Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
I think the big winners of the night were the party who, like, won: Labour.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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.
I think we should start with a repeal of big chunks of legislation - since these drive cost. Repeal big slices of the statute book - eg Mays lunacy of Net Zero, Planning legislation - then costs will decrease and things will get done faster which will add to growth. The whole concept of government needs a strip down and reorganisation. Blair duped too many people with his government can do everthing nonsense. It cant, it should do a few things well rather than everyhing badly and let citizens organise their own lives.
Isn't the problem with "why doesn't Rishi use his remaining months to do something he believes in" that he doesn't believe in anything?
He clearly has some beliefs. His problem is he is just shit at politics.
That's an excellent hypothesis. How do we test the difference between "a belief he has" and a "a thing his advisors have told him to say that he garbles to the press".
ETA: before we get into whattaboutery. I think SKS is fairly poor on this front too.
Here’s a policy idea for Sunak. Run a voluntary Rwanda flight. There are probably a few desperate souls who would board a flight to Rwanda in return for a few quid to establish a better life. He would get his headline and could move on.
The WhatsApps would buzz alive with the sounds of the NGOs and immigration lawyers saying, "don't you dare get on that plane", and the souls concerned would quickly be influenced or intimidated out of it.
"intimidated"?
You're talking about the Home Office. If you can explain this, you're a better sentient than I am.
'A woman is facing deportation, and being separated from her husband and 10-year-old son, despite a court ruling that the family have the right to live together in the UK.
The Home Office has told Malwattege Peiris to leave the UK despite the court ruling in her favour and correspondence from the Home Office confirming this decision.'
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
How much more do you think we need to cut growth? The focus on inflation seems to have already been working plenty, record levels set, not quite world leading but hey reaching double digits are impressive.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
I think the big winners of the night were the party who, like, won: Labour.
I think he has mentally moved on to the conflict to the right of centre that comes *after* the GE is lost.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
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.
Those don't work either. Full Truss and mortgage rates implode. Full Refuk on migration and it still wont stop migration. Full Cameron and he gets replaced by the summer. What a shame.
Currently he flips between the two and ends up pissing off everyone in his party, confusing the electorate and looking shifty.
Yeah, he has no path to success at all from here. Guaranteed failure, just a case of can he hold on til the end or will it all implode within the party first.
The rise in Reform in the polls is not the mirage some thought it might be. Yesterday's by-elections are quite in line with Reform's polling. It spells bad news for the Tories as most pundits have believed that some of the Reform vote would "return home". It would seem less likely now.
Well done to LAB for their two wins. It gives me no pleasure to report that my forecast made last night of a 20% swing in Kingswood and 30% in Wellingborough was almost right!
Horror show all round for CON.
Not sure what Rishi does now. Looks like the tax cuts are off. Maybe the personal allowance can be unfrozen in the Budget?
The only bit of good news in the period up to this autumn is that CPI is likely to fall to 2% albeit maybe with a rebound so no significant interest rate cuts.
Here’s a policy idea for Sunak. Run a voluntary Rwanda flight. There are probably a few desperate souls who would board a flight to Rwanda in return for a few quid to establish a better life. He would get his headline and could move on.
The WhatsApps would buzz alive with the sounds of the NGOs and immigration lawyers saying, "don't you dare get on that plane", and the souls concerned would quickly be influenced or intimidated out of it.
"intimidated"?
You're talking about the Home Office. If you can explain this, you're a better sentient than I am.
'A woman is facing deportation, and being separated from her husband and 10-year-old son, despite a court ruling that the family have the right to live together in the UK.
The Home Office has told Malwattege Peiris to leave the UK despite the court ruling in her favour and correspondence from the Home Office confirming this decision.'
You're someone who only sees something with one eye.
There's a whole industry of people out there extensively advising, and subsidising, every single migrant - and they're all connected - and they have their own agenda.
Like in so many other things, many of these people are just pawns in others games.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
At one point, you could get the same odds on RefUK as the Tories to win in Wellingborough. RefUK were nowhere near Con on the night. There’s lots of hype and they are taking votes from the Conservatives, but they’re not actually getting close to winning anywhere.
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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.
Health really is a disaster, if you take a step back.
We have high tax rates and large cuts to other areas of spending, yet the NHS remains a top priority for voters, there is an enormous waiting list and there are millions on health-related out-of-work benefits.
Going private is simply jumping the queue while injecting more money and resources into the sector - see dentistry. Innovations like dementia drugs, while absolutely brilliant for patients, will further drive spending in healthcare whether it's public or not.
POLITICS. Labour might be in for 10 years. The demographic profile, while historically only a minor contributor to increased health spending, is at its worst over the next 15 years as the Boomers hit their 70s and 80s. They will need to decide very quickly if the NHS is expected to absorb these extra pressures. If so... it's tax rises. Big ones.
From the Ashfield Parish Pump on Mr Anderson and the father of the former Council Deputy Leader:
Personal Statement.
Last year, councillors on the local planning committee granted planning permission for up to 8 houses on an agricultural field recently purchased by the father of a fellow councillor, Tom Hollis. Local residents raised concerns with me directly as to the circumstances in which such a permission had been granted for this green field site. I highlighted those concerns in a Facebook post.
Following this, the councillor’s father, Michael Hollis, started legal proceedings against me for defamation, claiming that his reputation had been caused very serious harm by what I had said. I chose to defend those proceedings because I felt it was the right thing to do – both for myself and for those constituents on whose behalf I had spoken.
I am pleased to say that after a year Mr Hollis has now dropped his claim against me. When constituents contact me to express their concerns I will use every legitimate means possible to make sure their voices are heard and will not be silenced or put off by legal threats.
Hollis Junior was fined £2400 a few days ago by the Beak for failing to disclose a loan to a fellow Councillor to buy a house. Hollis loaned 70k in 2018 when he was ~24 and was paid back £97k via his father.
I *think* there may be another one bubbling under about the PP mentioned above, but I'm going no further than the basic facts reported out of deference to OGH and the site.
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Rishi should call the election. It is clear that the longer he goes on, the worse it is going to be.
At this rate he will be lucky to have 100 seats?
10 seats?
Yes he should go for 2 May it will at least demonstrate some form of decisiveness. As I set out in my other posts a few minutes ago not many things are going to move in Rishi's direction up to autumn.
So Rishi should set out some positivity in the manifesto, go for it, 150+ seats could still be on, not an ideal result but it retains some viable base for the future.
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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 debate needs to be about the scope of government, rather than mostly pointless ‘efficiency savings’ that end up making the service crap and top-heavy with management who will never make themselves redundant.
The only way to get real savings is to turn the whole permanent CS upside-down, but no politician has the balls to do it. Cummings was right on this.
Rishi should call the election. It is clear that the longer he goes on, the worse it is going to be.
At this rate he will be lucky to have 100 seats?
10 seats?
Yes he should go for 2 May it will at least demonstrate some form of decisiveness. As I set out in my other posts a few minutes ago not many things are going to move in Rishi's direction up to autumn.
So Rishi should set out some positivity in the manifesto, go for it, 150+ seats could still be on, not an ideal result but it retains some viable base for the future.
Keir Starmer is a lucky general. Any idea Rishi had about saying Labour crashed the economy died as the Tories plunge us into their own. Can’t blame Labour for that.
As I expected, the anti-Semitism narrative won’t last as once again Keir Starmer is able to tack back to being a winner.
Crewe and Nantwich (2008) really stands out as a by-election where the turnout only declined marginally (-1.8%) from the preceding general election, and so the winning party (Con) not only achieved a large swing (17.6%), but also a large absolute increase in their number of votes (+6,377).
Most by-elections are more like Norwich North (2009), where a similarly large swing (16.5%) saw the winning party (Cons) lose votes (-2,047) compared to the previous general election.
Wirral South and South East Staffordshire are both examples of by-elections leading up to the 1997 general election, where Labour increased their absolute number of votes, and the turnout stayed high. Labour did increase their absolute number of votes by 2,598 votes in Selby and Ainsty.
I definitely think it would be better for Labour if the electorate's determination and eagerness to see the back of the Tories lead to them turning out in greater numbers for by-elections. Perhaps the lack of such enthusiasm points more to a 2010 style of result than a 1997.
Norwich North is an interesting precedent, because Chloe Smith actually received a higher share of the vote at the GE, than in the by-election, and put on almost four thousand votes. You would really have expected that every potential Tory voter would have turned out for the by-election, but they didn't. It might seem a bit mad, but I think we can be reasonably confident that there were quite a number of potential Labour voters who didn't go to vote in both Kingswood and Wellingborough.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
Reform nearly at UKIP 2015 levels both in these by elections and in national polls, most of which have them a clear 3rd and at or over 10%, is clearly very good news for Tice.
Not only are they now ahead of the LDs and Greens in most polls but on last night's by elections when actual votes are cast too. The better Reform do, the more pressure they put on the Tories to shift further right too either before or certainly after the election if a heavy defeat
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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.
Health really is a disaster, if you take a step back.
We have high tax rates and large cuts to other areas of spending, yet the NHS remains a top priority for voters, there is an enormous waiting list and there are millions on health-related out-of-work benefits.
Going private is simply jumping the queue while injecting more money and resources into the sector - see dentistry. Innovations like dementia drugs, while absolutely brilliant for patients, will further drive spending in healthcare whether it's public or not.
POLITICS. Labour might be in for 10 years. The demographic profile, while historically only a minor contributor to increased health spending, is at its worst over the next 15 years as the Boomers hit their 70s and 80s. They will need to decide very quickly if the NHS is expected to absorb these extra pressures. If so... it's tax rises. Big ones.
Tax rises on who though.
The only realistic possibilities are on property and consumption.
Either would be unpopular.
And whether any extra money raised is spent effectively is doubtful.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
Inflation at least is half the level Truss and Kwarteng left it and interest rates have stopped rising, some cuts in NI were made last year, the aim should be to get inflation and the deficit down further to go into the election with more tax cuts proposed
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
I suspect your idea of "Conservative" is my idea of "extreme". That's the last thing either the nation or right leaning voters need.
Well, you would say that, wouldn't you.
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.
The swing voters who decide elections want to be able to see a Doctor, and when necessary the Doctor of their choice, within a day or two. I would not underestimate how much the NHS acts as a lightning rod for the state of the country.
Asked about the $2B he raised from the Saudis shortly after leaving office, and U.S. intelligence report saying Saudi crown prince was responsible for Khashoggi's murder, an exasperated Jared Kushner responds: "Are we really still doing this?" https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1758229364838129949
I really dont understand why Hunt just doesnt get rid of the OBR. Its yet another piece of Osborne stupidity which does nothing but produce unreliable forecasts ( and has itself admitted as much )in competition with all the other unrelable forecasters. That Rachel Reeves has decided to ransom her economic policies to its erratic performance is going to be something she will regret.
Osborne designed the OBR to screw Labour. That it has frustrated Conservative governments since, and when bypassed sunk Liz Truss, is blowback from an ill-considered, partisan policy.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
Reform nearly at UKIP 2015 levels both in these by elections and in national polls, most of which have them a clear 3rd and at or over 10%, is clearly very good news for Tice.
Not only are they now ahead of the LDs and Greens in most polls but on last night's by elections when actual votes are cast too. The better Reform do, the more pressure they put on the Tories to shift further right too either before or certainly after the election if a heavy defeat
Both elections suggest Reform are performing significantly worse than most national polls would suggest.
They’re doing OK, certainly better than a few years ago, but their national polling is wrong.
I’m pretty sure their vote last night was also partly at the expense of Labour votes.
Green was probably the biggest disappointment, especially in Kingswood. Lib Dem’s less so because their Faustian pact is to get squeezed in Labour targets in exchange for wringing Labour dry in their own targets.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
Inflation at least is half the level Truss and Kwarteng left it and interest rates have stopped rising, some cuts in NI were made last year, the aim should be to get inflation and the deficit down further to go into the election with more tax cuts proposed
I was listening to some ex BoE guy commenting on inflation. He had a pop at Sunak saying he could not claim any credit for the drop in inflation. It's a fair point, but on that criteria neither should he be blamed for the inflation high that was the BoE's mess. Unsurprisingly the BoE guy thought the Bank was faultless.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
I think the big winners of the night were the party who, like, won: Labour.
So while Labour are heading for victory it looks more like Tory voters staying home or going Reform than any mass enthusiasm for Labour, Starmer still isn't getting quite the level of switchers Blair did from the Conservatives
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
Inflation at least is half the level Truss and Kwarteng left it and interest rates have stopped rising, some cuts in NI were made last year, the aim should be to get inflation and the deficit down further to go into the election with more tax cuts proposed
This is complete nonsense and not what the electorate are looking for.
It’s quite simple, nobody feels better off after 14 years of Tory rule. Everything is broken. The NHS doesn’t work. People have to pull their teeth out with pliers. Everyone is on strike.
The Tories told us we were all in it together and then ignored the rules they set.
The country is broken because you broke it. End of story. No amount of false promises will change it.
This is why “boring” Keir Starmer is 20 points ahead because whilst he isn’t a Tony Blair and probably doesn’t have a plan he didn’t break the country and he didn’t actively try to. At this point the country wants the arsonists out and Keir Starmer has the bucket of water.
The fact you are not able to understand what the country needs is why you need to lose and lose big. And then spend a decade actually working out what your party is for.
13% in Wellingborough is an almost perfect result! It is enough to convince Farage to become involved and for those with cash to pour it in. The result could scupper the Conservatives by taking 10% of the votes, winning no seats and reducing the Conservatives to a rump.
The longer Sunak delays the stronger Reform will become - perhaps getting 12% and still no seats! This will help the Lib Dems in the so called Blue Wall seats.
Does Sunak want to be, however unfairly, in history as the leader who killed the Tory party (real culprit BJ) or should he let someone else fight the General Election?
Last night, almost unnoticed, Lib Dems easily held 2 council seats and won another off Labour in a council the Lib Dems already control.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
I think these by-election results are consistent with a national vote share for Reform in the region of 5%. That's well below their polling average, but it's a lot of votes for a political "party" that's essentially vapourware, where their biggest asset (Farage) isn't interested. It's also way up on the ~2-3% they were polling until the Great Truss Debacle - so it shows that there definitely has been a move to the right by a section of the electorate since then - it's not solely a polling artefact.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
Inflation at least is half the level Truss and Kwarteng left it and interest rates have stopped rising, some cuts in NI were made last year, the aim should be to get inflation and the deficit down further to go into the election with more tax cuts proposed
I was listening to some ex BoE guy commenting on inflation. He had a pop at Sunak saying he could not claim any credit for the drop in inflation. It's a fair point, but on that criteria neither should he be blamed for the inflation high that was the BoE's mess. Unsurprisingly the BoE guy thought the Bank was faultless.
The BoE were months behind the Fed in raising rates, but there’s a lot of moving parts.
I still don’t understand why Biden and Sunak haven’t realised that the first priority at the moment is to get the oil price significantly down. It both reduces inflation and screws Russia.
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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.
Health really is a disaster, if you take a step back.
We have high tax rates and large cuts to other areas of spending, yet the NHS remains a top priority for voters, there is an enormous waiting list and there are millions on health-related out-of-work benefits.
Going private is simply jumping the queue while injecting more money and resources into the sector - see dentistry. Innovations like dementia drugs, while absolutely brilliant for patients, will further drive spending in healthcare whether it's public or not.
POLITICS. Labour might be in for 10 years. The demographic profile, while historically only a minor contributor to increased health spending, is at its worst over the next 15 years as the Boomers hit their 70s and 80s. They will need to decide very quickly if the NHS is expected to absorb these extra pressures. If so... it's tax rises. Big ones.
Funding is not the problem with the NHS; we've poured massive amounts of (non-covid) money into it over the past couple years and productivity is still below where it was before.
Capital spend is part of it, but the other part is that we've imported tens of thousands of very low quality third world trained medics and nurses to replace the people we've spent tens to hundreds of thousands training. Turns out having a lot of people who struggle communicating in British English, sometimes have fraudulently obtained qualifications and are mainly using it as a route to citizenship isn't productivity enhancing!
I really dont understand why Hunt just doesnt get rid of the OBR. Its yet another piece of Osborne stupidity which does nothing but produce unreliable forecasts ( and has itself admitted as much )in competition with all the other unrelable forecasters. That Rachel Reeves has decided to ransom her economic policies to its erratic performance is going to be something she will regret.
Osborne designed the OBR to screw Labour. That it has frustrated Conservative governments since, and when bypassed sunk Liz Truss, is blowback from an ill-considered, partisan policy.
Osborne will still get his pound of flesh. Rachel Reeves has bet the farm on the OBR approving her budgets first.
Total stupidity imo, shes penned herself in on the sayso of an organisation that admits its forecast models are flawed,
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
Trouble is, the voters don't show much sign of wanting that. The big Conservative win in 2019 was, in part, because the Conservative offer was an even bigger, more muscular state solving the problems of left behind towns.
It's one thing to say that the state should, in general terms, do less but better. But the story is always that, once you specify things that the state should step away from, you run into problems.
It's probably what Rishi wants- Britain to be more like America, which is why there's a fair chance he'll move there once all this is over. But there's not much sign of it being what most British voters want, which is why he's so stuck.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
There is nothing remotely close to policies like council house sales or privatisation. Let's examine what has actually happened.
Levelling up: Great slogan, and overdue political idea. Policy reality: cancelling HS2 and spending money fixing potholes in London. Outcome: no progress.
Cutting immigration to the tens of thousands: Obviously popular with the right. Policy reality: the doomed Rwanda scheme, hotels stacked and ship off Dorset. Outcome: immigration higher than ever.
Brexit, take back control, the mother of all slogans and right wing dream Policy reality, lots of paperwork, broad alignment with the EU, minor trade deals. Outcome: recession.
The right do not have the policies to back up their promises and headlines. Over-promise and under-deliver.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
I suspect your idea of "Conservative" is my idea of "extreme". That's the last thing either the nation or right leaning voters need.
Well, you would say that, wouldn't you.
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.
Well, yes I would say, and I did say that. It is unlikely I would vote Conservative ( anyone but the Tories). However centrists like me would be more amenable to vote one-nation, feudal, mixed- economy Conservative in the face of Corbynista-Labour than we would for the racist, authoritarian policies of Tice and Farage.
I believe your definition of what Conservatives stand for is wrong.
"Good economic growth" was the mantra of Lizz Truss. Just saying it wasn't good enough, and her prescription tanked the economy.
"Lower taxes" is indeed on any Conservative wish list, but fiscal probity used to be too. Presently the two notions collide.
" Controlled immigration" is a post EU accession newbie, and political opportunism at that. During the 1950s in the quest for post-war "growth", Conservative Governments were comfortable with achieving that goal by importing workers from the Empire. Economic migration has been ongoing since the dawn of time.
"Home ownership", well why? We had a perfectly good system of local authority housing stock which worked well until the absurd "right to buy" which has now left 40% of former council house stock in the hands of private landlords or private housing associations, many of whom can't afford to maintain them. I write this from the conservatory of a just shy of a million pound property.
"Wealth ownership"? Well that brings us back down to Truss and her notion of "trickle down" economics. Now this is going to appear Communist to you, but wouldn't an equitable society where people earn a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and pay their taxes equitably, growing the economy and allowing tax pounds to be spent on a civil and civic society with decent healthcare, roads, schools, and regular bin collections, make more sense?
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
65% of primary school children have a positive view of the monarchy, even slightly higher than the UK overall.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
There is nothing remotely close to policies like council house sales or privatisation. Let's examine what has actually happened.
Levelling up: Great slogan, and overdue political idea. Policy reality: cancelling HS2 and spending money fixing potholes in London. Outcome: no progress.
Cutting immigration to the tens of thousands: Obviously popular with the right. Policy reality: the doomed Rwanda scheme, hotels stacked and ship off Dorset. Outcome: immigration higher than ever.
Brexit, take back control, the mother of all slogans and right wing dream Policy reality, lots of paperwork, broad alignment with the EU, minor trade deals. Outcome: recession.
The right do not have the policies to back up their promises and headlines. Over-promise and under-deliver.
The Tories won in 2019 by re-branding the Labour 2017 manifesto. I do not understand why Tories are unable to accept that the only time they’ve won big was pitching to the left.
65% of primary school children have a positive view of the monarchy, even slightly higher than the UK overall.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
Trouble is, the voters don't show much sign of wanting that. The big Conservative win in 2019 was, in part, because the Conservative offer was an even bigger, more muscular state solving the problems of left behind towns.
It's one thing to say that the state should, in general terms, do less but better. But the story is always that, once you specify things that the state should step away from, you run into problems.
It's probably what Rishi wants- Britain to be more like America, which is why there's a fair chance he'll move there once all this is over. But there's not much sign of it being what most British voters want, which is why he's so stuck.
It was more Truss who wanted Britain to be more like America but Trump's America not Biden's
65% of primary school children have a positive view of the monarchy, even slightly higher than the UK overall.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
Nobody young is ever going to vote Tory again until you stop using them as a piggy bank. Your party actively hates young people.
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
The majority leader is determined by the party that commands a majority, which isn't the Democrats.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
There is nothing remotely close to policies like council house sales or privatisation. Let's examine what has actually happened.
Levelling up: Great slogan, and overdue political idea. Policy reality: cancelling HS2 and spending money fixing potholes in London. Outcome: no progress.
Cutting immigration to the tens of thousands: Obviously popular with the right. Policy reality: the doomed Rwanda scheme, hotels stacked and ship off Dorset. Outcome: immigration higher than ever.
Brexit, take back control, the mother of all slogans and right wing dream Policy reality, lots of paperwork, broad alignment with the EU, minor trade deals. Outcome: recession.
The right do not have the policies to back up their promises and headlines. Over-promise and under-deliver.
There are a lot less pot holes in London this year than last to be fair. (Probably because it has been milder and drier rather than the govt but I'll take it!)
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
Inflation at least is half the level Truss and Kwarteng left it and interest rates have stopped rising, some cuts in NI were made last year, the aim should be to get inflation and the deficit down further to go into the election with more tax cuts proposed
This is complete nonsense and not what the electorate are looking for.
It’s quite simple, nobody feels better off after 14 years of Tory rule. Everything is broken. The NHS doesn’t work. People have to pull their teeth out with pliers. Everyone is on strike.
The Tories told us we were all in it together and then ignored the rules they set.
The country is broken because you broke it. End of story. No amount of false promises will change it.
This is why “boring” Keir Starmer is 20 points ahead because whilst he isn’t a Tony Blair and probably doesn’t have a plan he didn’t break the country and he didn’t actively try to. At this point the country wants the arsonists out and Keir Starmer has the bucket of water.
The fact you are not able to understand what the country needs is why you need to lose and lose big. And then spend a decade actually working out what your party is for.
The country wants inflation down, Rishi is getting it down, the country wants interest rates down, Rishi is starting to do that, the NHS has had billions more into it it needs reform not just more cash.
If Labour fail to manage the economy well the swing back to the Conservative opposition will be swift and more like the late 1960s or mid 1970s than 1997
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
Trouble is, the voters don't show much sign of wanting that. The big Conservative win in 2019 was, in part, because the Conservative offer was an even bigger, more muscular state solving the problems of left behind towns.
It's one thing to say that the state should, in general terms, do less but better. But the story is always that, once you specify things that the state should step away from, you run into problems.
It's probably what Rishi wants- Britain to be more like America, which is why there's a fair chance he'll move there once all this is over. But there's not much sign of it being what most British voters want, which is why he's so stuck.
The voters are still hoping big govt will come to the rescue but imo it wont. We are heading in to a 70s style stagflation where none of the parties can deliver growth and better living standards. At some point the electorate will get fed up and want to break the mould. Labour cant do that because it is by nature big govt. Change can only come from the right.
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
If it was all the Dems doing they would be able to replace Johnson with someone more amenable. They can't, because it isn't.
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
There is nothing remotely close to policies like council house sales or privatisation. Let's examine what has actually happened.
Levelling up: Great slogan, and overdue political idea. Policy reality: cancelling HS2 and spending money fixing potholes in London. Outcome: no progress.
Cutting immigration to the tens of thousands: Obviously popular with the right. Policy reality: the doomed Rwanda scheme, hotels stacked and ship off Dorset. Outcome: immigration higher than ever.
Brexit, take back control, the mother of all slogans and right wing dream Policy reality, lots of paperwork, broad alignment with the EU, minor trade deals. Outcome: recession.
The right do not have the policies to back up their promises and headlines. Over-promise and under-deliver.
Pretty much, they've been stuck in the middle of wanting strong rhetoric but also wanting to be invited to the 'metropolitan elite' dinner parties they rail so much against.
Their immigration record is remarkable - there's plenty of solutions available they're just too pathetic to use them. Guest worker visas, automatic removal of non-British & Irish criminals regardless of their status in the UK, offshore processing, and sacking everybody working on asylum cases in the HO until our approval rate is comparable to the rest of the EU are rather easy measures if the Tories had any cojones.
Instead the supposedly right wing party would rather fund charities who get the (conservative ran) home office to give foreign sex criminals permanent residence on the flimsiest of grounds.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
Reform nearly at UKIP 2015 levels both in these by elections and in national polls, most of which have them a clear 3rd and at or over 10%, is clearly very good news for Tice.
Not only are they now ahead of the LDs and Greens in most polls but on last night's by elections when actual votes are cast too. The better Reform do, the more pressure they put on the Tories to shift further right too either before or certainly after the election if a heavy defeat
Both elections suggest Reform are performing significantly worse than most national polls would suggest.
They’re doing OK, certainly better than a few years ago, but their national polling is wrong.
I’m pretty sure their vote last night was also partly at the expense of Labour votes.
Green was probably the biggest disappointment, especially in Kingswood. Lib Dem’s less so because their Faustian pact is to get squeezed in Labour targets in exchange for wringing Labour dry in their own targets.
13% in Wellingborough is an almost perfect result! It is enough to convince Farage to become involved and for those with cash to pour it in. The result could scupper the Conservatives by taking 10% of the votes, winning no seats and reducing the Conservatives to a rump.
The longer Sunak delays the stronger Reform will become - perhaps getting 12% and still no seats! This will help the Lib Dems in the so called Blue Wall seats.
Does Sunak want to be, however unfairly, in history as the leader who killed the Tory party (real culprit BJ) or should he let someone else fight the General Election?
Last night, almost unnoticed, Lib Dems easily held 2 council seats and won another off Labour in a council the Lib Dems already control.
Not sure the Lib Dems can afford to quite so sanguine!
Those Parliamentary results last night were dreadful for the Lib Dems - less than 5% in each, and two more lost deposits. That doesn't generate the kind of publicity to make voters think that they are "winning here" in Blue Wall seats where they are running at about 30% of the vote. How are the Lib Dems going to persuade people that it is worth voting for them if they look like such a bunch of losers? And sorry, but three local election results doesn't overcome that perception.
Let's see if they can put up a better showing in Rochdale - where there have been three Liberal/Lib Dem MPs in my lifetime. However, it doesn't look like the Party's HQ is fleet of foot enough to come up with a new campaign based on the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Labour candidate. It looks like they have given up there as well, without a fight.
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
If it was all the Dems doing they would be able to replace Johnson with someone more amenable. They can't, because it isn't.
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
If even just a quarter of House Republicans voted with the vast majority of House Democrats for more funds for Ukraine it would pass
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
There is nothing remotely close to policies like council house sales or privatisation. Let's examine what has actually happened.
Levelling up: Great slogan, and overdue political idea. Policy reality: cancelling HS2 and spending money fixing potholes in London. Outcome: no progress.
Cutting immigration to the tens of thousands: Obviously popular with the right. Policy reality: the doomed Rwanda scheme, hotels stacked and ship off Dorset. Outcome: immigration higher than ever.
Brexit, take back control, the mother of all slogans and right wing dream Policy reality, lots of paperwork, broad alignment with the EU, minor trade deals. Outcome: recession.
The right do not have the policies to back up their promises and headlines. Over-promise and under-deliver.
Yes, these are all failed soundbites not actual policies. you should also add Northern Powerhouse. If the Conservatives had actually followed through on what they said they would be in better shape. But none of these policies is per se wrong, they just havent been implemented and as a result voters are giving a two fingered salute to the Cons.
The Conservatives fail to realise that they need to throw bit of red meat to supporters around the country if they are to keep them on board.
If anyone is looking for the case against the Labour triumph, it exists, even if it is weak. Wellingborough is a special case and, so the argument would go, is to be treated with caution. While Kingswood actually didn't bring about the gigantic swing that might have been expected.
So the solid bit of evidence is that swing to Labour is not as strong as it could be, and has been recently.
And of course the really dirty campaign has not started. Nor has the element of 'a vote for Reform is a vote for the socialists'.
Labour should treat this with caution. On the whole, they did better in Wellingborough than expected, and less well is Kingswood. This has been obscured this morning.
65% of primary school children have a positive view of the monarchy, even slightly higher than the UK overall.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
Nobody young is ever going to vote Tory again until you stop using them as a piggy bank. Your party actively hates young people.
As I sip a rather excellent Kiwi Sauv Blanc, watching the warm tropic sun begin its slow slide into the Tonle Sap, the only sensible advice to young Britons remains the same: LEAVE
LEAVE Britain. No way should you vote to REMAIN
It was good advice in 2016 and it's even better now
If there is hope for the Conservatives, it lies with the 'don't knows'. Turnout was low in both byelections - under 40%. It'll be much higher in the general election. One of the main groups who are not voting now but might still vote then are those who answer 'don't know' in polls. Best for Britain dug into their views last October. It found they break Tory and that they are actually really rather likely to vote at the next election. Would it be enough to for Rishi Sunak to win a majority? No. That hope is almost certainly gone now. Could it potentially result in a hung parliament? Yes. It's unlikely. But it could.
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
If it was all the Dems doing they would be able to replace Johnson with someone more amenable. They can't, because it isn't.
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
Its not all the Dems doing.
But a large part of it is.
Accepting chaos in the House when they control the White House and Senate wasn't conducive to passing laws or providing funding for anything.
Yet the Dems were willing to have a non-functioning House for a year if it meant the GOP looked bad.
A cleaner has been fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in a law firm’s meeting room, it has been alleged.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
If anyone is looking for the case against the Labour triumph, it exists, even if it is weak. Wellingborough is a special case and, so the argument would go, is to be treated with caution. While Kingswood actually didn't bring about the gigantic swing that might have been expected.
So the solid bit of evidence is that swing to Labour is not as strong as it could be, and has been recently.
And of course the really dirty campaign has not started. Nor has the element of 'a vote for Reform is a vote for the socialists'.
Labour should treat this with caution. On the whole, they did better in Wellingborough than expected, and less well is Kingswood. This has been obscured this morning.
Yes, as noted in Kingswood Labour did worse in voteshare terms even than they did in 2005 when Blair got a majority well under 100.
Wellingborough was better for them but helped by the Bone problems of the Tories but even there the Labour candidate still got a lower voteshare than Blair's candidate got in the seat in 2001
"Home ownership", well why? We had a perfectly good system of local authority housing stock which worked well until the absurd "right to buy" which has now left 40% of former council house stock in the hands of private landlords or private housing associations, many of whom can't afford to maintain them. I write this from the conservatory of a just shy of a million pound property.
I do think there is a hypothetical version of right to buy which would have worked better than the one we got. Instead of giving local authorities only part of the money from sales, you get central government to top it up with extra and require spending it on building more council houses (replacement rate or better). That way you keep the stock of council housing high rather than running it down, and you have a mechanism that causes extra house building and a flow of more houses into the private market, which we badly need. Finance it all with a wealth tax and you have a redistribution effect too.
Clearly a bad night for the Tories losing both by elections on big swings. Labour will be pleased to win them although they failed to get over 50% in either seat.
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
Whether I agree with the policies behind the plan (personally) or whether I think if implemented they would appeal to the broad electorate of lost Tories, how long does it take for the impact of any of that to be felt by the electorate? So how would it be different from all the noise they've been making for the last few years?
Inflation at least is half the level Truss and Kwarteng left it and interest rates have stopped rising, some cuts in NI were made last year, the aim should be to get inflation and the deficit down further to go into the election with more tax cuts proposed
This is complete nonsense and not what the electorate are looking for.
It’s quite simple, nobody feels better off after 14 years of Tory rule. Everything is broken. The NHS doesn’t work. People have to pull their teeth out with pliers. Everyone is on strike.
The Tories told us we were all in it together and then ignored the rules they set.
The country is broken because you broke it. End of story. No amount of false promises will change it.
This is why “boring” Keir Starmer is 20 points ahead because whilst he isn’t a Tony Blair and probably doesn’t have a plan he didn’t break the country and he didn’t actively try to. At this point the country wants the arsonists out and Keir Starmer has the bucket of water.
The fact you are not able to understand what the country needs is why you need to lose and lose big. And then spend a decade actually working out what your party is for.
The country wants inflation down, Rishi is getting it down, the country wants interest rates down, Rishi is starting to do that, the NHS has had billions more into it it needs reform not just more cash.
If Labour fail to manage the economy well the swing back to the Conservative opposition will be swift and more like the late 1960s or mid 1970s than 1997
Labour haven't won the poisoned chalice yet anyway. But you have a lot of ifs, bits and maybes working for you there.
The assumption on here is if the Tories could hang on a couple of years, swingback will do it's work, yet a Labour Government is doomed to failure. You might be right on the latter point, but that being so, how do the Tories pull things around in the same time frame?
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
If it was all the Dems doing they would be able to replace Johnson with someone more amenable. They can't, because it isn't.
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
If even just a quarter of House Republicans voted with the vast majority of House Democrats for more funds for Ukraine it would pass
It’s massively infuriating that the US discussions about Ukraine aid are mostly based on money, when the actual money involved is orders of magnitude different from the money being spent.
A $1m missile from the 1980s isn’t worth $5m now, it’s worth almost nothing. This lack of honesty from the administration allows opponents to compare Ukraine aid with domestic spending, which would actually be spending real money.
FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business
Alexander Smirnov falsely said executives linked to energy firm Burisma paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5m each in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors say ... The new development sharply undermines the thrust of congressional Republicans’ corruption accusations that the US president was making money from his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine.
Smirnov, 43, was charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. No attorney was immediately listed for him in court records.
The charges were laid by a Special Counsel appointed by Mr Trump, whom Mr Biden has allowed to stay in place.
Context: this relates to *some*, not all, of the Hunter Biden material.
Here’s a policy idea for Sunak. Run a voluntary Rwanda flight. There are probably a few desperate souls who would board a flight to Rwanda in return for a few quid to establish a better life. He would get his headline and could move on.
The WhatsApps would buzz alive with the sounds of the NGOs and immigration lawyers saying, "don't you dare get on that plane", and the souls concerned would quickly be influenced or intimidated out of it.
"intimidated"?
You're talking about the Home Office. If you can explain this, you're a better sentient than I am.
'A woman is facing deportation, and being separated from her husband and 10-year-old son, despite a court ruling that the family have the right to live together in the UK.
The Home Office has told Malwattege Peiris to leave the UK despite the court ruling in her favour and correspondence from the Home Office confirming this decision.'
You're someone who only sees something with one eye.
There's a whole industry of people out there extensively advising, and subsidising, every single migrant - and they're all connected - and they have their own agenda.
Like in so many other things, many of these people are just pawns in others games.
I'm asking you how it is possible for the Home Office to ignore a court decision. It's one thing for you to whine about the court decision - but quite another to ignore the fact that the HO is ignoring the decision. Once it is made it should not be ignored.
65% of primary school children have a positive view of the monarchy, even slightly higher than the UK overall.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
Last night, almost unnoticed, Lib Dems easily held 2 council seats and won another off Labour in a council the Lib Dems already control.
The LibDem offer suffers from a lack of clear yellow water (also known as piss).
If you want microscopically left-of-centre managerialism delivered with earnestness then you vote Labour. You also get a saucy wink from Rachel Reeves implying that rejoining the Single Market is on the cards. There is no point to the LibDems compared to this iteration of Labour.
If you want malevolence incompetently delivered by a Gerry Anderson puppet then you vote tory.
If your computer is still running Windows 7 then vote Fukker.
Here’s a policy idea for Sunak. Run a voluntary Rwanda flight. There are probably a few desperate souls who would board a flight to Rwanda in return for a few quid to establish a better life. He would get his headline and could move on.
The WhatsApps would buzz alive with the sounds of the NGOs and immigration lawyers saying, "don't you dare get on that plane", and the souls concerned would quickly be influenced or intimidated out of it.
"intimidated"?
You're talking about the Home Office. If you can explain this, you're a better sentient than I am.
'A woman is facing deportation, and being separated from her husband and 10-year-old son, despite a court ruling that the family have the right to live together in the UK.
The Home Office has told Malwattege Peiris to leave the UK despite the court ruling in her favour and correspondence from the Home Office confirming this decision.'
You're someone who only sees something with one eye.
There's a whole industry of people out there extensively advising, and subsidising, every single migrant - and they're all connected - and they have their own agenda.
Like in so many other things, many of these people are just pawns in others games.
I'm asking you how it is possible for the Home Office to ignore a court decision. It's one thing for you to whine about the court decision - but quite another to ignore the fact that the HO is ignoring the decision. Once it is made it should not be ignored.
Why doesn't Rishi just declare he's won the next election with a 200 seat majority. Cut out the middle man.
A cleaner has been fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in a law firm’s meeting room, it has been alleged.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
They are a shit firm if they are eating Tesco sandwiches.
As ever with these cases, it is the details LEFT OUT which tell a distinctly different story
eg the Telegraph is reporting that the sandwich in question - which she stole (and she does not deny this outright theft) - also contained four slices of cucumber. So it wasn't just some "leftover tuna sandwich"
The wnining of the Left much always be seen in context. They lie, lie and lie again. Always get the full facts
A cleaner has been fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in a law firm’s meeting room, it has been alleged.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
They are a shit firm if they are eating Tesco sandwiches.
Legally not all 'theft' is theft. The jury have to conclude that the taking is 'dishonest'. This is always a matter for them. Putting milk from your friend's fridge in your tea when they have popped out and you can't ask them satisfies the meaning of 'theft' except for the 'dishonest' bit. No jury/bench in the land would convict this lady.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
Reform nearly at UKIP 2015 levels both in these by elections and in national polls, most of which have them a clear 3rd and at or over 10%, is clearly very good news for Tice.
Not only are they now ahead of the LDs and Greens in most polls but on last night's by elections when actual votes are cast too. The better Reform do, the more pressure they put on the Tories to shift further right too either before or certainly after the election if a heavy defeat
Both elections suggest Reform are performing significantly worse than most national polls would suggest.
They’re doing OK, certainly better than a few years ago, but their national polling is wrong.
I’m pretty sure their vote last night was also partly at the expense of Labour votes.
Green was probably the biggest disappointment, especially in Kingswood. Lib Dem’s less so because their Faustian pact is to get squeezed in Labour targets in exchange for wringing Labour dry in their own targets.
I would imagine though that Reform are polling much lower in Scotland and in London and most other urban areas so they should probably be getting a lot higher than their national average in small town provincial English seats.
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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.
Health really is a disaster, if you take a step back.
We have high tax rates and large cuts to other areas of spending, yet the NHS remains a top priority for voters, there is an enormous waiting list and there are millions on health-related out-of-work benefits.
Going private is simply jumping the queue while injecting more money and resources into the sector - see dentistry. Innovations like dementia drugs, while absolutely brilliant for patients, will further drive spending in healthcare whether it's public or not.
POLITICS. Labour might be in for 10 years. The demographic profile, while historically only a minor contributor to increased health spending, is at its worst over the next 15 years as the Boomers hit their 70s and 80s. They will need to decide very quickly if the NHS is expected to absorb these extra pressures. If so... it's tax rises. Big ones.
Funding is not the problem with the NHS; we've poured massive amounts of (non-covid) money into it over the past couple years and productivity is still below where it was before.
Capital spend is part of it, but the other part is that we've imported tens of thousands of very low quality third world trained medics and nurses to replace the people we've spent tens to hundreds of thousands training. Turns out having a lot of people who struggle communicating in British English, sometimes have fraudulently obtained qualifications and are mainly using it as a route to citizenship isn't productivity enhancing!
I have, probably, had as much direct involvement with the NHS as anyone on this forum since my DVT in mid October to my pacemaker operation last week and with more interaction needed over the coming months I simply do not recognise the comment you make in the last sentence of your final paragraph
From the multiple visits to my surgery, to two emergency overnighters in A & E and admission to hospital itself, every single member of staff has been kind, caring, and whilst there were many nationalities every single one conversed and communicated with me well
The fact is that the demand far outstrips the staffs ability to meet that demand and nobody has the answer, be it the English, Welsh or Scottish NHS
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
At one point, you could get the same odds on RefUK as the Tories to win in Wellingborough. RefUK were nowhere near Con on the night. There’s lots of hype and they are taking votes from the Conservatives, but they’re not actually getting close to winning anywhere.
They may not be winning seats but if they have 13% of the vote it’s costing the Tory candidate 10% of their total maximum vote which shifts them from 40-45% of total votes and potentially winning the seat to 30-35% of the vote and no chance of winning the seat
If anyone is looking for the case against the Labour triumph, it exists, even if it is weak. Wellingborough is a special case and, so the argument would go, is to be treated with caution. While Kingswood actually didn't bring about the gigantic swing that might have been expected.
So the solid bit of evidence is that swing to Labour is not as strong as it could be, and has been recently.
And of course the really dirty campaign has not started. Nor has the element of 'a vote for Reform is a vote for the socialists'.
Labour should treat this with caution. On the whole, they did better in Wellingborough than expected, and less well is Kingswood. This has been obscured this morning.
FWIW, I think there's a good chance that the Kingswood result might well be the GE result.
A cleaner has been fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in a law firm’s meeting room, it has been alleged.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
A cleaner has been fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in a law firm’s meeting room, it has been alleged.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
They are a shit firm if they are eating Tesco sandwiches.
Legally not all 'theft' is theft. The jury have to conclude that the taking is 'dishonest'. This is always a matter for them. Putting milk from your friend's fridge in your tea when they have popped out and you can't ask them satisfies the meaning of 'theft' except for the 'dishonest' bit. No jury/bench in the land would convict this lady.
Especially if it is her job to dispose of such stuff.
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
If it was all the Dems doing they would be able to replace Johnson with someone more amenable. They can't, because it isn't.
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
If even just a quarter of House Republicans voted with the vast majority of House Democrats for more funds for Ukraine it would pass
If Johnson would hold a vote then I expect the vote would pass, yes.
But he's put the House into recess for a couple of weeks to avoid doing so, and allow the momentum behind aid for Ukraine to dissipate. And then there will be another ruse to delay a vote, or argue to tie finding to stone other policy, or to split it from other funding, etc, etc.
He's not going to let it go to the vote. The Putin shills in the GOP won't vote for a Speaker who will put it to a vote, and the rest of the GOP knows that voting for a compromise Speaker with Democrat support - who would put it to a vote - would end their political careers. So that won't happen either.
We'll only see more aid for Ukraine if the Democrats win the House and the Presidency and the Putin shills don't install one of their own as Senate Majority Leader - but that's still eleven months away at best.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
Trouble is, the voters don't show much sign of wanting that. The big Conservative win in 2019 was, in part, because the Conservative offer was an even bigger, more muscular state solving the problems of left behind towns.
It's one thing to say that the state should, in general terms, do less but better. But the story is always that, once you specify things that the state should step away from, you run into problems.
It's probably what Rishi wants- Britain to be more like America, which is why there's a fair chance he'll move there once all this is over. But there's not much sign of it being what most British voters want, which is why he's so stuck.
The voters are still hoping big govt will come to the rescue but imo it wont. We are heading in to a 70s style stagflation where none of the parties can deliver growth and better living standards. At some point the electorate will get fed up and want to break the mould. Labour cant do that because it is by nature big govt. Change can only come from the right.
The only way to growth is through higher productivity.
The only way to higher productivity is for the country to live within its means.
Instead we have become a country where almost everyone demands another handout, another subsidy for themselves, another spending rise on themselves, another tax cut for themselves (and an unfunded tax cut is a handout).
We've had a 20 year experiment of high borrowing to fund consumption, immigration used to replace productivity growth and higher house prices deemed to be more important than higher home ownership.
I’m not buying the Reform success story with these two by-elections.
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
Reform nearly at UKIP 2015 levels both in these by elections and in national polls, most of which have them a clear 3rd and at or over 10%, is clearly very good news for Tice.
Not only are they now ahead of the LDs and Greens in most polls but on last night's by elections when actual votes are cast too. The better Reform do, the more pressure they put on the Tories to shift further right too either before or certainly after the election if a heavy defeat
Both elections suggest Reform are performing significantly worse than most national polls would suggest.
They’re doing OK, certainly better than a few years ago, but their national polling is wrong.
I’m pretty sure their vote last night was also partly at the expense of Labour votes.
Green was probably the biggest disappointment, especially in Kingswood. Lib Dem’s less so because their Faustian pact is to get squeezed in Labour targets in exchange for wringing Labour dry in their own targets.
"Home ownership", well why? We had a perfectly good system of local authority housing stock which worked well until the absurd "right to buy" which has now left 40% of former council house stock in the hands of private landlords or private housing associations, many of whom can't afford to maintain them. I write this from the conservatory of a just shy of a million pound property.
I do think there is a hypothetical version of right to buy which would have worked better than the one we got. Instead of giving local authorities only part of the money from sales, you get central government to top it up with extra and require spending it on building more council houses (replacement rate or better). That way you keep the stock of council housing high rather than running it down, and you have a mechanism that causes extra house building and a flow of more houses into the private market, which we badly need. Finance it all with a wealth tax and you have a redistribution effect too.
The thing that changed was going from a gently increasing population to a rapidly increasing population.
House prices used to go up and down with the economy. I bought my first flat in 1998 for the actual price it had sold for a decade earlier. Same number of pounds as in 1988.
So it used to be that a low rate of property buiding was all that was required. The Green Belt etc supported the house prices - sometimes.
65% of primary school children have a positive view of the monarchy, even slightly higher than the UK overall.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
Something to do with believing fairy stories?
Similarly, be very grateful that juries are not populated by primary school children ... they are spectacularly reactionary when it comes to crime and punishment, and would make Judge Jeffries look like a limp-wristed libtard.
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes.”"
That's remarkable. It's still not quite right, the walk is a little stiff, there are still traces of uncanny valley, but when you remember the deeply weird, obviously AI videos of a year ago...
The technology is still accelerating
They are maybe 3-5 years from being able to create entire movies, all AI, with AI scripts and AI music
So those Hollywood strikes might have been for nothing
A cleaner has been fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in a law firm’s meeting room, it has been alleged.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
They are a shit firm if they are eating Tesco sandwiches.
Legally not all 'theft' is theft. The jury have to conclude that the taking is 'dishonest'. This is always a matter for them. Putting milk from your friend's fridge in your tea when they have popped out and you can't ask them satisfies the meaning of 'theft' except for the 'dishonest' bit. No jury/bench in the land would convict this lady.
It’s really quite petty. If she had put the sandwich in the bin when she cleaned the room, took the bin out to wherever they get emptied and put the rubbish in big bin and then taken the sandwich out of the bin then surely it would be fine. She just cut out all the nonsense in between. I hope the law firm get a huge dose of food poisoning from their next shitty sandwich boardroom lunch.
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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
How about he winds up his Party and gives the space to someone who has conservative policies ?
The problem is there is no unifying conservative position. The movement has bifurcated into neo right ideologues and old skool fiscal conservatives . He is clearly not the man to bring it together. So he has to choose.
The conservatives like Labour have always had to be a broad church. The ability to manage the party has always been a key skill needed in the leader. Cameron didnt have it, nor did May, Johnson made everyone bite their lips until it blew up. The conservatives need a good clear out of their MPs and to start again. Fortunately for them this seems about to be done for them.
The problems are exacerbated by the right wing ideologues don’t have any compelling ideas* and the dull managerial types aren’t particularly competent (even if they are dull).
* 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.
I think this "right wing ideologues" is just your version of people you dont like. These are people who have put women in charge of the party and a fully diverse cabinet while Labour has presented Keir Starmer. Slanging matches aside it would be nice if we Labour could move on from the 80s and catch the rest of the country up. Socially the conservatives are in a better position than Labour its on the economic front they are a complete basket case and have set themselves up to fail.
You’re right, I don’t particularly like right wing ideological Conservatives and prefer pragmatic genuinely conservative Conservatives.
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Probably because the "right wing" think tanks have bought in to the big government consensus so they moan and then tinker at the edges. Few of them are for root and branch reform and those that do get labelled Nazis. But the hard facts remains that government cant solve everyones problems, We have to do that for ourselves and accept that we might fail. Government should be about creating a framework where citizens can succeed - teaching us to fish rather than giving us a fish.
Public spending is set to rise for the foreseeable, with an ageing population inexorably pushing up the cost of social care and health care and benefits (since pensions are the biggest benefit payment, with future increases likely to be real owing to the triple lock). No amount of tinkering around the edges of the smaller budgets is going to reverse this, and with local government already on its knees, transport and housing and education in a mess, and new demands appearing on the defence budget, there is no way that public spending can or will fall.
The debate should be about how all these demands will be paid for - that Hunt and his Tory friends are (or were, until yesterday) p***ing about talking about tax cuts just shows how blind they are to the state of affairs they have presided over.
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 socialist 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 to carve a third way. He has to choose.
With Hunt basically ruling out tax cuts this morning on the back of the OBR statements he seems to have made the second choice. Which is probably good for the country, if not the Conservative party. If we are to increase a yawning deficit it really has to be for investment, not tax cuts leading to yet more consumption.
Yet he never thinks of reducing the state, which is what he should be doing. The issue isnt the country has no money, but that it is spending it unwisely.
Spending on a lot of areas was trimmed severely during the Osborne period in particular. Spending on health continues to rise as we get older, fatter and more demanding. Spending on defence needs to rise to pay for all the ammunition required by Ukraine and to modernise our forces in respect of drones. Debt interest is a major cost and is rising as the deficits accumulate. The country is not spending enough on infrastructure or on new housing.
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.
Health really is a disaster, if you take a step back.
We have high tax rates and large cuts to other areas of spending, yet the NHS remains a top priority for voters, there is an enormous waiting list and there are millions on health-related out-of-work benefits.
Going private is simply jumping the queue while injecting more money and resources into the sector - see dentistry. Innovations like dementia drugs, while absolutely brilliant for patients, will further drive spending in healthcare whether it's public or not.
POLITICS. Labour might be in for 10 years. The demographic profile, while historically only a minor contributor to increased health spending, is at its worst over the next 15 years as the Boomers hit their 70s and 80s. They will need to decide very quickly if the NHS is expected to absorb these extra pressures. If so... it's tax rises. Big ones.
Funding is not the problem with the NHS; we've poured massive amounts of (non-covid) money into it over the past couple years and productivity is still below where it was before.
Capital spend is part of it, but the other part is that we've imported tens of thousands of very low quality third world trained medics and nurses to replace the people we've spent tens to hundreds of thousands training. Turns out having a lot of people who struggle communicating in British English, sometimes have fraudulently obtained qualifications and are mainly using it as a route to citizenship isn't productivity enhancing!
I have, probably, had as much direct involvement with the NHS as anyone on this forum since my DVT in mid October to my pacemaker operation last week and with more interaction needed over the coming months I simply do not recognise the comment you make in the last sentence of your final paragraph
From the multiple visits to my surgery, to two emergency overnighters in A & E and admission to hospital itself, every single member of staff has been kind, caring, and whilst there were many nationalities every single one conversed and communicated with me well
The fact is that the demand far outstrips the staffs ability to meet that demand and nobody has the answer, be it the English, Welsh or Scottish NHS
I'm glad you have had such a good experience, unfortunately my experience is significantly different. If, as you say there seems to be little to no loss in importing labour for health and social care, do you support closing our (very expensive) domestic training systems them?
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes.”"
That's remarkable. It's still not quite right, the walk is a little stiff, there are still traces of uncanny valley, but when you remember the deeply weird, obviously AI videos of a year ago...
The technology is still accelerating
They are maybe 3-5 years from being able to create entire movies, all AI, with AI scripts and AI music
So those Hollywood strikes might have been for nothing
I'm pretty sure Russia won't be putting their war on hold for the rest of the month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/ ..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat. “The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said. “But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have got rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
If it was all the Dems doing they would be able to replace Johnson with someone more amenable. They can't, because it isn't.
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
Its not all the Dems doing.
But a large part of it is.
Accepting chaos in the House when they control the White House and Senate wasn't conducive to passing laws or providing funding for anything.
Yet the Dems were willing to have a non-functioning House for a year if it meant the GOP looked bad.
I just don't see how the Dems could have saved McCarthy. If he'd won a vote for Speaker only because of receiving Democrat support then he'd be finished. It would be the conclusive proof of everything the MAGA-GOP have always said about the "moderates" being Republicans In Name Only.
It's a complete fantasy to imagine that a coalition between the Democrats and moderate Republicans could last five seconds. The moderate Republicans don't want it, because they're terrified of the consequences.
Comments
ETA: before we get into whattaboutery. I think SKS is fairly poor on this front too.
You're talking about the Home Office. If you can explain this, you're a better sentient than I am.
'A woman is facing deportation, and being separated from her husband and 10-year-old son, despite a court ruling that the family have the right to live together in the UK.
The Home Office has told Malwattege Peiris to leave the UK despite the court ruling in her favour and correspondence from the Home Office confirming this decision.'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/15/woman-told-leave-uk-court-ruling-right-live-family-malwattege-peiris
Brexit / UKIP didn’t stand in Kingswood in 2019 or 2017 but UKIP got 14.8% at the 2015 GE while Labour only managed 28%.
In Wellingborough UKIP did stand in 2017 getting 3.4% but by then they were a spent force. In 2015 they got a whopping 19.6%.
UKIP nationally scored 12.6% in 2015, 2.2% lower than Kingswood and 7% lower than Wellingborough. So all things being equal and ignoring by-election effects you could translate these by-election results as meaning Refuk are well below 10% nationally.
Then add on the fact UKIP and other minor parties always do better in by-elections than GEs and I think if I were Tice I would be pretty dissatisfied with these results.
At this rate he will be lucky to have 100 seats?
Horror show all round for CON.
Not sure what Rishi does now. Looks like the tax cuts are off. Maybe the personal allowance can be unfrozen in the Budget?
The only bit of good news in the period up to this autumn is that CPI is likely to fall to 2% albeit maybe with a rebound so no significant interest rate cuts.
There's a whole industry of people out there extensively advising, and subsidising, every single migrant - and they're all connected - and they have their own agenda.
Like in so many other things, many of these people are just pawns in others games.
We have high tax rates and large cuts to other areas of spending, yet the NHS remains a top priority for voters, there is an enormous waiting list and there are millions on health-related out-of-work benefits.
Going private is simply jumping the queue while injecting more money and resources into the sector - see dentistry. Innovations like dementia drugs, while absolutely brilliant for patients, will further drive spending in healthcare whether it's public or not.
POLITICS. Labour might be in for 10 years. The demographic profile, while historically only a minor contributor to increased health spending, is at its worst over the next 15 years as the Boomers hit their 70s and 80s. They will need to decide very quickly if the NHS is expected to absorb these extra pressures. If so... it's tax rises. Big ones.
Personal Statement.
Last year, councillors on the local planning committee granted planning permission for up to 8 houses on an agricultural field recently purchased by the father of a fellow councillor, Tom Hollis. Local residents raised concerns with me directly as to the circumstances in which such a permission had been granted for this green field site. I highlighted those concerns in a Facebook post.
Following this, the councillor’s father, Michael Hollis, started legal proceedings against me for defamation, claiming that his reputation had been caused very serious harm by what I had said. I chose to defend those proceedings because I felt it was the right thing to do – both for myself and for those constituents on whose behalf I had spoken.
I am pleased to say that after a year Mr Hollis has now dropped his claim against me. When constituents contact me to express their concerns I will use every legitimate means possible to make sure their voices are heard and will not be silenced or put off by legal threats.
https://twitter.com/dungra/status/1758239619189997949
Hollis Junior was fined £2400 a few days ago by the Beak for failing to disclose a loan to a fellow Councillor to buy a house. Hollis loaned 70k in 2018 when he was ~24 and was paid back £97k via his father.
He has not been disqualified as a Councillor.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68205444
I *think* there may be another one bubbling under about the PP mentioned above, but I'm going no further than the basic facts reported out of deference to OGH and the site.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4470043-white-house-hits-johnson-for-going-on-recess-without-passing-ukraine-aid/
..House GOP leadership canceled votes for Friday, and the House will return to Washington on Feb. 28 after the President’s Day recess. Bates noted the split out of D.C. also comes days after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won in a New York special election, flipping a GOP-held seat.
“The American people are outraged at the damage Speaker Johnson is causing to America’s national security in the name of politics, as voters in New York proved Tuesday,” Bates said.
“But instead of ending his politicization of the country’s safety, Speaker Johnson is cutting and running, sending the House on an early, undeserved vacation as he continues to strengthen Russia’s murderous war effort and the Iranian regime at the expense of American national security, U.S. manufacturing jobs, and our closest alliances,” he added...
My observation is that the right wing think tanks aren’t generating any compelling ideas at the moment, There is nothing fresh there. Nothing that makes you think (as a left wing person) oh dear, they’re on to something there.
Yes he should go for 2 May it will at least demonstrate some form of decisiveness. As I set out in my other posts a few minutes ago not many things are going to move in Rishi's direction up to autumn.
So Rishi should set out some positivity in the manifesto, go for it, 150+ seats could still be on, not an ideal result but it retains some viable base for the future.
The only way to get real savings is to turn the whole permanent CS upside-down, but no politician has the balls to do it. Cummings was right on this.
As I expected, the anti-Semitism narrative won’t last as once again Keir Starmer is able to tack back to being a winner.
Most by-elections are more like Norwich North (2009), where a similarly large swing (16.5%) saw the winning party (Cons) lose votes (-2,047) compared to the previous general election.
Wirral South and South East Staffordshire are both examples of by-elections leading up to the 1997 general election, where Labour increased their absolute number of votes, and the turnout stayed high. Labour did increase their absolute number of votes by 2,598 votes in Selby and Ainsty.
I definitely think it would be better for Labour if the electorate's determination and eagerness to see the back of the Tories lead to them turning out in greater numbers for by-elections. Perhaps the lack of such enthusiasm points more to a 2010 style of result than a 1997.
Norwich North is an interesting precedent, because Chloe Smith actually received a higher share of the vote at the GE, than in the by-election, and put on almost four thousand votes. You would really have expected that every potential Tory voter would have turned out for the by-election, but they didn't. It might seem a bit mad, but I think we can be reasonably confident that there were quite a number of potential Labour voters who didn't go to vote in both Kingswood and Wellingborough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Not only are they now ahead of the LDs and Greens in most polls but on last night's by elections when actual votes are cast too. The better Reform do, the more pressure they put on the Tories to shift further right too either before or certainly after the election if a heavy defeat
The only realistic possibilities are on property and consumption.
Either would be unpopular.
And whether any extra money raised is spent effectively is doubtful.
https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1758229364838129949
From April the living wage will have increase 39% from five years ago while the energy cap will have increased 32%.
With proportionally higher increases in the living wage for younger people.
https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
https://www.electricityprices.org.uk/history-of-the-energy-price-cap/
They’re doing OK, certainly better than a few years ago, but their national polling is wrong.
I’m pretty sure their vote last night was also partly at the expense of Labour votes.
Green was probably the biggest disappointment, especially in Kingswood. Lib Dem’s less so because their Faustian pact is to get squeezed in Labour targets in exchange for wringing Labour dry in their own targets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingswood_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Even in Wellingborough the 45% Labour got was lower than the 46% Blair got there in 2001 for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellingborough_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
So while Labour are heading for victory it looks more like Tory voters staying home or going Reform than any mass enthusiasm for Labour, Starmer still isn't getting quite the level of switchers Blair did from the Conservatives
It’s quite simple, nobody feels better off after 14 years of Tory rule. Everything is broken. The NHS doesn’t work. People have to pull their teeth out with pliers. Everyone is on strike.
The Tories told us we were all in it together and then ignored the rules they set.
The country is broken because you broke it. End of story. No amount of false promises will change it.
This is why “boring” Keir Starmer is 20 points ahead because whilst he isn’t a Tony Blair and probably doesn’t have a plan he didn’t break the country and he didn’t actively try to. At this point the country wants the arsonists out and Keir Starmer has the bucket of water.
The fact you are not able to understand what the country needs is why you need to lose and lose big. And then spend a decade actually working out what your party is for.
The longer Sunak delays the stronger Reform will become - perhaps getting 12% and still no seats! This will help the Lib Dems in the so called Blue Wall seats.
Does Sunak want to be, however unfairly, in history as the leader who killed the Tory party (real culprit BJ) or should he let someone else fight the General Election?
Last night, almost unnoticed, Lib Dems easily held 2 council seats and won another off Labour in a council the Lib Dems already control.
I still don’t understand why Biden and Sunak haven’t realised that the first priority at the moment is to get the oil price significantly down. It both reduces inflation and screws Russia.
Funding is not the problem with the NHS; we've poured massive amounts of (non-covid) money into it over the past couple years and productivity is still below where it was before.
Capital spend is part of it, but the other part is that we've imported tens of thousands of very low quality third world trained medics and nurses to replace the people we've spent tens to hundreds of thousands training. Turns out having a lot of people who struggle communicating in British English, sometimes have fraudulently obtained qualifications and are mainly using it as a route to citizenship isn't productivity enhancing!
Total stupidity imo, shes penned herself in on the sayso of an organisation that admits its forecast models are flawed,
Dubious politics economic madness.
It's one thing to say that the state should, in general terms, do less but better. But the story is always that, once you specify things that the state should step away from, you run into problems.
It's probably what Rishi wants- Britain to be more like America, which is why there's a fair chance he'll move there once all this is over. But there's not much sign of it being what most British voters want, which is why he's so stuck.
Levelling up: Great slogan, and overdue political idea. Policy reality: cancelling HS2 and spending money fixing potholes in London. Outcome: no progress.
Cutting immigration to the tens of thousands: Obviously popular with the right. Policy reality: the doomed Rwanda scheme, hotels stacked and ship off Dorset. Outcome: immigration higher than ever.
Brexit, take back control, the mother of all slogans and right wing dream Policy reality, lots of paperwork, broad alignment with the EU, minor trade deals. Outcome: recession.
The right do not have the policies to back up their promises and headlines. Over-promise and under-deliver.
I believe your definition of what Conservatives stand for is wrong.
"Good economic growth" was the mantra of Lizz Truss. Just saying it wasn't good enough, and her prescription tanked the economy.
"Lower taxes" is indeed on any Conservative wish list, but fiscal probity used to be too. Presently the two notions collide.
" Controlled immigration" is a post EU accession newbie, and political opportunism at that. During the 1950s in the quest for post-war "growth", Conservative Governments were comfortable with achieving that goal by importing workers from the Empire. Economic migration has been ongoing since the dawn of time.
"Home ownership", well why? We had a perfectly good system of local authority housing stock which worked well until the absurd "right to buy" which has now left 40% of former council house stock in the hands of private landlords or private housing associations, many of whom can't afford to maintain them. I write this from the conservatory of a just shy of a million pound property.
"Wealth ownership"? Well that brings us back down to Truss and her notion of "trickle down" economics. Now this is going to appear Communist to you, but wouldn't an equitable society where people earn a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and pay their taxes equitably, growing the economy and allowing tax pounds to be spent on a civil and civic society with decent healthcare, roads, schools, and regular bin collections, make more sense?
Having him replaced with a MAGA puppet might help the Dems in the 2024 elections but it was also going to make governing harder until then.
Primary school children seem like natural Tories, maybe Rishi should consider giving the vote to 8 year olds? After all when he meets them they don't seem to ask him hostile questions unlike adults
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68283130
If Labour fail to manage the economy well the swing back to the Conservative opposition will be swift and more like the late 1960s or mid 1970s than 1997
Anyway, important thing is that the chance of the House voting more money for Ukraine is zero. Not much point worrying about Trump - the pro-Putin shills in the GOP are already in charge.
Europe desperately needs to accept this reality and react appropriately.
Their immigration record is remarkable - there's plenty of solutions available they're just too pathetic to use them. Guest worker visas, automatic removal of non-British & Irish criminals regardless of their status in the UK, offshore processing, and sacking everybody working on asylum cases in the HO until our approval rate is comparable to the rest of the EU are rather easy measures if the Tories had any cojones.
Instead the supposedly right wing party would rather fund charities who get the (conservative ran) home office to give foreign sex criminals permanent residence on the flimsiest of grounds.
Latest national polls have Reform on 7-12%. Reform got 10% in Kingswood last night and 13% in Wellingborough, so on average better than their national polling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Those Parliamentary results last night were dreadful for the Lib Dems - less than 5% in each, and two more lost deposits. That doesn't generate the kind of publicity to make voters think that they are "winning here" in Blue Wall seats where they are running at about 30% of the vote. How are the Lib Dems going to persuade people that it is worth voting for them if they look like such a bunch of losers? And sorry, but three local election results doesn't overcome that perception.
Let's see if they can put up a better showing in Rochdale - where there have been three Liberal/Lib Dem MPs in my lifetime. However, it doesn't look like the Party's HQ is fleet of foot enough to come up with a new campaign based on the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Labour candidate. It looks like they have given up there as well, without a fight.
The Conservatives fail to realise that they need to throw bit of red meat to supporters around the country if they are to keep them on board.
So the solid bit of evidence is that swing to Labour is not as strong as it could be, and has been recently.
And of course the really dirty campaign has not started. Nor has the element of 'a vote for Reform is a vote for the socialists'.
Labour should treat this with caution. On the whole, they did better in Wellingborough than expected, and less well is Kingswood. This has been obscured this morning.
LEAVE Britain. No way should you vote to REMAIN
It was good advice in 2016 and it's even better now
Ian Dunt (Substack)
But a large part of it is.
Accepting chaos in the House when they control the White House and Senate wasn't conducive to passing laws or providing funding for anything.
Yet the Dems were willing to have a non-functioning House for a year if it meant the GOP looked bad.
Gabriela, a single mother from Ecuador, cleaned the offices of Devonshires Solicitors for two years until she was summarily sacked just before Christmas by her employer, private contractor Total Clean.
Her alleged crime was to have eaten a £1.50 tuna sandwich from Tesco that had been left over from a meeting and was due to be discarded.
The breach was so abhorrent that Devonshires, whose highest-paid member received £1.68 million in 2023, allegedly complained to Total Clean, resulting in her dismissal. A spokesperson for the firm told RollOnFriday that it did not make a "formal complaint".
According to her supporters, Gabriela appealed the decision but Total Clean refused to reinstate her on the basis that “theft is theft” and because it did not want to upset Devonshires.
Supporters also appealed to the 235-lawyer firm directly, but they said it “showed no good will and refused to support Gabriela's case”.
Around 30 people protested outside Devonshires’ office this week where they handed out leaflets titled "I ATE A LEFTOVER TUNA SANDWICH AND GOT SACKED!”
The ‘Justice for Gabriela’ campaign has said her firing directly implicated Devonshires, which was “either responsible for her sacking or complicit in it”, and that while she had submitted an employment claim, tribunals “can take years to conclude and she needs a job and an income now”.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-cleaner-sacked-eating-leftover-tuna-sandwich-devonshires
They are a shit firm if they are eating Tesco sandwiches.
Wellingborough was better for them but helped by the Bone problems of the Tories but even there the Labour candidate still got a lower voteshare than Blair's candidate got in the seat in 2001
Keep Calmer and...
The assumption on here is if the Tories could hang on a couple of years, swingback will do it's work, yet a Labour Government is doomed to failure. You might be right on the latter point, but that being so, how do the Tories pull things around in the same time frame?
A $1m missile from the 1980s isn’t worth $5m now, it’s worth almost nothing. This lack of honesty from the administration allows opponents to compare Ukraine aid with domestic spending, which would actually be spending real money.
FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business
Alexander Smirnov falsely said executives linked to energy firm Burisma paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5m each in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors say
...
The new development sharply undermines the thrust of congressional Republicans’ corruption accusations that the US president was making money from his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine.
Smirnov, 43, was charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. No attorney was immediately listed for him in court records.
The charges were laid by a Special Counsel appointed by Mr Trump, whom Mr Biden has allowed to stay in place.
Context: this relates to *some*, not all, of the Hunter Biden material.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/15/fbi-informant-biden-ukraine-charged-burisma
If you want microscopically left-of-centre managerialism delivered with earnestness then you vote Labour. You also get a saucy wink from Rachel Reeves implying that rejoining the Single Market is on the cards. There is no point to the LibDems compared to this iteration of Labour.
If you want malevolence incompetently delivered by a Gerry Anderson puppet then you vote tory.
If your computer is still running Windows 7 then vote Fukker.
eg the Telegraph is reporting that the sandwich in question - which she stole (and she does not deny this outright theft) - also contained four slices of cucumber. So it wasn't just some "leftover tuna sandwich"
The wnining of the Left much always be seen in context. They lie, lie and lie again. Always get the full facts
From the multiple visits to my surgery, to two emergency overnighters in A & E and admission to hospital itself, every single member of staff has been kind, caring, and whilst there were many nationalities every single one conversed and communicated with me well
The fact is that the demand far outstrips the staffs ability to meet that demand and nobody has the answer, be it the English, Welsh or Scottish NHS
i.e. Lab 44
Con 34
But he's put the House into recess for a couple of weeks to avoid doing so, and allow the momentum behind aid for Ukraine to dissipate. And then there will be another ruse to delay a vote, or argue to tie finding to stone other policy, or to split it from other funding, etc, etc.
He's not going to let it go to the vote. The Putin shills in the GOP won't vote for a Speaker who will put it to a vote, and the rest of the GOP knows that voting for a compromise Speaker with Democrat support - who would put it to a vote - would end their political careers. So that won't happen either.
We'll only see more aid for Ukraine if the Democrats win the House and the Presidency and the Putin shills don't install one of their own as Senate Majority Leader - but that's still eleven months away at best.
The only way to higher productivity is for the country to live within its means.
Instead we have become a country where almost everyone demands another handout, another subsidy for themselves, another spending rise on themselves, another tax cut for themselves (and an unfunded tax cut is a handout).
We've had a 20 year experiment of high borrowing to fund consumption, immigration used to replace productivity growth and higher house prices deemed to be more important than higher home ownership.
It hasn't worked and the road has come to an end.
House prices used to go up and down with the economy. I bought my first flat in 1998 for the actual price it had sold for a decade earlier. Same number of pounds as in 1988.
So it used to be that a low rate of property buiding was all that was required. The Green Belt etc supported the house prices - sometimes.
ie you text a prompt, and it can now create 60 seconds of lifelike video
"Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions.
https://openai.com/sora
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes.”"
https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1758192957386342435?s=20
That's remarkable. It's still not quite right, the walk is a little stiff, there are still traces of uncanny valley, but when you remember the deeply weird, obviously AI videos of a year ago...
The technology is still accelerating
They are maybe 3-5 years from being able to create entire movies, all AI, with AI scripts and AI music
So those Hollywood strikes might have been for nothing
The debate should be about how all these demands will be paid for - that Hunt and his Tory friends are (or were, until yesterday) p***ing about talking about tax cuts just shows how blind they are to the state of affairs they have presided over.
“Now you may think there is little chance of me winning this seat and becoming your MP”
It’s actually impossible because the party didn’t get nomination in on time & he’s not on the ballot
https://x.com/HenryRiley1/status/1758268380853731606
Good morning.
It's a complete fantasy to imagine that a coalition between the Democrats and moderate Republicans could last five seconds. The moderate Republicans don't want it, because they're terrified of the consequences.