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Sir Graham Brady’s postie may get a hernia in the next few days – politicalbetting.com
Sir Graham Brady’s postie may get a hernia in the next few days – politicalbetting.com
The by-election caveats do apply, as ever, but these results are very much in line with current polling (allowing that – all else being equal, which it is here but not in Rochdale – by-elections always exaggerate national swing).
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It'll be the Dardanelles campaign.
The whole things getting utterly pre-Bosporus.
Sunak is a total Turkey (that's enough - Ed)
Lab 13 million, Tories 8.
Unfortunately for the Tories, going beyond May only accelerates their slide towards ELE. The negative factors dragging them down accelerate hard so that even if the economy transforms itself from gradual decline to glorious stagnation, nobody will thank them.
The various dates in November being mentioned all have their own terrible issues, which leaves 12th December as the “go early” date - though with a kicking still obviously the result it won’t happen.
The easiest decision is indecision. If Sunak survives - or if they replace him - the election will be 23rd January 2025.
Looks like more opportunity missed there, 8th wicket partnership of 77 !
It could start a trend; they could make the FCO the Department for World Peace and BIS the Department for Prosperity. Who could risk being seen to abolish those?
Andrew Neil, on TV last Sunday, is right. The polls may narrow but people have decided it is time for a change.
For the Tories it is now damage limitation
The collapse of the NHS and in particular General Practice, on their watch, affects every single one of us. And amid a cost of living crisis, private healthcare is no alternative.
Now, there will be some swing disguised in that but it basically looks like to me that virtually all the Labour voters turned out whereas the Conservative voters went on strike, to Reform or a few to independents.
That is not a seat Labour will be able to hold for long.
You think that’s the end? Punters would then expect ALL to be deported. NOW. And that can’t happen because we don’t have the officials to process their claims nor the courts capacity to declare them foreign nor secure places to intern them before deportation nor will Rwanda accept them.
Expectation management was never the Tories strong point on this one.
It will never overcook a forecast, because the hounds of hell would descend on it if it's wrong, and the politicians would be more than happy to put the boot in, but if it undercooks and then the surprise is on the upside then people will groan but no-one will lose their job. It has a civil service mindset.
So it's going to be institutionally (structurally) very conservative on forecasts and spending, and this will bleed into government policy. Because it's not truly objective as advertised.
India at 434 and still going.
As for the by elections, meh. The Tories are more doomed than a doomed thing and we all know it.
I’m afraid to say that these results are not good for your team.
Mind you I am not sure how any NGO can stop someone taking a flight to Rwanda voluntarily, especially if they have some cold hard cash waiting for them at the other end.
Labour votes in Dudley West
1992 general election - 28,940
1994 by-election 28,400
So last night Labour got more votes in the by-election than they did at the general election.
I was once mugged in the walkway down the side of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead by I think a difficult-to-understand druggie with a huge stick back in 2000. I still have a vivid memory; it was soon after my diabetes diagnosis.
It was "Give Me The Notes" followed by a small nudge with (possibly - it felt that heavy) a baseball bat on the leg. The small nudge alone gave quite extensive bruising.
It’s clearly too early!
from memory youre a forecaster yourself. I see no advantage in having duff forecasts from the OBR rather than the Treasury. As someone said there are a range of forecasters out there and they will all be wrong. It is as simple as pick your model and cross your fingers.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/19/uk-fiscal-watchdog-obr-admits-errors-inflation-forecasting-high-energy-prices
All the desperate politicking he's been messing around with hasn't done him any good, so he may as well return to what motivated him to go into politics in the first place and concentrate on that, whatever it might be.
Exactly the kind a candidate a party coming to power needs - younger, fresh faced etc. The Tories need to look at their candidates if they wish to avoid wipe out.
Interestingly, Jacob Rees-Mogg saw the result in Kingswood could well be worse for his party, given the strength of the Reform vote, which he apparently expects to return to the Conservatives at the general election!
He has to make a choice, he can no longer ride the fence.
* Go full Truss, do the tax cuts, play to the gbnews gallery on immigration, go for social conservativism and make a lot of noise.
* Or full Osborne/Cameron/May. Talk about debt, austerity, sober managerialism and compassionate Conservatism. Few tax cuts,
The latter suits his persona better, but his heart seems to be in the first camp. Either way continue straddling the two makes him look silly and shifty. He cannot bluff his way through like Boris. He doesn’t have the political horse power or time to carve a third way. He has to choose.
It’s not so much an inspiring programme for Government as a Telegraph front page on a slow news day.
(Not, sadly, that Starmer is any more visionary.)
I just rustled £70-80 out of the top of the wallet in the pocket and he went away with it. At that point I discovered that Hampstead police station was closed, and the bruising was enough that I went to my GP to get it on the record.
They also assess the impact of policy changes on the future fiscal position, debt and interest rates, which is something that no government gives a damn about in an election year. It's in our interest that someone is looking at the 5 and 10 year picture too, even if it's a rough guess.
1 - The Dardanelles could have been breached, but they want away and came back later after the Germans had helped them fortify the narrows.
2 - How many RN vessels were sunk by undetected mines.
He is in a real pickle.
I'm not in denial Labour is doing well; I am just saying that the reason they captured this seat was due to a strike/ collapse of the Conservative vote (which by and large did not go to them).
And I recognise these results are not good for my team. You're missing the point.
a kind of ghastly groupthink. The OBR is no more "independent" minded that its competitors in the Treasury. Its just more noise in the system when we need less.
I agree that in an ideal world the State would be spending less of our money. I also agree that we get damn poor value for the spend. But when you go through the big ticket items it is hard to see where significant money can be saved.
The big winners of the night though were Reform who took third place and over 10% of the vote in both seats beating the LDs and Greens too. Indeed in Kingswood the combined Tory and Reform vote was bigger than the Labour vote.
Sunak must therefore continue to focus on stopping the boats, getting his Rwanda plan implemented and if not cutting tax further in the budget at least having tax cuts in the manifesto. Another leadership challenge now is pointless, no alternative leader would do much better except fractionally maybe Mordaunt.
The focus should be inflation and interest rates
down further, then cutting tax and growth and cutting immigration also using new tougher points system
On topic: I think replacing Sunak now, unless it's with a caretaker PM appointed by acclimation (Cameron, Hague or May) who actually then goes on to Govern noticeably well, could be absolutely fatal to the Tories. Hell, even replacing him in this manner is not risk free.
I support Labour today and so I would obviously think this but they should just call a GE.
The truly odd is that in 2019 the parliamentary party went populist. An influx of real world people who don't live in the hooray henry fantasy worlds traditionally inhabited by shire Tories and the like.
There should have been enough head screwed on blue collar Tories to steer the party away from this mess. Yet in practice it has been the opposite - some of the kookier cheerleaders for ELE are the very same 2019 intake who understand what having a job is.
You need some actual domain expertise and competence *somewhere*.
* Truss might think she is a thought leader, but she is bringing nothing to the table aper from cliches. Compare her to the sort of work that Keith Joseph (etc) behind Thatcher and the contrast is stark.
Looking I see that Ashfield and Mansfield are both down as going Labour, but Newark stays Conservative.
I think it's extremely corrosive for politics to believe that all politicians are only self-interested, and have no public-spirited motivation at all. That sort of cynicism is not all that many steps away from Trumpism, really. I think it's necessary for both sides in politics to be motivated by their view of the public good, and to acknowledge that the other side are similarly motivated, if we're to keep democracy functioning.
The problem is that the Conservatives haven't delivered, and that is what is suppressing their vote.
Their supporters expect good economic growth, lower taxes, controlled immigration and space to grow home/wealth ownership.
It's not about being extreme, it's about delivering what's promised.
Those who would prefer the Treasury to mark its own homework tend to be those whose party is in government.