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.
They certainly seem to have trouble working out where their balls are, that's for sure.
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.
I don't find it disturbing at all. Just a little sad and pathetically delusional. A party that has become despised by large parts of the country for pursuing a set of disastrous policies, does not restore its fortunes by doubling down on them.
It does so by honestly evaluating where it has gone wrong and why voters have turned against it (clue - it's not by not being not right-wing and Brexity enough).
@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.
@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.
Yet is is true that on all the issues currently becoming hot potato topics, immigration, taxation, low economical growth, where yes, the Tories are doing horrendously badly, Labour has placed itself on the wrong side of all those arguments. The economical damage of Net Zero will be the next one to hit - the EU has just dropped a raft of its Net Zero policies due to popular revolt - and Labour are caught on the wrong side of that one too. That makes them devastatingly vulnerable to a revived right.
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.
The item above the line is all about the identity of the likely next Tory leader. I was offering an opinion on the subject and explaining my reasoning. I think it sound: it hardly seems likely that the Conservative membership is about to repent of many years of steady rightward drift and invite one of the surviving One Nation types to have a turn, now does it?
Someone who was Prime Minister for six years only beating David Lammy by 3% on foreign policy isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
Oh it is when you consider this.
On issues, the biggest leads continue to be healthcare, public services/benefits and inequality.
The only area with some significant movement is foreign affairs. Labour now hold a 5 point lead on being the best government to handle this compared to a 1 point lead two weeks ago.
Someone who was Prime Minister for six years only beating David Lammy by 3% on foreign policy isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
Lammy’s just a really interesting politician. I don’t claim to know him in the slightest, but I had a, what, 3 minute conversation with him in 2022 and came away thinking this man has some interesting but unpredictable depths.
To be honest if I had to spend a weekend at Chevening or Chequers with a couple of front benchers I wouldn’t mind it being Lammy and Cameron.
Just because every time 2019 Tory voters are asked, they say they prefer Boris to Sunak, doesn’t mean the Conservatives were wrong to force him out. The level of hate for Johnson from non Tories will somehow make that bigger pile of vote less valuable
When will these pollsters learn?
Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again > Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson > Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
I thought last year that he might get Hunt to announce a load of bribes in the Budget and then go to the country, but the Autumn Statement will do just as well (and give them a few more months in office,) I suppose.
The polls are unlikely to move before the election campaign begins. After that, we shall see. Theresa May was on for a landslide til about five minutes before the 2017 vote, and look what happened to her.
If Kellner is correct in what Opinum is doing, that’s a 46-22 poll.
The Conservative Party is in trouble. And it’s the assassinations of May, Boris and Truss that’s gradually ripped the guts out of the party's credibility with electorate, my Dad said today.
Someone who was Prime Minister for six years only beating David Lammy by 3% on foreign policy isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
Lammy’s just a really interesting politician. I don’t claim to know him in the slightest, but I had a, what, 3 minute conversation with him in 2022 and came away thinking this man has some interesting but unpredictable depths.
To be honest if I had to spend a weekend at Chevening or Chequers with a couple of front benchers I wouldn’t mind it being Lammy and Cameron.
I prefer Chevening to Chequers.
Haven't been to either for quite some time ***sobs***.
@JohnO has been to Chevening more recently than me, he likes it too.
Someone who was Prime Minister for six years only beating David Lammy by 3% on foreign policy isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
Lammy’s just a really interesting politician. I don’t claim to know him in the slightest, but I had a, what, 3 minute conversation with him in 2022 and came away thinking this man has some interesting but unpredictable depths.
To be honest if I had to spend a weekend at Chevening or Chequers with a couple of front benchers I wouldn’t mind it being Lammy and Cameron.
I mean he's worked for YouGov and Opinium, but I wasn't aware he in charge of them.
I mean if he was really partisan Opinium wouldn't have the most Tory friendly methodology.
Less of the ‘I mean’s’
Did they have that methodology while he was there? I just remember him always putting an anti Tory slant on his Twitter comments on polling, so when he announced he was standing for Labour it made sense
He's not wrong though, is he? The more people see of Sunak, the less they like him. True of most politicians, of course, but he's an extreme case.
Whoever said that Sunak would be "hitting the road" (today's Times) was either dumb to the allusion or the kind of subtle insulter who I'd like to know.
Just because every time 2019 Tory voters are asked, they say they prefer Boris to Sunak, doesn’t mean the Conservative were wrong to force him out. The level of hate for Johnson from non Tories will somehow make that bigger pile of vote less valuable
When will these pollsters learn?
Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again > Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson > Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
I don't doubt that Johnson could win back a lot of those Reform voters - more than he would lose to the centre I suspect. However, the end result would still be a very public GE defeat. I think he prefers being able to write his weekly column and have Cons dreaming about their prince over the water
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
Just because every time 2019 Tory voters are asked, they say they prefer Boris to Sunak, doesn’t mean the Conservative were wrong to force him out. The level of hate for Johnson from non Tories will somehow make that bigger pile of vote less valuable
When will these pollsters learn?
Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again > Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson > Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
I thought it incredibly insulting to the constituents for Bones girlfriend to be picked as candidate by the Tories . Rumours were that Bone threatened to stand as an independent if they didn’t pick her .
I mean he's worked for YouGov and Opinium, but I wasn't aware he in charge of them.
I mean if he was really partisan Opinium wouldn't have the most Tory friendly methodology.
Less of the ‘I mean’s’
Did they have that methodology while he was there? I just remember him always putting an anti Tory slant on his Twitter comments on polling, so when he announced he was standing for Labour it made sense
Yes, he was there when that methodology was developed and implemented.
"While we need to build housing, it should be with local people on board and with corresponding infrastructure investment."
Like it is all nothing remotely to do with him or his ageing government.
This, of course, us yet another excuse to not bother. The Government will say it has no money for the infrastructure, and besides the local people will have said no because nimbies mobilise against most housing developments. We see the bitterness towards any kind of development frequently in local elections: the Green eruption last year in East Herts, one of the districts adjacent to that in which I live, was attributable entirely to the threat of new housing.
They pretend they want to build but they don't. At all. And the other lot are no different. It's all lies.
I mean he's worked for YouGov and Opinium, but I wasn't aware he in charge of them.
I mean if he was really partisan Opinium wouldn't have the most Tory friendly methodology.
Less of the ‘I mean’s’
Did they have that methodology while he was there? I just remember him always putting an anti Tory slant on his Twitter comments on polling, so when he announced he was standing for Labour it made sense
Yes, he was there when that methodology was developed and implemented.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
If Kellner is correct in what Opinum is doing, that’s a 46-22 poll.
The Conservative Party is in trouble. And it’s the assassinations of May, Boris and Truss that’s gradually ripped the guts out of the party's credibility with electorate, my Dad said today.
They're in a profoundly odd position where they have managed to burn through five leaders in 8 years but are unable to admit that the direction of the party that's resulted in this chaos might not be the best way to run a country. So are doomed to keep making the same mistakes.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
Blimey, what has happened to you? I’ve been saying this for about a decade and can’t remember you agreeing once
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
FWIW I don't agree about 2nd May, but if it were then dissolution is roughly 26th March. Which is very soon.
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
That tax cut in the pay packets hasn't exactly made much of a difference. Largely because for most people it either didn't exist or was wiped out by there being no help with energy bills. People do not trust what politicians tell them. They do not believe that this Govt is cutting taxes. They would have to actually feel a notable gain in their pockets. If Mr Sunak drove round distributing £50 notes then most people would assume they were fake and throw them away. You get one chance with people as a politician nowadays - once they stop listening it doesn't matter what you say.
I mean he's worked for YouGov and Opinium, but I wasn't aware he in charge of them.
I mean if he was really partisan Opinium wouldn't have the most Tory friendly methodology.
Less of the ‘I mean’s’
Did they have that methodology while he was there? I just remember him always putting an anti Tory slant on his Twitter comments on polling, so when he announced he was standing for Labour it made sense
Yes, he was there when that methodology was developed and implemented.
Just because every time 2019 Tory voters are asked, they say they prefer Boris to Sunak, doesn’t mean the Conservative were wrong to force him out. The level of hate for Johnson from non Tories will somehow make that bigger pile of vote less valuable
When will these pollsters learn?
Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again > Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson > Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
I thought it incredibly insulting to the constituents for Bones girlfriend to be picked as candidate by the Tories . Rumours were that Bone threatened to stand as an independent if they didn’t pick her .
Well the last thing any Party wants is their supporters split by an unbridled Bone.
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
FWIW I don't agree about 2nd May, but if it were then dissolution is roughly 26th March. Which is very soon.
Well, we now have a part-time PM running an election campaign three days a week. That certainly could be the build-up to a spring election.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
"While we need to build housing, it should be with local people on board and with corresponding infrastructure investment."
Like it is all nothing remotely to do with him or his ageing government.
This, of course, us yet another excuse to not bother. The Government will say it has no money for the infrastructure, and besides the local people will have said no because nimbies mobilise against most housing developments. We see the bitterness towards any kind of development frequently in local elections: the Green eruption last year in East Herts, one of the districts adjacent to that in which I live, was attributable entirely to the threat of new housing.
They pretend they want to build but they don't. At all. And the other lot are no different. It's all lies.
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
FWIW I don't agree about 2nd May, but if it were then dissolution is roughly 26th March. Which is very soon.
Correct. This Parliament ends on 26th March. After the Labour has no plan/we are giving you your money back as things get better is there a better plan than that, budget.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
Blimey, what has happened to you? I’ve been saying this for about a decade and can’t remember you agreeing once
First, although I was was - and remain! - largely positive about the impact of EU migration, I always thought the numbers a margin too high.
What’s happened since then, so far as I can see, is the numbers have gone higher again, and I suspect the quality of migrants has deteriorated. I’m alarmed by the current volumes, and the number of dependents coming with them.
I also think this current government have acted with despicable incompetence across the whole gambit of migration, from asylum processing to the way it’s been possible to game the points system. And I don’t trust Labour to do much different right now.
Finally, the global trend is for migration to keep increasing and frankly I don’t think liberal democracies can cohere under such trends.
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
I'm sure the Conservatives would like to go on May 2nd, for the reasons you list.
But if they do that, they're out of office sometime in the early hours of May 3rd. A bit later if you time it by the moment of going to the Palace.
So then the question becomes "Why not have another six months in government? Best case, something turns up. Worst case, we lose even more badly." It probably chucks another tranche of Conservative MPs onto the furnace, but why is that a problem?
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
You might find that the last remaining defenders of the ancien régime will be in the Tory party, still banging on about our international reputation and the need to be an aid superpower.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
Most migration is not about being a refugee. It's about needing massive numbers of people to run the systems of the nation from CEO of FTSE 100 companies to carrot pickers, and the collateral effects of this (family, marriage etc). This looks unstoppable for now.
As to refugees, horrible though it is, the answer is to equalise. The rights of all refugees anywhere in the world to be identical, and to match the provision in the poorest states. If the entitlement of refugees anywhere was three meals a day in a tent in the desert + primary education for children + passage home as soon as circumstances change the whole thing would look different.
That, more or less, is how it is in Chad and Bangladesh.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I think the situation is far less clear cut than this. Immigration is far from the top of the political agenda, and to the extent that it is the focus is almost all on the boat people, who account for only a small fraction of the total.
The truth is that Labour will end up presenting itself as more pro-immigration than the Tories because it's a culture wars topic that matters to the party membership, and enables them to maintain an appearance of difference from those nasty right wingers in a period when there is almost nothing to separate the main parties on bread and butter economic policy. There is also a broader consensus in private that high immigration is needed to ease labour shortages (so much easier than sorting out the health and upskilling needs of the existing workforce,) and increasing the population helps to pump prime house prices, which is excellent news for the elderly owner-occupiers and wealthy landlords whose interests are always a political priority.
The Tories have to sound more hard-line on migration because it is what their membership and the legacy Tory press expects, but in reality the ongoing importation of labour suits both sides very nicely. Business wants it, and nicking doctors and nurses from developing countries is a far cheaper means of trying to stave off the final collapse of the tottering NHS than spending a fortune on public sector pay rises and student bursaries.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
Blimey, what has happened to you? I’ve been saying this for about a decade and can’t remember you agreeing once
Maybe hes suddenly become a rac..t. It can happen with age.
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.
The item above the line is all about the identity of the likely next Tory leader. I was offering an opinion on the subject and explaining my reasoning. I think it sound: it hardly seems likely that the Conservative membership is about to repent of many years of steady rightward drift and invite one of the surviving One Nation types to have a turn, now does it?
Sunak is as One Nation a leader as the Tories are likely to get for the next decade
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
Hungarian President Katalin Novak resigns over child abuse pardon scandal
The president of Hungary has resigned live on television over a decision to pardon a man convicted of covering up a child sexual abuse case.
It was revealed last week Katalin Novak had given clemency to a man jailed for forcing children to retract sexual abuse claims against a director of a state-run children's home.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
To the numbers, no. Asylum isn’t the issue in raw numbers. To the number of difficult to integrate, slightly stabby immigrants, quite possibly.
Having said that, if the number of asylum seekers were to rise from 50k a year to 250k a year due to broader trends, the numbers certainly would matter.
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
I'm sure the Conservatives would like to go on May 2nd, for the reasons you list.
But if they do that, they're out of office sometime in the early hours of May 3rd. A bit later if you time it by the moment of going to the Palace.
So then the question becomes "Why not have another six months in government? Best case, something turns up. Worst case, we lose even more badly." It probably chucks another tranche of Conservative MPs onto the furnace, but why is that a problem?
No. Micaberism is magic based, but elections are science. You know in advance the period you are likely to get the best possible result in the year through modelling, and you arrange in advance to peak that moment - like they do in sport. You can’t change course this late in.
The idea political campaigns are made up on the hoof, and trusted to fate is just not true.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I think the situation is far less clear cut than this. Immigration is far from the top of the political agenda, and to the extent that it is the focus is almost all on the boat people, who account for only a small fraction of the total.
The truth is that Labour will end up presenting itself as more pro-immigration than the Tories because it's a culture wars topic that matters to the party membership, and enables them to maintain an appearance of difference from those nasty right wingers in a period when there is almost nothing to separate the main parties on bread and butter economic policy. There is also a broader consensus in private that high immigration is needed to ease labour shortages (so much easier than sorting out the health and upskilling needs of the existing workforce,) and increasing the population helps to pump prime house prices, which is excellent news for the elderly owner-occupiers and wealthy landlords whose interests are always a political priority.
The Tories have to sound more hard-line on migration because it is what their membership and the legacy Tory press expects, but in reality the ongoing importation of labour suits both sides very nicely. Business wants it, and nicking doctors and nurses from developing countries is a far cheaper means of trying to stave off the final collapse of the tottering NHS than spending a fortune on public sector pay rises and student bursaries.
Absolutely. Mass immigration will continue and likely accelerate. The public may have to accept it if they dont want the uk in permanent recession.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
The problem is that the have nots (i.e. younger people) are the ones most in favour of it.
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.
In 1997 the Tories didn't even win over 65s and lost every age group, it is just the mood for change after 14 years of Conservative government.
If Labour get more young people under 40 owning property they just make more young people future Tories so I doubt they will push that too hard, renters are what Labour wants.
The economy under a Labour government is far more relevant than what the Tories do in Opposition, the Tories don't need a majority of voters under 40, they need most voters 40-60 to win and if inflation is high, interest rates are high, taxes are high and strikes frequent under a Labour government they will swing back to the opposition Conservatives again
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
That tax cut in the pay packets hasn't exactly made much of a difference. Largely because for most people it either didn't exist or was wiped out by there being no help with energy bills. People do not trust what politicians tell them. They do not believe that this Govt is cutting taxes. They would have to actually feel a notable gain in their pockets. If Mr Sunak drove round distributing £50 notes then most people would assume they were fake and throw them away. You get one chance with people as a politician nowadays - once they stop listening it doesn't matter what you say.
These days I mostly look at my payslip and see the headline pay figure, then the deductions just blur onto "Loads". Then I tune out.
I'm not sure 1p off a tax here, or a tweak of allowance there is going to sway my vote much.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
Thankfully for Keir, the have-nots will keep voting Labour regardless. For now at least.
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%).
Those seem like leading questions. I doubt most people would independently analyse the U turn as those alternatives.
FWIW I think Starmer's problem is slightly different. He seems incapable of articulating what Labour would do differently and why it's better. As an easily absorbed idea. "Labour is the party that does X". He needs to articulate the X.
I must confess I thought Opinium would be better for the Conservatives but Starmer’s backtracking on Green environments was only going to cost him votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens while after what only @Mexicanpete seems to think has been a good week for Sunak the Conservatives remain below 30% and occasionally even below 25%.
I am also told by @MoonRabbit the election will be on May 2nd after what presumably will be a “jam today, more jam tomorrow if you vote the right way” budget. I’m not convinced.
Is the coming election going to be about immigration? It will simmer below the surface I’m certain but is Richard Tice Britain’s answer to Geert Wilders? Seems unlikely - I don’t even know what Reform’s immigration policy is let alone whether they would advocate something akin to Wilders.
The truth is immigration bumps up against the fact of a declining work force. As the number of indigenous workers falls where, until the coming of AI, are the replacements for those simply giving up on work? The expected response from the Right seems to be to bang on about cutting welfare - so we force pensioners back to work by cutting their pensions?
London has seen a construction boom in recent years - I’d argue the only difference with Pharaoh is at least we pay the foreign construction workers rather than enslave them.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
Thankfully for Keir, the have-nots will keep voting Labour regardless. For now at least.
Boris won a lot of have nots in 2019. Indeed he was the first Conservative leader ever to win most DEs, the semi skilled and unskilled working class and unemployed and state pension reliant pensioners
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
I'm sure the Conservatives would like to go on May 2nd, for the reasons you list.
But if they do that, they're out of office sometime in the early hours of May 3rd. A bit later if you time it by the moment of going to the Palace.
So then the question becomes "Why not have another six months in government? Best case, something turns up. Worst case, we lose even more badly." It probably chucks another tranche of Conservative MPs onto the furnace, but why is that a problem?
No. Micaberism is magic based, but elections are science. You know in advance the period you are likely to get the best possible result in the year through modelling, and you arrange in advance to peak that moment - like they do in sport. You can’t change course this late in.
The idea political campaigns are made up on the hoof, and trusted to fate is just not true.
It's a generation ago, but Gyles Brandreth's diaries of his time as an MP between 1992 and 1997 suggest otherwise. Or consider May in 2017. In politics, there is no secret door behind which the strategic geniuses are kept.
And best result for who? The party as a whole would survive best by going in May, yes. It optimises the number of Conservative MPs in the next Parliament. But on the opposition benches.
For Sunak, Hunt and the rest of the government, it just means taking the one way ride to Obscurityville six months earlier than strictly necessary. Unless the polls narrow a lot, the best result for them is hanging on as long as possible. Same as every other government drawing to a close.
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%).
😏
What you have got to factor in, if Labour had left it as it was, what was going to happen?
Until Thursday Labour had a green policy deal of £28B extra a year (£140B over term of parliament) paid for from an inherited economy maxxed out on tax intake, maxxed out on borrowing, £1Trilion a year public sector bill for crumbling public services, not least Health, Education and defence, and barely a feather of growth for ages, also until yesterday its £28B spending commitment was completely vague on what items they intended to actually buy with £28Billion a year of additional public spending on this one department alone.
If Labour had left it as it was, what was going to happen? the Tories and their client media would have gone to town on it. And the wall to wall Tory propaganda would have been absolutely right: It was a £140B Green Jihad on the motorist, public finances and tax payers pocket, the state of the economy just can’t commit to right now.
Labour has sealed the deal with the electorate last Thursday, and it wasn’t even a tough or brave decision.
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.
even more incredible really, Sunak and other Tories are arguing that this example - this conscious act of Labours top team to rationalise the “unfundable splurge” down to something actually vaguely sane, vaguely fundable for a manifesto - is all the proof you now need that Labour are UNFIT for office? 😶 🤣
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I think the situation is far less clear cut than this. Immigration is far from the top of the political agenda, and to the extent that it is the focus is almost all on the boat people, who account for only a small fraction of the total.
The truth is that Labour will end up presenting itself as more pro-immigration than the Tories because it's a culture wars topic that matters to the party membership, and enables them to maintain an appearance of difference from those nasty right wingers in a period when there is almost nothing to separate the main parties on bread and butter economic policy. There is also a broader consensus in private that high immigration is needed to ease labour shortages (so much easier than sorting out the health and upskilling needs of the existing workforce,) and increasing the population helps to pump prime house prices, which is excellent news for the elderly owner-occupiers and wealthy landlords whose interests are always a political priority.
The Tories have to sound more hard-line on migration because it is what their membership and the legacy Tory press expects, but in reality the ongoing importation of labour suits both sides very nicely. Business wants it, and nicking doctors and nurses from developing countries is a far cheaper means of trying to stave off the final collapse of the tottering NHS than spending a fortune on public sector pay rises and student bursaries.
There's something in this. Though I am not quite as cynical. One point is that we've had our populist revolt and hardline posturing it hasn't worked on its own terms. We've done hostile environment, Brexit, barges, Rwanda. The Home Office being deliberately Kafkaesque. Raising pay thresholds for family reunion and so on.
Of course it doesn't work if you have labour shortages you can't easily plug with homegrown workers and institutions and businesses reliant on having an open economy and knowledge sector.
So though high levels of immigration are still unpopular - there's now I think more scepticism of the peddlers of hardline easy answers. It's notable that for the first time I can remember Labour lead the Tories on immigration as an issue despite them being thoroughly middle of the road on it - and concerted campaigning to cast them as liberal lefty do-gooders.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
Thankfully for Keir, the have-nots will keep voting Labour regardless. For now at least.
Yes, but in declining numbers. I reckon that the disparity in turnout between older and younger voters will increase at the next election. In the long run this, combined with the gradual increase in age profile of the electorate overall, favours the Conservatives. I think that Labour will fail in Government and the Tories won't struggle to find the votes to get back in again in 2029 or whenever.
Of course, in the very long term growing numbers of people reaching old age still stuck renting, and forced to work until they drop dead because their housing costs are astronomical and their crap money purchase private pensions are near worthless, will work against the Conservatives. But today's Tory politicians care about the next election, not about what happens to their party in thirty years' time.
Philippe Lazzarini @UNLazzarini - UNRWA did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza.
- UNRWA is made aware of reports through the media regarding a tunnel under the UNRWA Headquarters in Gaza.
- UNRWA staff left its headquarters in Gaza City on 12 October following the Israeli evacuation orders and as bombardment intensified in the area.
- We have not used that compound since we left it nor are we aware of any activity that may have taken place there.
- We understand, through media reporting, that the Israeli Army has deployed troops within the UNRWA Headquarters in Gaza City.
- We are therefore unable to confirm or otherwise comment on these reports.
- In times of “no active conflict” UNRWA inspects inside its premises every quarter, the last inspection for the UNRWA Gaza premises was completed in September 2023.
- UNRWA is a Human development and humanitarian organisation that does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises.
- In the past, whenever suspicious cavity was found close to or under UNRWA premises, protest letters were promptly filed to parties to the conflict, including both the de facto authorities in Gaza (Hamas) and the Israeli authorities. The matter was consistently reported in annual reports presented to the General Assembly and made public.
- These recent media reports merit an independent inquiry that is currently not possible to undertake given Gaza is an active war zone.
- The Israeli Authorities have not informed UNRWA officially about the alleged tunnel.
I must confess I thought Opinium would be better for the Conservatives but Starmer’s backtracking on Green environments was only going to cost him votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens while after what only @Mexicanpete seems to think has been a good week for Sunak the Conservatives remain below 30% and occasionally even below 25%.
I am also told by @MoonRabbit the election will be on May 2nd after what presumably will be a “jam today, more jam tomorrow if you vote the right way” budget. I’m not convinced.
Is the coming election going to be about immigration? It will simmer below the surface I’m certain but is Richard Tice Britain’s answer to Geert Wilders? Seems unlikely - I don’t even know what Reform’s immigration policy is let alone whether they would advocate something akin to Wilders.
The truth is immigration bumps up against the fact of a declining work force. As the number of indigenous workers falls where, until the coming of AI, are the replacements for those simply giving up on work? The expected response from the Right seems to be to bang on about cutting welfare - so we force pensioners back to work by cutting their pensions?
London has seen a construction boom in recent years - I’d argue the only difference with Pharaoh is at least we pay the foreign construction workers rather than enslave them.
This one's for @Leon , who told us the "ONLY REASON" Biden didn't get charged was because he's senile.
If you can't be bothered reading the several hundred pages of the report, this article is probably the next best thing. Recommended read.
https://www.justsecurity.org/92090/the-real-robert-hur-report-versus-what-you-read-in-the-news/ The Special Counsel Robert Hur report has been grossly mischaracterized by the press. The report finds that the evidence of a knowing, willful violation of the criminal laws is wanting. Indeed, the report, on page 6, notes that there are “innocent explanations” that Hur “cannot refute.” That is but one of myriad examples we outline in great detail below of the report repeatedly finding a lack of proof. And those findings mean, in DOJ-speak, there is simply no case. Unrefuted innocent explanations is the sine qua non of not just a case that does not meet the standard for criminal prosecution – it means innocence. Or as former Attorney General Bill Barr and his former boss would have put it, a total vindication..
Over 125,000 applicants rejected from British Army ...
Over the span of the past five years, ‘medical reasons’ have emerged as the foremost cause for rejection in the British Army, with a total of 76,187 applicants disqualified on this basis.
Following closely behind, oddly, the challenge of limited vacancies has notably impacted Commonwealth applicants, accounting for a total of 23,763 rejections during the same period. This considerable figure points to the intense competition for positions available to Commonwealth applicants within the Army, suggesting either an uptick in interest from Commonwealth nations or a reduction in available spots within the Army’s recruitment framework. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/over-125000-applicants-rejected-from-british-army/
Over 125,000 applicants rejected from British Army ...
Over the span of the past five years, ‘medical reasons’ have emerged as the foremost cause for rejection in the British Army, with a total of 76,187 applicants disqualified on this basis.
Following closely behind, oddly, the challenge of limited vacancies has notably impacted Commonwealth applicants, accounting for a total of 23,763 rejections during the same period. This considerable figure points to the intense competition for positions available to Commonwealth applicants within the Army, suggesting either an uptick in interest from Commonwealth nations or a reduction in available spots within the Army’s recruitment framework. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/over-125000-applicants-rejected-from-british-army/
This one's for @Leon , who told us the "ONLY REASON" Biden didn't get charged was because he's senile.
If you can't be bothered reading the several hundred pages of the report, this article is probably the next best thing. Recommended read.
https://www.justsecurity.org/92090/the-real-robert-hur-report-versus-what-you-read-in-the-news/ The Special Counsel Robert Hur report has been grossly mischaracterized by the press. The report finds that the evidence of a knowing, willful violation of the criminal laws is wanting. Indeed, the report, on page 6, notes that there are “innocent explanations” that Hur “cannot refute.” That is but one of myriad examples we outline in great detail below of the report repeatedly finding a lack of proof. And those findings mean, in DOJ-speak, there is simply no case. Unrefuted innocent explanations is the sine qua non of not just a case that does not meet the standard for criminal prosecution – it means innocence. Or as former Attorney General Bill Barr and his former boss would have put it, a total vindication..
Even so, the fact it is A reason is surely enough to make him unfit to be President.
Hungarian President Katalin Novak resigns over child abuse pardon scandal
The president of Hungary has resigned live on television over a decision to pardon a man convicted of covering up a child sexual abuse case.
It was revealed last week Katalin Novak had given clemency to a man jailed for forcing children to retract sexual abuse claims against a director of a state-run children's home.
The thing to remember whenever Orban starts sounding off is this.
Hungary: population 9.71 million people. Poland: population 37.75 million people.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
Thankfully for Keir, the have-nots will keep voting Labour regardless. For now at least.
Yes, but in declining numbers. I reckon that the disparity in turnout between older and younger voters will increase at the next election. In the long run this, combined with the gradual increase in age profile of the electorate overall, favours the Conservatives. I think that Labour will fail in Government and the Tories won't struggle to find the votes to get back in again in 2029 or whenever.
Of course, in the very long term growing numbers of people reaching old age still stuck renting, and forced to work until they drop dead because their housing costs are astronomical and their crap money purchase private pensions are near worthless, will work against the Conservatives. But today's Tory politicians care about the next election, not about what happens to their party in thirty years' time.
Even now by 40 more own property with or without a mortgage than rent, while more pensioners own property than did in the 1990s. So we are still some way from that scenario. More at least will have some extra income in retirement through workplace pensions than just relying on the state pension
Dominic Penna @DominicPenna 🚨 Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again > Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson > Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
I must confess I thought Opinium would be better for the Conservatives but Starmer’s backtracking on Green environments was only going to cost him votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens while after what only @Mexicanpete seems to think has been a good week for Sunak the Conservatives remain below 30% and occasionally even below 25%.
I am also told by @MoonRabbit the election will be on May 2nd after what presumably will be a “jam today, more jam tomorrow if you vote the right way” budget. I’m not convinced.
Is the coming election going to be about immigration? It will simmer below the surface I’m certain but is Richard Tice Britain’s answer to Geert Wilders? Seems unlikely - I don’t even know what Reform’s immigration policy is let alone whether they would advocate something akin to Wilders.
The truth is immigration bumps up against the fact of a declining work force. As the number of indigenous workers falls where, until the coming of AI, are the replacements for those simply giving up on work? The expected response from the Right seems to be to bang on about cutting welfare - so we force pensioners back to work by cutting their pensions?
London has seen a construction boom in recent years - I’d argue the only difference with Pharaoh is at least we pay the foreign construction workers rather than enslave them.
Record immigration, and record numbers inactive, yet business wants yet more foreign workers.
I don’t know the nature of the 900,000 vacancies - are these in low pay long hours jobs or something else?
Since the 1950s we have had to bring in foreign labour to do many of the jobs British people won’t do for the money business wants or can afford to pay.
Quite frankly I'm a political geek and find it difficult to have an opinion on Rachel Reeves. I find these word clouds a little like the OFSTED one word reviews. But with a little less need for CPOMS.
Nothing's happening. The polls are becalmed. We've been stuck at about a 20 point lead for months now.
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
May 2nd it is. Two biggest composite reasons Peter.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
I'm sure the Conservatives would like to go on May 2nd, for the reasons you list.
But if they do that, they're out of office sometime in the early hours of May 3rd. A bit later if you time it by the moment of going to the Palace.
So then the question becomes "Why not have another six months in government? Best case, something turns up. Worst case, we lose even more badly." It probably chucks another tranche of Conservative MPs onto the furnace, but why is that a problem?
No. Micaberism is magic based, but elections are science. You know in advance the period you are likely to get the best possible result in the year through modelling, and you arrange in advance to peak that moment - like they do in sport. You can’t change course this late in.
The idea political campaigns are made up on the hoof, and trusted to fate is just not true.
It's a generation ago, but Gyles Brandreth's diaries of his time as an MP between 1992 and 1997 suggest otherwise. Or consider May in 2017. In politics, there is no secret door behind which the strategic geniuses are kept.
And best result for who? The party as a whole would survive best by going in May, yes. It optimises the number of Conservative MPs in the next Parliament. But on the opposition benches.
For Sunak, Hunt and the rest of the government, it just means taking the one way ride to Obscurityville six months earlier than strictly necessary. Unless the polls narrow a lot, the best result for them is hanging on as long as possible. Same as every other government drawing to a close.
“For Sunak, Hunt and the rest of the government, it just means taking the one way ride to Obscurityville six months earlier than strictly necessary.”
Ha. 😏 Thanks for that thought Stu, I can clear this up right now. Because Rarely are election results so certain this far out.
They are not enjoying themselves like you think they are. They want out. It’s 2nd May not just because it’s best day this year for the Tory party to fight on and get best result, but best for those who know they are moving on to better things too. All of them really, not just Sunak, Hunt etc. all of them, right down, right down into the con clubs, with the depressed faces in those old green habitat sofa chairs. 2nd May can’t come quickly enough.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
Thankfully for Keir, the have-nots will keep voting Labour regardless. For now at least.
Yes, but in declining numbers. I reckon that the disparity in turnout between older and younger voters will increase at the next election. In the long run this, combined with the gradual increase in age profile of the electorate overall, favours the Conservatives. I think that Labour will fail in Government and the Tories won't struggle to find the votes to get back in again in 2029 or whenever.
Of course, in the very long term growing numbers of people reaching old age still stuck renting, and forced to work until they drop dead because their housing costs are astronomical and their crap money purchase private pensions are near worthless, will work against the Conservatives. But today's Tory politicians care about the next election, not about what happens to their party in thirty years' time.
Even now by 40 more own property with or without a mortgage than rent, while more pensioners own property than did in the 1990s. So we are still some way from that scenario. More at least will have some extra income in retirement through workplace pensions than just relying on the state pension
A lot of renters are rescued by wealth transfer from older relatives (through gifts and inheritances) but you can't actively grow the middle class just through the transmission of inherited wealth. Younger people without access to such resources will struggle unless they are very well paid, and their numbers will continue to grow. There's also a very real issue of people scrambling onto the property ladder in middle age, and being saddled with huge debts on overpriced homes that they'll still be paying into old age. At best they'll be forced to keep working until the debts are paid, at worst ill health will catch up with them and prevent them from working and then they'll be unable to service the mortgage.
Crap pensions are also going to have a real political impact looking forward another ten or twenty years. The current prosperity of the pensioner population (and yes, I appreciate that a minority of pensioners still really struggle, but the average pensioner is wealthier than the average worker after adjustment for housing costs,) is based on good occupational pension entitlements as well as outright home ownership. Defined benefit pensions, however, are now practically a thing of the past, and modern schemes that rely on gambling money on the stock market require enormous contributions to ensure the likelihood of satisfactory returns in retirement. Even that fraction of younger workers who can afford to put away a reasonable proportion of their income towards a pension is going to be in for a very nasty shock when they get old enough to start thinking about retirement and discover that they can barely afford the necessities if they dare to stop working. These are not conditions conducive to a content electorate.
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.
The item above the line is all about the identity of the likely next Tory leader. I was offering an opinion on the subject and explaining my reasoning. I think it sound: it hardly seems likely that the Conservative membership is about to repent of many years of steady rightward drift and invite one of the surviving One Nation types to have a turn, now does it?
Sunak is as One Nation a leader as the Tories are likely to get for the next decade
In Sunak’s case, that nation is the United States.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
I've been saying this for ages (if not as long as @isam). Sooner rather than later the west is going to abandon the UN Convention on Refugees. It will be absolutely hilarious if this happens whilst Labour is in power.
A few countries should get together and coalesce around a sensible set of derogations, and just declare it done. The predictable outrage would then be much weakened.
Wouldn't do that much to UK migration stats though, would it?
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
More like, keeping a certain fraction of the population in the style to which it has become accustomed. Life is already pretty shite for many of our fellow citizens. Mass immigration is primarily about supporting the lifestyles of the haves and continuing to ignore the plight of the have nots.
Thankfully for Keir, the have-nots will keep voting Labour regardless. For now at least.
Yes, but in declining numbers. I reckon that the disparity in turnout between older and younger voters will increase at the next election. In the long run this, combined with the gradual increase in age profile of the electorate overall, favours the Conservatives. I think that Labour will fail in Government and the Tories won't struggle to find the votes to get back in again in 2029 or whenever.
Of course, in the very long term growing numbers of people reaching old age still stuck renting, and forced to work until they drop dead because their housing costs are astronomical and their crap money purchase private pensions are near worthless, will work against the Conservatives. But today's Tory politicians care about the next election, not about what happens to their party in thirty years' time.
Even now by 40 more own property with or without a mortgage than rent, while more pensioners own property than did in the 1990s. So we are still some way from that scenario. More at least will have some extra income in retirement through workplace pensions than just relying on the state pension
A lot of renters are rescued by wealth transfer from older relatives (through gifts and inheritances) but you can't actively grow the middle class just through the transmission of inherited wealth. Younger people without access to such resources will struggle unless they are very well paid, and their numbers will continue to grow. There's also a very real issue of people scrambling onto the property ladder in middle age, and being saddled with huge debts on overpriced homes that they'll still be paying into old age. At best they'll be forced to keep working until the debts are paid, at worst ill health will catch up with them and prevent them from working and then they'll be unable to service the mortgage.
Crap pensions are also going to have a real political impact looking forward another ten or twenty years. The current prosperity of the pensioner population (and yes, I appreciate that a minority of pensioners still really struggle, but the average pensioner is wealthier than the average worker after adjustment for housing costs,) is based on good occupational pension entitlements as well as outright home ownership. Defined benefit pensions, however, are now practically a thing of the past, and modern schemes that rely on gambling money on the stock market require enormous contributions to ensure the likelihood of satisfactory returns in retirement. Even that fraction of younger workers who can afford to put away a reasonable proportion of their income towards a pension is going to be in for a very nasty shock when they get old enough to start thinking about retirement and discover that they can barely afford the necessities if they dare to stop working. These are not conditions conducive to a content electorate.
There is nothing to stop people putting more into their pension if they are younger than the minimum to help improve retirement prospects and sacrifice some holidays, meals out, cinema trips etc in the process
I must confess I thought Opinium would be better for the Conservatives but Starmer’s backtracking on Green environments was only going to cost him votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens while after what only @Mexicanpete seems to think has been a good week for Sunak the Conservatives remain below 30% and occasionally even below 25%.
I am also told by @MoonRabbit the election will be on May 2nd after what presumably will be a “jam today, more jam tomorrow if you vote the right way” budget. I’m not convinced.
Is the coming election going to be about immigration? It will simmer below the surface I’m certain but is Richard Tice Britain’s answer to Geert Wilders? Seems unlikely - I don’t even know what Reform’s immigration policy is let alone whether they would advocate something akin to Wilders.
The truth is immigration bumps up against the fact of a declining work force. As the number of indigenous workers falls where, until the coming of AI, are the replacements for those simply giving up on work? The expected response from the Right seems to be to bang on about cutting welfare - so we force pensioners back to work by cutting their pensions?
London has seen a construction boom in recent years - I’d argue the only difference with Pharaoh is at least we pay the foreign construction workers rather than enslave them.
I wonder if Opinium's "swingback" provisions are beginning to wear off. In time it is likely that its system will join the herd of other pollsters. We have assumed that would be from other pollsters showing smaller leads, but maybe it will be by Opinium developing longer ones.
Opinium did warn that their change of methodology may lead to "negative swingback" as the election approaches. The mechanism presumably being the 2019 DK's not returning to the Tories after all.
Someone who was Prime Minister for six years only beating David Lammy by 3% on foreign policy isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
Lammy’s just a really interesting politician. I don’t claim to know him in the slightest, but I had a, what, 3 minute conversation with him in 2022 and came away thinking this man has some interesting but unpredictable depths.
To be honest if I had to spend a weekend at Chevening or Chequers with a couple of front benchers I wouldn’t mind it being Lammy and Cameron.
I prefer Chevening to Chequers.
Haven't been to either for quite some time ***sobs***.
@JohnO has been to Chevening more recently than me, he likes it too.
I did muchly but it's also where I caught my first dose of COVID in September 2021, so even more memorable.
Comments
It does so by honestly evaluating where it has gone wrong and why voters have turned against it (clue - it's not by not being not right-wing and Brexity enough).
This represents a stabilisation from the last poll, where he shot up by 6 approval points.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1756407695412711539
Can someone please explain to me why the PM would call an election in May in these circumstances?
This week, we asked about ministers too:
• 35% back Rayner on levelling up vs 16% for Gove
• 34% for Streeting on healthcare vs 14% for Atkins
• 32% backs Reeves on the economy 25% for Hunt
Interestingly, Cameron just pips Lammy by 3 points - The only Conservative lead here
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1756407704212349147/photo/1
https://x.com/chriscurtis94/status/1756292007327154477?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
This week, we asked about ministers too:
• 35% back Rayner on levelling up vs 16% for Gove
• 34% for Streeting on healthcare vs 14% for Atkins
• 32% backs Reeves on the economy 25% for Hunt
Interestingly, Cameron just pips Lammy by 3 points - The only Conservative lead here
https://x.com/opiniumresearch/status/1756407704212349147?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I mean he's worked for YouGov and Opinium, but I wasn't aware he in charge of them.
I mean if he was really partisan Opinium wouldn't have the most Tory friendly methodology.
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1756409781625946376?s=20
On issues, the biggest leads continue to be healthcare, public services/benefits and inequality.
The only area with some significant movement is foreign affairs. Labour now hold a 5 point lead on being the best government to handle this compared to a 1 point lead two weeks ago.
To be honest if I had to spend a weekend at Chevening or Chequers with a couple of front benchers I wouldn’t mind it being Lammy and Cameron.
When will these pollsters learn?
Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again
> Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson
> Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
https://x.com/dominicpenna/status/1756385562292793530?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
"While we need to build housing, it should be with local people on board and with corresponding infrastructure investment."
Like it is all nothing remotely to do with him or his ageing government.
The polls are unlikely to move before the election campaign begins. After that, we shall see. Theresa May was on for a landslide til about five minutes before the 2017 vote, and look what happened to her.
The Conservative Party is in trouble. And it’s the assassinations of May, Boris and Truss that’s gradually ripped the guts out of the party's credibility with electorate, my Dad said today.
Haven't been to either for quite some time ***sobs***.
@JohnO has been to Chevening more recently than me, he likes it too.
Bitter? Moi?
Did they have that methodology while he was
there? I just remember him always putting an anti Tory slant on his Twitter comments on polling, so when he announced he was standing for Labour it made sense
Whoever said that Sunak would be "hitting the road" (today's Times) was either dumb to the allusion or the kind of subtle insulter who I'd like to know.
This is the easy part of 2024 for the Tories - tax cut brought forward into pay packets, budget with more giveaways brought forward, and before the problems of mounting channel crossings, economic contraction, and enquiry reportings begin from May onward.
Also, the Tory election team decided on May 2nd months ago. It can’t be stopped now.
He's still at Opinium.
They pretend they want to build but they don't. At all. And the other lot are no different. It's all lies.
This feels, to me, not just a reaction to stagnant wages, but also a reflection of the extremely high rates of migration we’ve seen over past generation - a trend that to date has only escalated at a rate unseen outside of civil wars and dismemberment of Nazi Germany.
I’m not sure Labour are ideologically prepared: the policy elites and the membership at large are still stuck in the noughties.
What’s happened since then, so far as I can see, is the numbers have gone higher again, and I suspect the quality of migrants has deteriorated. I’m alarmed by the current volumes, and the number of dependents coming with them.
I also think this current government have acted with despicable incompetence across the whole gambit of migration, from asylum processing to the way it’s been possible to game the points system. And I don’t trust Labour to do much different right now.
Finally, the global trend is for migration to keep increasing and frankly I don’t think liberal democracies can cohere under such trends.
But if they do that, they're out of office sometime in the early hours of May 3rd. A bit later if you time it by the moment of going to the Palace.
So then the question becomes "Why not have another six months in government? Best case, something turns up. Worst case, we lose even more badly." It probably chucks another tranche of Conservative MPs onto the furnace, but why is that a problem?
https://x.com/tarquin_helmet/status/1756059069113065735?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg
As to refugees, horrible though it is, the answer is to equalise. The rights of all refugees anywhere in the world to be identical, and to match the provision in the poorest states. If the entitlement of refugees anywhere was three meals a day in a tent in the desert + primary education for children + passage home as soon as circumstances change the whole thing would look different.
That, more or less, is how it is in Chad and Bangladesh.
The truth is that Labour will end up presenting itself as more pro-immigration than the Tories because it's a culture wars topic that matters to the party membership, and enables them to maintain an appearance of difference from those nasty right wingers in a period when there is almost nothing to separate the main parties on bread and butter economic policy. There is also a broader consensus in private that high immigration is needed to ease labour shortages (so much easier than sorting out the health and upskilling needs of the existing workforce,) and increasing the population helps to pump prime house prices, which is excellent news for the elderly owner-occupiers and wealthy landlords whose interests are always a political priority.
The Tories have to sound more hard-line on migration because it is what their membership and the legacy Tory press expects, but in reality the ongoing importation of labour suits both sides very nicely. Business wants it, and nicking doctors and nurses from developing countries is a far cheaper means of trying to stave off the final collapse of the tottering NHS than spending a fortune on public sector pay rises and student bursaries.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/getting-rid-of-rishi-sunak-wont-save-the-tories-poll-says-b9sptfxb6
That's largely driven by trying to keep the UK in the style to which it has become accustomed.
Hungarian President Katalin Novak resigns over child abuse pardon scandal
The president of Hungary has resigned live on television over a decision to pardon a man convicted of covering up a child sexual abuse case.
It was revealed last week Katalin Novak had given clemency to a man jailed for forcing children to retract sexual abuse claims against a director of a state-run children's home.
Having said that, if the number of asylum seekers were to rise from 50k a year to 250k a year due to broader trends, the numbers certainly would matter.
The idea political campaigns are made up on the hoof, and trusted to fate is just not true.
It is in the process that has been developed to retard the building of properties.
Which in turn is the expression of a number of interest groups.
We’ve even had here, on PB, people of a pro immigration stance saying “why should our taxes go up to pay for infrastructure for new properties?”
If you are pro immigration then you are either - pro all the accoutrements of a rising population. Or you are delusional.
If Labour get more young people under 40 owning property they just make more young people future Tories so I doubt they will push that too hard, renters are what Labour wants.
The economy under a Labour government is far more relevant than what the Tories do in Opposition, the Tories don't need a majority of voters under 40, they need most voters 40-60 to win and if inflation is high, interest rates are high, taxes are high and strikes frequent under a Labour government they will swing back to the opposition Conservatives again
I'm not sure 1p off a tax here, or a tweak of allowance there is going to sway my vote much.
FWIW I think Starmer's problem is slightly different. He seems incapable of articulating what Labour would do differently and why it's better. As an easily absorbed idea. "Labour is the party that does X". He needs to articulate the X.
I must confess I thought Opinium would be better for the Conservatives but Starmer’s backtracking on Green environments was only going to cost him votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens while after what only @Mexicanpete seems to think has been a good week for Sunak the Conservatives remain below 30% and occasionally even below 25%.
I am also told by @MoonRabbit the election will be on May 2nd after what presumably will be a “jam today, more jam tomorrow if you vote the right way” budget. I’m not convinced.
Is the coming election going to be about immigration? It will simmer below the surface I’m certain but is Richard Tice Britain’s answer to Geert Wilders? Seems unlikely - I don’t even know what Reform’s immigration policy is let alone whether they would advocate something akin to Wilders.
The truth is immigration bumps up against the fact of a declining work force. As the number of indigenous workers falls where, until the coming of AI, are the replacements for those simply giving up on work? The expected response from the Right seems to be to bang on about cutting welfare - so we force pensioners back to work by cutting their pensions?
London has seen a construction boom in recent years - I’d argue the only difference with Pharaoh is at least we pay the foreign construction workers rather than enslave them.
It was a political speech without a single redeeming feature or even a policy
And best result for who? The party as a whole would survive best by going in May, yes. It optimises the number of Conservative MPs in the next Parliament. But on the opposition benches.
For Sunak, Hunt and the rest of the government, it just means taking the one way ride to Obscurityville six months earlier than strictly necessary. Unless the polls narrow a lot, the best result for them is hanging on as long as possible. Same as every other government drawing to a close.
What you have got to factor in, if Labour had left it as it was, what was going to happen?
Until Thursday Labour had a green policy deal of £28B extra a year (£140B over term of parliament) paid for from an inherited economy maxxed out on tax intake, maxxed out on borrowing, £1Trilion a year public sector bill for crumbling public services, not least Health, Education and defence, and barely a feather of growth for ages, also until yesterday its £28B spending commitment was completely vague on what items they intended to actually buy with £28Billion a year of additional public spending on this one department alone.
If Labour had left it as it was, what was going to happen? the Tories and their client media would have gone to town on it. And the wall to wall Tory propaganda would have been absolutely right: It was a £140B Green Jihad on the motorist, public finances and tax payers pocket, the state of the economy just can’t commit to right now.
Labour has sealed the deal with the electorate last Thursday, and it wasn’t even a tough or brave decision.
Yeah, that works.
🤣
Of course it doesn't work if you have labour shortages you can't easily plug with homegrown workers and institutions and businesses reliant on having an open economy and knowledge sector.
So though high levels of immigration are still unpopular - there's now I think more scepticism of the peddlers of hardline easy answers. It's notable that for the first time I can remember Labour lead the Tories on immigration as an issue despite them being thoroughly middle of the road on it - and concerted campaigning to cast them as liberal lefty do-gooders.
Of course, in the very long term growing numbers of people reaching old age still stuck renting, and forced to work until they drop dead because their housing costs are astronomical and their crap money purchase private pensions are near worthless, will work against the Conservatives. But today's Tory politicians care about the next election, not about what happens to their party in thirty years' time.
Philippe Lazzarini
@UNLazzarini
- UNRWA did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza.
- UNRWA is made aware of reports through the media regarding a tunnel under the UNRWA Headquarters in Gaza.
- UNRWA staff left its headquarters in Gaza City on 12 October following the Israeli evacuation orders and as bombardment intensified in the area.
- We have not used that compound since we left it nor are we aware of any activity that may have taken place there.
- We understand, through media reporting, that the Israeli Army has deployed troops within the UNRWA Headquarters in Gaza City.
- We are therefore unable to confirm or otherwise comment on these reports.
- In times of “no active conflict” UNRWA inspects inside its premises every quarter, the last inspection for the UNRWA Gaza premises was completed in September 2023.
- UNRWA is a Human development and humanitarian organisation that does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises.
- In the past, whenever suspicious cavity was found close to or under UNRWA premises, protest letters were promptly filed to parties to the conflict, including both the de facto authorities in Gaza (Hamas) and the Israeli authorities. The matter was consistently reported in annual reports presented to the General Assembly and made public.
- These recent media reports merit an independent inquiry that is currently not possible to undertake given Gaza is an active war zone.
- The Israeli Authorities have not informed UNRWA officially about the alleged tunnel.
https://twitter.com/UNLazzarini/status/1756377920254218556
Growing number of firms register to sponsor work visas to fill 900,000 UK vacancies
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/09/frustrated-businesses-staff-abroad-britons-abandon-work/ (£££)
Record immigration, and record numbers inactive, yet business wants yet more foreign workers.
If you can't be bothered reading the several hundred pages of the report, this article is probably the next best thing.
Recommended read.
https://www.justsecurity.org/92090/the-real-robert-hur-report-versus-what-you-read-in-the-news/
The Special Counsel Robert Hur report has been grossly mischaracterized by the press. The report finds that the evidence of a knowing, willful violation of the criminal laws is wanting. Indeed, the report, on page 6, notes that there are “innocent explanations” that Hur “cannot refute.” That is but one of myriad examples we outline in great detail below of the report repeatedly finding a lack of proof. And those findings mean, in DOJ-speak, there is simply no case. Unrefuted innocent explanations is the sine qua non of not just a case that does not meet the standard for criminal prosecution – it means innocence. Or as former Attorney General Bill Barr and his former boss would have put it, a total vindication..
...
Over the span of the past five years, ‘medical reasons’ have emerged as the foremost cause for rejection in the British Army, with a total of 76,187 applicants disqualified on this basis.
Following closely behind, oddly, the challenge of limited vacancies has notably impacted Commonwealth applicants, accounting for a total of 23,763 rejections during the same period. This considerable figure points to the intense competition for positions available to Commonwealth applicants within the Army, suggesting either an uptick in interest from Commonwealth nations or a reduction in available spots within the Army’s recruitment framework.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/over-125000-applicants-rejected-from-british-army/
Tables in linked story.
Plus ca change.
Hungary: population 9.71 million people. Poland: population 37.75 million people.
Thankfully irrelevant country.
@DominicPenna
🚨 Wellingborough focus group spells big trouble for the Tories on Thursday
> All voted Tory in 2019 — but won’t again
> Sunak “financially on another planet”and panel preferred Boris Johnson
> Anger over PMQs trans jibe & Bone’s girlfriend as candidate
https://twitter.com/DominicPenna/status/1756385562292793530
Since the 1950s we have had to bring in foreign labour to do many of the jobs British people won’t do for the money business wants or can afford to pay.
I find these word clouds a little like the OFSTED one word reviews.
But with a little less need for CPOMS.
Ha. 😏 Thanks for that thought Stu, I can clear this up right now. Because Rarely are election results so certain this far out.
They are not enjoying themselves like you think they are. They want out. It’s 2nd May not just because it’s best day this year for the Tory party to fight on and get best result, but best for those who know they are moving on to better things too. All of them really, not just Sunak, Hunt etc. all of them, right down, right down into the con clubs, with the depressed faces in those old green habitat sofa chairs. 2nd May can’t come quickly enough.
Crap pensions are also going to have a real political impact looking forward another ten or twenty years. The current prosperity of the pensioner population (and yes, I appreciate that a minority of pensioners still really struggle, but the average pensioner is wealthier than the average worker after adjustment for housing costs,) is based on good occupational pension entitlements as well as outright home ownership. Defined benefit pensions, however, are now practically a thing of the past, and modern schemes that rely on gambling money on the stock market require enormous contributions to ensure the likelihood of satisfactory returns in retirement. Even that fraction of younger workers who can afford to put away a reasonable proportion of their income towards a pension is going to be in for a very nasty shock when they get old enough to start thinking about retirement and discover that they can barely afford the necessities if they dare to stop working. These are not conditions conducive to a content electorate.
I'm old enough to remember when the Tories aspired to tens of thousands per annum. It seems that someone thought that was the target per month.
Opinium did warn that their change of methodology may lead to "negative swingback" as the election approaches. The mechanism presumably being the 2019 DK's not returning to the Tories after all.