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Victory begets victory? – politicalbetting.com
Victory begets victory? – politicalbetting.com
Expectation that Labour will win a large majority at the next election jumps 8pts following yesterday's by-elections% who expect…A large Labour majority: 25% (+8 from Sunday)A Labour majority of any size: 48% (+5)Labour to form next govt: 61% (+3)https://t.co/i14tIGPSJ3 pic.twitter.com/3S8eQhiHBE
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On the Wellingborough swing though the Tories would be near wiped out and down to just 4 MPs.
Sunak will therefore hope the latter was just a reflection of Bone and his lady friend being the candidate
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/16/keir-starmer-byelection-wins-labour-wellingborough-kingswood
And as TSE says above there are a lot of people annoyed enough by the last 2 years of Tory "Government" to really want to kick them out.
Multiple Starmer fumbles (the green cuts and Aligate were fumbled, even if Labour ended up in the only sensible place on both), that poll, even OKish inflation news...
...then the confirmation of recession and two big by election defeats.
As the Mean Girls put it, Stop trying to make A Bad Week For Starmer happen.
More generally, election winners always get a "other people like X, even if I don't see the point" boost.
1. Has the incumbent government done all right? If so, they win another term.
2. If they haven't done all right, what does the opposition look like? If they're halfway plausible, they win, if not then the government wins.
Right now, the answers are 1. No and 2. Yes, and there's very little Sunak can do about either.
@TSE
Yes
There are people who switch parties, sure, but those who oscillate between "vote for X" and "sit this one out" are more significant.
The logistics of political campaigns are much more about identifying and galvanising soft supporters than converting people.
2 Vietnamese
1 Kebab/Turkish
1 Falafel/Turkish
2 Pizza
1 Asian fusion
1 Burger
Hopefully the Tories can sort themselves out in opposition, but more likely seems they'll double down in defeat going down some bad Enoch tribute act route in which case they'll cede Downing Street to Labour for a generation.
Or vice versa ?
BTW, you put a small case "E" in English and left out the apostrophe in "isn't".
Outside gastropubs (where it can be fantastic) I worry ours is unspeakably awful in most places.
Most venues seem to serve pizza, burgers, (bad) pasta, jacket potatoes and chips with cake, crisps and fizz on top - with some occasional plant-based permutations - and people really do seem to lap it up.
If I was being charitable I'd say it's because it's longlasting, cheap to buy, easy to cook, and has great profit margins on it.
But boy oh boy is it nutritionally limited and bad for you.
As a Conservative I find this tragic but am not surprised. This government has completely squandered its majority, failed to action clear sensible policies and needs to go into opposition to rediscover what Conservatism is about. Everyone I know - including fellow Conservatives - are not looking forward to a Labour government but at least it will be more New Labour than Corbynism.
There is also the benefit that the mood for change will lift the Labour vote here in Scotland and push the SNP further towards the exit. Political gravity in action on both sides of the border - about time too.
Hence our obesity. But it’s not just Britain - this is a problem across the world - processed food is winning and it is shit. It gives you that carby salty sweetish hit but it is nutrionally suspect and addictive
I fear Thai food is going the same way. Tinned and bottled sauces full of crap which taste nice enough but inject you with chemicals
Maybe Cambodia is great BECAUSE it is still poor. They eat the greens and the rice and the husk and the eveything. They treat food with respect as they have known dire famine
And they are all so incredibly slim and healthy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate
Meanwhile just reflect on the chance that maybe this exemplifies the differential swing which could turn a simple Con defeat into a much worse one. I'm not quite convinced on that though the evidence is perhaps beginning to pile up. Local elections and byelections, parliamentary byelections, that Survation poll last month of the 100 most rural English Seats (Lab lead was 3%, a swing of 21% since the last GE). We won't know until actual votes are cast but it is worth keeping an eye on.
Because if you can make it up, there's a well-paid job waiting for you at Conservative Headquarters.
That's why the Tories are done.
The Tories always get kicked out because they lose. The fact Labour are not very popular is really neither here nor there, I think the Tories have an idea that Labour are actually really unpopular when in reality the country collectively says "meh". But they really, really don't like the Tories.
In some sense, the Tories have adopted the Labour logic of 2019. Which is quite weird to watch.
I know people are desperate to not give SKS any credit but he has pursued an identical strategy since the day he was elected, "make boring great again". He is lucky that the Tories have imploded but the only way Labour was ever going to win was it that happened, so he has wisely decided to just watch.
Vietnamese food is also superbly varied. They really do dish up the best sandwiches on earth (alongside the Brits when we are on form): banh mi
https://hiddenlandtravel.com/hoi-banh-mi-the-worlds-best-sandwich/
Bourdain was not lying. I’ve tried these from this place. Mmmmm
I’d say at the moment anything around or exceeding the Johnson score in 2019 would have journalists cracking open the hyperbole. Most people don’t follow polling as closely as we do here and almost certainly don’t realise current polls are showing 1997-style scores.
We seem to have incubated entry-level American / Italian cuisine in the worst way possible, and turbocharged it.
He isn't Blair 2.0 of course, that's ridiculous. He's nothing like Blair, either in charisma or popularity. But I can guarantee that if it happens, people will say it was always expected and obvious, even people who the day before had said it wasn't going to happen.
And when they eventually lose again, people will say SKS was never popular. And so the cycle repeats.
BUT, salads, mediterranean soups, lamb steaks, peppers, chillis, aubergine, and chicken breasts? Superb. Beer isn't too bad either.
Just don't try getting a real steak. They don't know what they're doing.
The main improvement, amongst many, is that I no longer get hungry unless I actually need to eat, which I think could address my long term problem of being overweight.
It also costs much less. I worked out that, if I ever needed to, I could buy a whole weeks worth of food for under £10 from Lidl.
But even with extravagancies like cashew nuts, king prawns, sourdough bread from the bakery etc, it is cheaper than cooking tasteless packet food.
It is the opposite somewhere like here. The cheap street food is ultra healthy. Greens in a nutritious sauce, fish broth, lean protein, nothing processed. You can feed your kids for pennies and it tastes nice and they learn that
Cheap food in Britain is McDonald’s and KFC. If you’re really lucky it’s Nando’s and pizza express
Look at photos of Brits in the early 70s. We were all slim like Cambodians now
You could be one of the priests. Think about it: High Priestess AverageNinja: convener of the Church of Starmer.
You'd get to decide all sorts of things: the scriptures, the fables, the chants, the smell of the incense, and, most importantly, how to deal with heretics.
Got to be worth a try. Sounds like so much fun.
I’ve really come to appreciate Greek food. I used to despise it as ultra repetitive, then in autumn 2019 I spent a month there in Pelion. It was glorious
I got to know the few local tavernas and restaurants and the owners and clients and I had the same food every day. Greek salad, the local fish, chips, ouzo, bread, maybe some moussaka and hummus and taramasalata for variation. Fresh fruit for pudding perhaps an ice cream once every few days
I swam every day from the rocks by my hotel. For an hour. I slept deeply at night. I drank quite a lot of their now excellent white wine.
I was mesmerisingly happy. The lack of choice seemed to help. I was also suntanned and fit and extremely serene
It’s all you need to be happy. Good seafood, sun, a swim, a nice glass of wine, chat, laugh, sleep, repeat
Ice really Bread is made by a process. But some breads are much more processed than others. Just check the ingredients - from weird colouring to dodgy corn syrup to endless E numbers
Basically, avoid as much of that shit as possible - is a pretty good motto
The argentines really can do steak of course, but that’s all they can do
However, Starmer is not anywhere near Blair either in charisma or policy ( indeed apart from vat on private school fees he has none) and whilst he will be the next PM it will not be with my vote which is assigned to the lib dems as our conservative mp is hopeless
It is all rather academic as the issues facing our country, and indeed worldwide, are beyond any politicians ability to take the hard, really hard, decisions that are needed going forward
This was the Scottish Press and Journals take on Labour a couple of days ago
https://twitter.com/Kennyaberdeen/status/1758029417891111151?t=oNtGj70j45NBqo5Bh_BYsA&s=19
Short Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE).
https://www.psytoolkit.org/survey-library/schizotypy-short-olife.html#_the_test_itself
Quite interesting range of results from those I know who have.
But with something like bread, it is avoiding the packaged bread with vast amounts of ingredients.
The best indigenous food in the Americas, surely. An actual local and national cuisine which can go toe-to-toe with anything in Europe or Asia. It’s maybe not a match for China or Italy but it’s excellent, healthy and varied
“American” food is so varied it is impossible to place. Is it the hamburger or the barbecue or the shit in Walmart’s? It’s European cuisine grafted onto new world plenty, in good and bad ways
They certainly make sure you don’t starve. I’ve had some of the best food in my life in the USA, and some of the absolute worst
We know that because Panorama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
I mean, if you were being purist about the former, anything you do with wheat, cocoa beans and rice is a form of processing- it's adding in all the unnatural stuff, and taking out too much of the natural goodness, that's the problem.
Of course, when people say "Mediterranean diet" they are really referring to this, but too often it's reduced to just eating olive oil and a good salad here.
I can't recall meeting many (any?) Greek or Bulgarian vegetarians or vegans - ever.
They just eat good food in balance.
the Atlantic diet — can reduce belly fat, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The risk of heart disease and diabetes is also lowered. Increasingly, there’s a buzz around the diet among nutritionists and scientists. Other studies have suggested that it may even reduce depression and increase longevity.
it also features moderate amounts of meat, mainly pork, some starchy-based carbs like bread and pasta, dairy including milk and a little wine.
It’s not impossible
Here’s an interesting example of what might be a UPF but isn’t. I eat a fair amount of this. It’s microwave Tilda basmati rice, whole and wild rice mixed. It sounds like it should be full of shit. It is not
Ingredients:
“Natural Brown Basmati Rice - Steamed (89%), Natural Wild Rice - Steamed (10%), Rice Bran Oil”
That’s it. That’s all. It’s good for you. And it’s nutty and delicious
It's a great find.
One is the amount he regular exercise which is normal in a given population - which is possibly the case here ?
Carbs from beans rather than pasta/bread also seems to have positive effects.
As it's been ADHD for some time now.
There's an account of 'schizotypy' here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy
It's an interesting measure .. if only because the questionnaires seem to get more honest responses than typical personality type ones.
But it allowed the rapid mass production of cheap bread using poor quality wheat. And kickstarted the processed food revolution.
I'd be interested in seeing Leon's scores - high marks for both impulsive_nonconformity and unusual_experiences?
The struggle is real.
The question on instinctively wanting to do the opposite of what everyone else does is interesting. I expect we all have that, it’s a feature of childhood. But some really have the urge strongly and others don’t.
The first measure, for example - when you close your eyes, many people just see black.
For me it's a fine grey fuzz on a black background.
Others (more unusually) will see the effect with their eyes open: an overlay of fine fuzz over everything.
That's not something culturally determined.
Personally, I enjoy cooking and make most meals from scratch - and I'm lucky enough to have the time and resources to do that. Whether I'm any healthier for eating sourdough vs chorleywood bread is a question that I don't think can easily be answered given the number of other potential factors in play.
Which is one of things which led to an interest in the measure.
PS the only exception is fried egg or bacon sandwiches. They need the crappiest white sliced bread to be perfect.