022
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/09/11/if-young-voters-actually-voted-then-be-afraid/
I've looked at the market regularly and cannot for the life of me understand why Badenoch is favorite. Normally when you spot an underpriced favorite it's a clear flag that there is value elsewhere, but damned if I can see it. Maybe it's true that the next Tory leader isn't in the House yet.
Like Pip (thanks for the piece, btw) I'd certainly lay KB at 2/1 but there's no fortune to made in that and even laying the other no-hopers too doesn't do more than sweat a few quid.
Bit of a no-bet market really. Maybe after the deluge....?
Most of what is wrong with this country can be traced back to over-indulgence of well-to-do older voters and of the very wealthy. Stuffing the land with more people like there's no tomorrow is just one aspect of this.
The death of nuance. The lack of awareness that things are complicated. And things very, very rarely have single causes.
Immigration is undoubtedly a factor in the drop in the rate of UK home ownership. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. But it is far from the only cause: if it is was the sole cause, then house prices would have risen much faster in the post-2006 period than in the twenty years before.
Here's two blindingly obvious factors that have played a role:
(1) Stamp duty preventing older people from trading down. Britain has an epidemic of homes that are too big for people. But - once stamp duty is taken into account - it's very rarely worth someone whose kids have left home downsizing. The number of homes in Britain with empty rooms is at a record, even as the housing shortage has gotten worse.
(2) Building regulations and raw material costs have made the cost of new builds dramatically higher. It costs - in real terms - more than twice as much to build a home today than it did in the early 2000s.
It’s tricky because I am English, but that refereeing was appalling. The interpretation of starting his kick for Ford was nonsense, plain and simple. The TMO should have had a word. The firstyellow card was bollocks. No doubt we will have a red card as per usual against Ireland.
In contrast, look at the UK. It's an exact match:
This is incorrect. The man responsible is Harry Kane.
https://twitter.com/paddypower/status/1756389436395536704
It must be a massive block on downsizing, as @rcs1000 and indeed free movement of labour.
Might see some results if you reduced pensions to pay down Government debt. Not a snowball in hell's chance of it happening though.
I don’t think any candidate is truly beyond the pale, and if the party has a truly catastrophic result (<150) there’s no telling the depths of insanity to which they will plumb.
Gove is conceivably a ‘unity’ candidate from a political POV, has the ambition and is in a reasonably safe seat. But l suspect policy is where unity ends with him, as he’s made a lot of enemies in his time (and tbh is not electorally appealing, though perhaps an ‘elder statesman’ gloss would help him a bit there). 66/1 atm.
If you want lower immigration, don’t vote for the party in power that has overseen the highest ever immigration on record.
Both areas are in a right state, and the Jenrick approach of being beastly to Johnny Foreigner or Suella’s ludicrous Rwanda ‘dream/obsession’ are just signals when it’s actual substance that is necessary.
Arguably the Conservative’s greatest impact on migration has been the destabilisation of Libya to massively empower criminal people traffickers (also, for different reasons and perhaps less culpability, the involvement in Syria and Afghanistan).
It would be worth trawling the list to find a first time candidate inheriting a rock-solid seat but after an exhausting day watching the Rugby, I can't be bothered.
We’re Not Eating Enough Bacon, and That’s a Problem for the Economy
The American pork industry has become so efficient that demand can’t keep up with supply
https://www.wsj.com/business/bacon-pork-hog-farming-farmers-pigs-cf9d6f22?st=bemo1ca2qxnlh4v&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
A trickle at first, queuing patiently in the early morning gloom, wrapped up warm against the bitter Midlands chill.
Then, as thin winter sun fails to break through skies grey as slate, that trickle turns to a deluge and the line grows ever longer, snaking back from the shuttered beige food truck emblazoned with 'JACKET SPUDS', through Tamworth's St Editha's Square, and back, deep into the shopping precinct.
By 10am, when the wagon opens for business, it's two hours to the front. These potato pilgrims hail from every corner of the globe, as far afield as Australia. And they're all here to see one man - Ben Newman, right, better known to his 2.3million TikTok followers as Spudman. 'It's like this every day,' says Ben, luxuriously bearded and sporting his now trademark pink Mohican. 'It's just crazy.'"
Mail+
The world has gone mad I tell you.
Starmer's u-turn has just emphasised Sunak's attack that 'He has no plan' and shown that in a 'change election' Labour might not be for change.
Opinium
@OpiniumResearch
🚨Snap poll alert🚨
Our latest research with the
@ECIU_UK
shows that voters are more likely to interpret the climate U-turn as Labour lacking real plans for power (43%) rather than merely demonstrating that they will be fiscally responsible (25%).
The Conservatives get everything wrong/
The chances of any of these things happening are zero. Neither the immensely powerful grey vote nor the various party memberships will wear it. Thus there is no prospect of meaningful change and no point in engagement with the political process. Britain is no longer a functioning democracy, it is an oligarchy. The cycle of elections is just window dressing intended to maintain a pretence to the contrary, and barely more convincing than the more obvious sham votes in Russia and other such places.
That alone ought to be enough to get them a second term.
In 2015, the crossover point in how you voted by age was your late 30s. It was early 40s in 2019. At the moment it's around 70. This isn't normal and there is a deeper thing going on here where people have stopped voting Tory, or becoming slightly more sympathetic to conservatism as they age. In 2019, despite Corbyn still having dire ratings (he even still had negative ratings with 18-24 year olds, just not as much) with those in their 30s, Labour was ahead with them by 16 points. That looks to just be carrying on as people age. There's a divide there that's generational and anti-Tory having spent their adult lives living under Tory governments they see as having failed them. And it's a long-term distaste.
At the moment if you meet someone under 60 they are roughly as likely to believe the moon landings didn't happen as vote Conservative.
Absent something restoring the general drift towards conservatism as people age, demographics mean that's going to become worse. And worryingly for them the one thing that might have in the past - housing - if fixed by Labour on any scale, may well lock in people more.
Is that recoverable eventually? Sure. No one ever won money betting on permanent Tory extinction. But I think it's going to require much more of a dark night of the soul and rethinking than installing someone who isn't from the demonstrably crackers wing of the party (but still believes in its shibboleths) and hoping the electorate see the error of their ways in a few years.
So, provided you have some equity to start with, very high house prices became much more affordable. And most of the time, house prices stick to the 'highest price a buyer will pay' bit of the grey area, rather than 'the lowest price a seller will accept'.
(The deposit on my first house in 2001 was £7000, and that was commutable from Cambridge. Read and weep, millennials.)
The benefit of making that the key (not only, but key) issue is that it explains the Two Nations effect we are seeing. A chunk of the country utterly screwed, and a chunk who have never had it so good.
And while we could squeeze more capacity out of our current housing stock by downsizing retirees and freeing up family homes for families, that's not just a fiscal thing. As anyone with elderly parents knows, it can be bloody hard to persuade them to move, even when they can't really run a big house any more.
We do actually have to build some more family sized houses.
But the image of the indefatigable Gallic lover has taken a huge knock this week: according to a major new survey, France is in the middle of its very own “sex recession”.
The poll by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) found that 24 per cent of French adults aged between 18 and 69 said they had had no sex over the previous 12 months, compared with 9 per cent in 2006. The proportion of those aged 18 to 24 who had never had sex was 28 per cent, up from 5 per cent in 2006. Overall, 43 per cent of the 1,911 respondents said they had sex at least once a week, compared with 58 per cent in 2009.
Overall, the proportion of French people who have had sexual intercourse in the past year – 76 per cent on average – is at its lowest level in 50 years.
I can understood why you would find that disturbing, but I am sure you understand why I find it enlivening.
Mr Bolton said that the Foreign Secretary’s remarks were no way to treat an ally at a time when Israel was being “menaced” by Iran and responding to an attack that he said was “comparable” to 9/11.
In January, Lord Cameron told a meeting of Arab ambassadors in London that Britain would “look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state” to see whether it could help to secure “irreversible” progress towards a two-state solution.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/10/david-cameron-put-knife-in-israel-back/
Labour leads by 18 points
• Labour 43% (n/c)
• Conservatives 25% (-2)
• Lib Dems 11% (+1)
• SNP 2% (-1%)
• Greens 7% (+1)
• Reform 10% (n/c)
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1756407689570132235
Stamp Duty was also a factor, but much less of one.
Labour will fail because it has no plan either to significantly redistribute wealth or to change spending priorities. It'll tinker around the edges, the state will continue to rot, and the remaining voters who can still be arsed with the circus will go straight back to the Tories next time.
🚨 New polling with @ObserverUK
Labour leads by 18 points
• Labour 43% (n/c)
• Conservatives 25% (-2)
• Lib Dems 11% (+1)
• SNP 2% (-1%)
• Greens 7% (+1)
• Reform 10% (n/c)
We have seen two point increases in the Labour lead consistently across our last three polls.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1756407689570132235